Hawaii Votes for Equal Rights

Right now Hawaii has a bill going through its state Senate committee that would allow same sex civil unions. If this happens Hawaii would become the fifth state to permit same-sex civil unions, while Connecticut and Massachusetts still being the only states to fully recognize gay marriage. This battle in Hawaii has not been easy due to the usual grandstanding and opposition from religious groups who oppose civil unions. However, this has not prevented the bill from passing through the Hawaii House of Representatives. Under state law, the earliest this bill can be voted on by the Senate is March 10th, and hopefully Hawaii has enough sense to take a step forward and put this into law.

Even though gay marriage does not personally affect me, I think something like this is very important. I do not understand why everyone cannot be afforded the same rights no matter their sexual preference, religion, creed, or etc. I know that is a very cliched thing to say, but I think it is a realistic goal and desire to want to live in a world where we do not have to debate these things and can worry about more important things happening in the world. More importantly, it would be nice to never have to legislate love and restrict it for people based on who they want to be with.

Gay Marriage and the Oscars

The Oscars last Sunday rose above the usual glitz and glamor and celebrity when Milk walked away with two very prestigious awards. The movie Milk is about the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Harvey Milk, who the film chronicles, showed the country that in the face of bigotry he could turn the other cheek and be cordial, accepting, loving, and full of optimism, despite getting death threats and hate mail while running for public office. This is something I find to be very inspiring and amazing because of how frightening it must have been to have to take on people who hated him so much for no apparent reason except for his sexual orientation. Unfortunately, that was enough of a reason for someone on the same board as Milk, named Dan White, to murder not only him, but also the mayor of San Fransisco.

This blog post, however, is not about the past and the hatred that occurred during a certain period of time, but rather the optimism and hope I feel the future holds. It is a feeling that we can make the future a better place for our own children and for future generations. I believe each generation strides to accomplish this, and along with what happened last night at the Oscars this sentiment may soon become more and more accepting. The movie Milk received won two Oscars on Sunday, one for Best Actor, Sean Penn, and the other, for best screen play, by Dustin Lance Black a gay man who has an amazing story of his own and wrote a beautiful script which was rightfully recognized by Hollywood. It was a wonderful night to celebrate and to also highlight current issues in the gay rights that need to still be addressed. Hollywood, which I believe has never had a problem going with the most popular thing at the moment (I can still remember Roger Moore, the infamous director and outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the Iraq War, getting booed after winning an Oscar in 2003 about how wrong it was to invade Iraq...which people started to see as a quagmire) So it is easy to see how Hollywood would want to embrace a movie like Milk, especially in an area which months ago passed a terrible Proposition banning gay marriage.

I think Sean Penn's speech at the Oscars was both honest, and directly from the heart. We really do need to step back and examine ourselves, and asks whether or not we want to continue to deny people the right to be happy. I do not think allowing to people of the same-sex the right to marry would affect anyone heterosexuals marriage, or the sanctity and institution of marriage. I believe that we should not discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation and Sean Penn is correct in what he said. I also think this article in the San Fransisco paper is dead on when it comes to what he said.

Did You Know?

In class on February 23rd, we watched this interesting video. It was definitely an eye-opening presentation, and something that made me think about the day and age in which we are living.

First, I do not think it is xenophobic. Rather, it is a telling fact about the times we live in, and the technology that surrounds us. Just within the last few years, the amount of information, from text-messaging, to the bites-per-seconds has increased dramatically. It astounded me the statistics in this video, and just over the course of a few years how the numbers have jumped. When they compared the numbers to people on the face of the earth I was simply stunned.

Secondly, in the very beginning of the video, when it talked about preparing kids for jobs that do not exist I was not as shocked because I had read about that before, but thought about how the times have changed even since my brother was looking for a job decades ago. The thing that really amazed me was the statistic about the number of people who remained in their jobs for a certain amount of time. I can remember my dad telling me how he does not know a single person who remains at their job for more than five years now. My brother, who works at a hedge fund, has been at his job for ten years now and is constantly looking for a different job. It might be because of how bad the economy is, but he is always talking about working somewhere else. My father, on the other hand, has been working at IBM since 1973, and recently retired. He always told me about how the workplace has changed, both in the way the workplace looks, and how people are constantly leaving, but back when he first started working, it was not like that.

Sarah Palin and Gay Marriage

This is going to be another blog entry about Sarah Palin, the woman who was a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States of America. Her views were frightening, and the more she spoke throughout the campaign, the more it seemed she was way out of her league. I do not believe that is a result of sexism coming from the mainstream media and anonaymus bloggers, but rather the fact that she really was an extreme, right-winger, with views hardly anyone really agreed with. One of those beliefs was against gay rights, and that how she wanted to ban books based on a "gay friendly", was one of the many reasons I would have never voted for McCain/Palin. While Obama was not the most gay friendly candidate to ever run for the highest office in the land, there were other issues where I would much rather have him be President than McCain. With vacancies in the Supreme Court possibly coming during the next four years, I would welcome Obama's choices and trust him to appoint Liberal leaning justices. I think Wasilla, Alaska can have their fringe candidate back, just like Texas can have their village idiot back after losing him for eight, long, unforunate years.

The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same

I've always enjoyed reading blogs, newspapers from other regions, and other online media to get differing opinions and the top stories for the week. Many times when I read something, I can find something that is humorous, and also things that disturb me. This article in the Washington Post is an example of something that saddens me, and makes me feel like we haven't moved forward since a very turbulent decade. Of the top of my head I can think of five things that the FBI could investigate that would be much more important than whether or not the aide to LBJ was gay nor not. The fact that President Johnson relented to the FBI and allowed this witch hunt is also disturbing because this was a friend of his, and I would think that President Johnson had more of a backbone and would not allow this. It is disappointing, in many ways, that witch hunts like this still go on and we are trying to not only weed out who is gay, but also take away their right for happiness. After the 60's, and with the Stonewall Uprising in the NYC, the hatred only seemed to get worse. Something called the Briggs Initiative, which was a central plot point in the fantastic 2008 film Milk, would have banned gays, lesbians and anyone who even supported gay rights from working in California public schools. Fortunately it was not passed, but all the amount of divisiveness and hatred in this Proposition was yet another example of how troubling a time we still lived at that time, and still do, today.

It saddens me that gay rights is still an issue that needs to be fought for, but I hope one day we will move beyond it being an issue. One thing that is similar between the example of the FBI investigating this non-issue and today is that we are in dire times and we could be spending our time more wisely than trying to divide people and pitting them against one another. It is much easier to lift a hand to someone and include them, than to cut them down only to benefit yourself.

"Spread the Hate"

The title for this blog was borrowed from an oft-used phrase from the Presidential election "spread the wealth" that McCain-Palin used to spread lies and falsehoods about what Obama wanted to do help lift the economy.

After reading this as well as this, I see spreading hate, fear, and lies, are not just relegated to campaign rhetoric. It really upsets me when people blatantly lie and use misleading statements to try and persuade people against something. As was done in the vote on Proposition 8, mostly done by the Mormon Church, using propaganda and lies, this is just being done to scare people into thinking gay and lesbian couples want anything more than to just have the right to get married. I do not understand how that cannot be afforded to them. I personally believe everyone should have the right to be equally happy and not have their civil-rights, which I truly believe this is a case of, unlike some politicians who even ran for the highest office in the country. People with ideals like that, and other right-leaning ones, scare me. I really hope Obama can focus on other civil-rights, and human-rights issues during his presidency, after cleaning up other messes left by past people. And even though President Obama is against gay marriage, he did say he is in favor of civil unions, which is much better than what the Republicans favor. I have a been impressed so far with Obama's choice for a "rainbow" colored cabinet and how diverse it has been. I think he has done a very good job in showing his diversity when picking positions and showing that he cares about all people, including the gay and lesbian community.

Passing of Prop 8 and Scapegoating

Almost immediately after Proposition 8 passed people from both sides of the issue scrambled to make sense of what had happened and how it passed. They both began examining exit polling, which put into perspective who voted on the ballot and their background. A few weeks after the election of the first African American president, a lie was circulated that African American support helped push Prop 8 into law. The overwhelming support African Americans supposedly has shown in exit polling for Prop 8 has proven to be a huge exaggeration.

The problem I have with the way Prop 8 was covered before the election, up to the election, and after the election was who was blamed for certain things. Especially when the media hardly mentioned things like this, which if true, should have been reported on, unlike the half-truth in the above link. I feel as though the more important stories are not really making it into the media and the only way to find the important stories are finding them in the new media outlets. It is sad if it has come to this, but I suppose it is a part of the ever evolving world we live in.

The Continuing Fight For Equality

Currently gay marriage is only legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut, while 30 states have an outright ban on it. Gay activists have been adamant in their appeals to lawmakers in New Jersey, New York, and Vermont to take up bills that would legalize same-sex marriage. This past Thursday same-sex couples seeking only the right to marry showed up at marriage license conter nationwide to shine a light on discrimination still taking place in the United States. This annual act of protest, is part of the 12th annual Freedom to Marry Day, and took on an extra sense of importance after the passing of Proposition 8. Gay Activists feel an extra sense of determination, regret and also renewed hope after what happened with the proposition. The passing of Proposition 8 has also helped push the continuing fight for equal rights back into the spotlight. "A lot of people feel a sense of determination and regret over having been too complacent or quiet before, so there is a commitment to, `Never again, we have to take action,'" said Evan Wolfson, a civil rights lawyer who conceived Freedom to Marry Day.

After reading this article I feel happy and a sense of optimism about where equal rights for gay and lesbian rights are heading. It is unfortunate that we still need to vote on laws for who can and cannot get married. I thought, as a nation, we would get past these types of petty differences and did not have horrible laws like this, which makes my skin crawl thinking about it, and how it was the law even when my mother and father were growing up through the baby boom generation. Hopefully one day we can look back at the gay marriage fight and think of it as just as big a mistake as those laws.

Denying Rights to See Dying Partner

It is pretty hard to fathom not having the right to see your spouse as he or she is laying in a hospital bed, dying. However, that is just what happened to Janice Langbehn when she desperately tried to see her dying partner, only to be denied this basic right for eight horrific hours. She was later allowed to see her partner, but by then it was too late, and she could only say her final goodbyes as a priest performed the last rites on the 39 year old Lisa Maria Pond before dying. The hospitals reasoning for not allowing her to see Pond was a rule in their visitation policy in cases of emergency. In Florida, same-sex marriages are not recognized and the hospital's rule would only allow immediate family or spouses in this case, which excludes partners.

This horrific story happened back in 2007 and on Friday, Ms. Langbehn filed a lawsuit claiming emotional distress and negligence. Even though the hospital claims they did nothing wrong, did not cause any emotional distress, and were not negligent, I really hope this lawsuit changes a lot of things. Something like this should have never happened. I feel like the hospital had no right to deny Ms. Langbehn from seeing her partner, Ms. Pond for 8 whole hours. If they cannot understand how callous and horrible it was for them to do that, then they deserve to lose this suit. Hopefully this suit prevents something like this happening anywhere ever again, as well.

Ability For Gay Couples to Adopt

The topic of gay marriage saddens me on many levels. The first being that in the year 2009 we still have to discuss, vote, make an issue of, who can and cannot get married. Secondly, that states would go even further than the more infamous Prop 8 in San Fransisco. Even more disturbing to me was this ballot during the run up to the Presidential election. Something that is even more difficult for me to understand the logic behind is not allowing two people of the same sex to adopt a child, which is what I wanted to blog about and chose as the main topic of this entry.

I do not understand why anyone would want to stand in the way of allowing two people of the same sexually orientation to bring a child into their home. This is especially baffling to me if they are shown to be capable, loving, warm people, who can not only give the child unconditional love, but a home. He or she might not have a "traditional" nuclear upbringing, but it is definitely better than having to stay at an orphanage. I do not understand why sexual orientation would prohibit anyone from adopting. They could be the most loving people in the world, but just because they are a same sex couple, they are disqualified? I just think that love is love, and should not be determined by race, creed, religion, gender, or orientation. I am saddened that in 2009, we are still facing this type of discrimination, especially here in America.