I am voting for Obama
Type. Read. Delete.
Type. Read. Delete.
That's the constantly repeating cycle that I've been going through with regards to my blog, in this wacky and tense presidential election season that we're in here in America. So many nasty things being said, so many accusations being leveled, but scariest of all is the trotting out of the "extremists" and airing their ill-informed views on national news.
Most of my life I prided myself on being fairly in the "middle" - I never even considered myself much of a political person and I'm ashamed to say, but have admitted it before, that I didn't even vote in the 2000 presidential election. And, just today in writing this blog, I went back and realized that I would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 1996, when Clinton ran for re-election against Bob Dole. Not only did I fail to vote in that election, but even if I had, it's very possible that I may have voted for Dole simply because he was from Russell Kansas, where I was born, out of geographic loyalty.
It's sad to think of how uninformed I was, but I was just living in a different world then. It was all about me. I was incredibly self-absorbed, yet at the same time, painfully insecure. I used the same excuses as a lot of young people - my vote didn't count (either figuratively or perhaps literally), that I didn't know enough about politics to get involved, or that it didn't matter one way or another because the corporations were in charge anyway.
I have become so much more aware of the world around me, and the way the different "systems" work, and what one person or a group of persons can do to have an influence on those systems due to the influence of my partner, Dylan, who hopefully will one day be my husband. The first political or activist events I became involved with were anti-Bush rallies here in Hollywood that Dylan wanted to go to. It was through these, and later other types of marches and rallies, that I learned the atrocities that were being committed here in the US in the name of "religion" and the role that conservative republicans played in this. I hadn't ever understood the extent to which gays and lesbians were still having to fight for simple civil rights. I thought that Will and Grace being on prime-time meant everything would be fine. I thought people were progressing. I thought I was doing enough just by being "out".
I don't want to go off on another religion, republican-bashing direction, but there comes a time where I just can't "play nice" anymore. I have listened to why people who are against gay marriage feel that way. I understand why people are scared of Obama's message of change, and the many implications that people - on all sides - read into his character. It reminds me of when I worked at a hotel in Russell, Kansas, there was this grouchy old lady who worked there who would always get very upset if anything was "changed" - if the pencil holder was moved, if a new person was hired, or if a new way of filing was introduced. I was the type of person that liked to find new ways of doing things. I liked to re-arrange furniture just to mix things up, or finding more efficient or technologically advanced ways of doing things. Once I discovered how much it irritated her, I started moving things around and coming up with new ways of doing things just to piss her off! Eventually, we found a way to see eye-to-eye, and I even came to consider this woman a friend eventually. But the fact remained that she still preferred that I not change ANYTHING, whether the change was for the better or worse. She just wanted things to stay the same.
I can also understand people and their faith, having grown up around a lot of that. I think the key thing when talking about people's faith, is to not be condescending or dismissive of something that is very real to people. It is still a lesson I'm learning. However, I believe that there is an EXTREME problem in this country with people who do not understand the concept of "separation of church and state", or more likely, they understand the concept but do not believe that it applies to THEIR religion.
I was raised Christian; I was baptized and later confirmed into the Methodist Church. My churchgoing experience was positive (for the most part) and it was at church where I was encourage to sing, play, and even write music. I actually wrote a song that was performed by me and my class at Vacation Bible School one year when I was probably 10 or so. It would be wrong for me to denounce the opportunities and encouragement that I was given through my church and our congregation.
But as I grew up and learned more about myself and the outside world, my sexuality, and my feelings about the state of America, my 'faith' changed. There was a point where I was vehemently anti-religion and I wasn't afraid to express this. One story I like to tell, which is completely true, is that while serving as editor of the newspaper and yearbook at Fort Hays State University, I started bitching about the proliferation of religious student groups on campus and how I found it disturbing that so many students belonged to these groups. One of my writers, who was in several of these groups, came up and slapped me. It was such an eloquent, better-than-fiction, illustration of my point playing out in real time. The christian way - believe that your passion for your faith overrides anyone else's principles or right to express a different opinion.
Nowhere is this more evident now than in California. Proposition 8 seeks to define marriage as between one man and one woman. This is discrimination against those who, like me, are homosexual and thus would not be eligible for marriage. If marriage is a "right" or a "privilege" that is given by the STATE or GOVERNMENT, then that right must be granted to all citizens. If it is not, it is discrimination. That is simple. This is easy to understand and should not be too much to ask. If a church does not want to marry two men because it conflicts with the church's beliefs, then by all means that is fine. I wouldn't want to get married in that church anyway. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the government, not a church, they are supposed to be separate entities here. And yet, the religious right as usual wants the government to enforce their religious values as laws, regardless of the fact that not everyone shares their religious believes and that this country was FOUNDED ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM! It can't get any more ironic than that, folks!
I didn't want to go off on another Prop 8 thing today but I am just really fired up about it after my band played Bakersfield Pride this weekend and we got to hear Robin Tyler speak. She and her wife were the first lesbian couple to sue the state of California for same-sex marriage, and listening to her was inspirational.
The last thing I do want to address is the issue of how same-sex marriage would effect education for children. The scare tactics that the right are using - that schools would have to teach children that same-sex marriage is just as valid as traditional marriage - is not only a complete lie, but the fear behind this lie is nonsensical. The gist of it is that, if schools teach children that same-sex marriage is equal to opposite sex marriage, then children are going to be "indoctrinated" into the gay lifestyle. Can I point out the obvious? EVERYTHING about my childhood, from my home life, to my church, to my school -EVERYTHING was geared to teach me that heterosexuality was the ONLY acceptable lifestyle. Not only did everything and everyone advocate for heterosexuality, but where I was from people were also very traditional and adamant about marriage. If you weren't married to a member of the opposite sex by the time you were in your mid to late twenties, something was wrong with you. And with all that, I still followed my heart and learned to accept my homosexuality and embrace it, as did my family. So if that system did not indoctrinate me into the heterosexual lifestyle, I find it completely insulting and ridiculous that anyone would propose the opposite would happen simply by informing children that homosexual unions deserve the same respect and dignity as heterosexual ones. Which frankly, had better be taught by someone because I for one am not going to sit around and wait for people to treat me fairly.
I'll attempt to wrap this all up by stating my public endorsement for Barack Obama for President. I don't feel I have to really go in depth explaining this choice but just to clarify, I was a Hillary supporter who has now come around to being a complete Obama supporter, not just because he is the democratic nominee and not just because Hillary is no longer an option. I now believe Obama is the best man for the job, and not only that, he is an inspiration and perhaps (time will tell) may turn out to be the best president I will ever have in my lifetime. He is smart, confident, worldly, respectable, compassionate and inclusive.
I'm not into the negativity that the McCain/Palin ticket is trying to saturate this campaign with and believe that if they had a leg to stand on, they wouldn't be trying to amputate Obama's. Almost everything about this election has become a joke and in the middle of it, Obama has proven that he can do this his way, in a positive way, and in a way that will be best for the whole country, not just those clinging to the past and to their religious beliefs.
Type. Read. Delete.
That's the constantly repeating cycle that I've been going through with regards to my blog, in this wacky and tense presidential election season that we're in here in America. So many nasty things being said, so many accusations being leveled, but scariest of all is the trotting out of the "extremists" and airing their ill-informed views on national news.
Most of my life I prided myself on being fairly in the "middle" - I never even considered myself much of a political person and I'm ashamed to say, but have admitted it before, that I didn't even vote in the 2000 presidential election. And, just today in writing this blog, I went back and realized that I would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 1996, when Clinton ran for re-election against Bob Dole. Not only did I fail to vote in that election, but even if I had, it's very possible that I may have voted for Dole simply because he was from Russell Kansas, where I was born, out of geographic loyalty.
It's sad to think of how uninformed I was, but I was just living in a different world then. It was all about me. I was incredibly self-absorbed, yet at the same time, painfully insecure. I used the same excuses as a lot of young people - my vote didn't count (either figuratively or perhaps literally), that I didn't know enough about politics to get involved, or that it didn't matter one way or another because the corporations were in charge anyway.
I have become so much more aware of the world around me, and the way the different "systems" work, and what one person or a group of persons can do to have an influence on those systems due to the influence of my partner, Dylan, who hopefully will one day be my husband. The first political or activist events I became involved with were anti-Bush rallies here in Hollywood that Dylan wanted to go to. It was through these, and later other types of marches and rallies, that I learned the atrocities that were being committed here in the US in the name of "religion" and the role that conservative republicans played in this. I hadn't ever understood the extent to which gays and lesbians were still having to fight for simple civil rights. I thought that Will and Grace being on prime-time meant everything would be fine. I thought people were progressing. I thought I was doing enough just by being "out".
I don't want to go off on another religion, republican-bashing direction, but there comes a time where I just can't "play nice" anymore. I have listened to why people who are against gay marriage feel that way. I understand why people are scared of Obama's message of change, and the many implications that people - on all sides - read into his character. It reminds me of when I worked at a hotel in Russell, Kansas, there was this grouchy old lady who worked there who would always get very upset if anything was "changed" - if the pencil holder was moved, if a new person was hired, or if a new way of filing was introduced. I was the type of person that liked to find new ways of doing things. I liked to re-arrange furniture just to mix things up, or finding more efficient or technologically advanced ways of doing things. Once I discovered how much it irritated her, I started moving things around and coming up with new ways of doing things just to piss her off! Eventually, we found a way to see eye-to-eye, and I even came to consider this woman a friend eventually. But the fact remained that she still preferred that I not change ANYTHING, whether the change was for the better or worse. She just wanted things to stay the same.
I can also understand people and their faith, having grown up around a lot of that. I think the key thing when talking about people's faith, is to not be condescending or dismissive of something that is very real to people. It is still a lesson I'm learning. However, I believe that there is an EXTREME problem in this country with people who do not understand the concept of "separation of church and state", or more likely, they understand the concept but do not believe that it applies to THEIR religion.
I was raised Christian; I was baptized and later confirmed into the Methodist Church. My churchgoing experience was positive (for the most part) and it was at church where I was encourage to sing, play, and even write music. I actually wrote a song that was performed by me and my class at Vacation Bible School one year when I was probably 10 or so. It would be wrong for me to denounce the opportunities and encouragement that I was given through my church and our congregation.
But as I grew up and learned more about myself and the outside world, my sexuality, and my feelings about the state of America, my 'faith' changed. There was a point where I was vehemently anti-religion and I wasn't afraid to express this. One story I like to tell, which is completely true, is that while serving as editor of the newspaper and yearbook at Fort Hays State University, I started bitching about the proliferation of religious student groups on campus and how I found it disturbing that so many students belonged to these groups. One of my writers, who was in several of these groups, came up and slapped me. It was such an eloquent, better-than-fiction, illustration of my point playing out in real time. The christian way - believe that your passion for your faith overrides anyone else's principles or right to express a different opinion.
Nowhere is this more evident now than in California. Proposition 8 seeks to define marriage as between one man and one woman. This is discrimination against those who, like me, are homosexual and thus would not be eligible for marriage. If marriage is a "right" or a "privilege" that is given by the STATE or GOVERNMENT, then that right must be granted to all citizens. If it is not, it is discrimination. That is simple. This is easy to understand and should not be too much to ask. If a church does not want to marry two men because it conflicts with the church's beliefs, then by all means that is fine. I wouldn't want to get married in that church anyway. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the government, not a church, they are supposed to be separate entities here. And yet, the religious right as usual wants the government to enforce their religious values as laws, regardless of the fact that not everyone shares their religious believes and that this country was FOUNDED ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM! It can't get any more ironic than that, folks!
I didn't want to go off on another Prop 8 thing today but I am just really fired up about it after my band played Bakersfield Pride this weekend and we got to hear Robin Tyler speak. She and her wife were the first lesbian couple to sue the state of California for same-sex marriage, and listening to her was inspirational.
The last thing I do want to address is the issue of how same-sex marriage would effect education for children. The scare tactics that the right are using - that schools would have to teach children that same-sex marriage is just as valid as traditional marriage - is not only a complete lie, but the fear behind this lie is nonsensical. The gist of it is that, if schools teach children that same-sex marriage is equal to opposite sex marriage, then children are going to be "indoctrinated" into the gay lifestyle. Can I point out the obvious? EVERYTHING about my childhood, from my home life, to my church, to my school -EVERYTHING was geared to teach me that heterosexuality was the ONLY acceptable lifestyle. Not only did everything and everyone advocate for heterosexuality, but where I was from people were also very traditional and adamant about marriage. If you weren't married to a member of the opposite sex by the time you were in your mid to late twenties, something was wrong with you. And with all that, I still followed my heart and learned to accept my homosexuality and embrace it, as did my family. So if that system did not indoctrinate me into the heterosexual lifestyle, I find it completely insulting and ridiculous that anyone would propose the opposite would happen simply by informing children that homosexual unions deserve the same respect and dignity as heterosexual ones. Which frankly, had better be taught by someone because I for one am not going to sit around and wait for people to treat me fairly.
I'll attempt to wrap this all up by stating my public endorsement for Barack Obama for President. I don't feel I have to really go in depth explaining this choice but just to clarify, I was a Hillary supporter who has now come around to being a complete Obama supporter, not just because he is the democratic nominee and not just because Hillary is no longer an option. I now believe Obama is the best man for the job, and not only that, he is an inspiration and perhaps (time will tell) may turn out to be the best president I will ever have in my lifetime. He is smart, confident, worldly, respectable, compassionate and inclusive.
I'm not into the negativity that the McCain/Palin ticket is trying to saturate this campaign with and believe that if they had a leg to stand on, they wouldn't be trying to amputate Obama's. Almost everything about this election has become a joke and in the middle of it, Obama has proven that he can do this his way, in a positive way, and in a way that will be best for the whole country, not just those clinging to the past and to their religious beliefs.
Comments
OBAMA IN 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!!