HOORAY!

The guy with the yellow sign is my new best friend!



Focus on your OWN family! ...jerks.

Clever...

MY TURN!

OKAY now that you've had time to reflect and make your own judgements, here are mine:

WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE??!!
Having a gay child does not have to automatically provoke grief and sadness! What about the parents who are accepting of gay people and arn't close-minded like these idiots? What about them? Or did they just assume that all parents would be devestated by this news?

Loss of control? Does having a gay child mean that they are going to ditch their family and live an independent life? Um NO! That can be true of any normal child! Loss of security? Are gay people crazy or insecure? Loss of future dreams? There is always adoption and the hope for gay marriage, and any parent who's only hope for their children was that they would get married and have children instead of being happy doesn't deserve to have children anyway.

Anyway, I hope that you were all as "touched" by this article as I was...more to come from the enemy in future blogs!

Oh my gosh...

For this blog I just want to show you the beginning of one of the articles on the Focus on the Family website. Feel free to make your own judgements...

When a Loved One Says 'I'm Gay'

It is possible to move beyond the grief.

There are some key issues that parents have to face to successfully “move beyond” the paralyzing grief-stricken state of having a gay child.

The loss must be faced. Having a gay child entails the loss of future dreams, loss of control, loss of security, loss of relationship. These multiple losses trigger a grief reaction that can last for months or even several years.

Even if your child comes out of homosexuality, you will always live with the reality that your child has struggled in this area, that something profoundly wrong has occurred in his/her life that will leave a scar — even after healing. You will never see them in quite the same way again. And, in that sense, the way you look at that person has changed forever. This is a loss of great magnitude.

Gay marriage equal to terrorism?

"The Vatican's second-highest ranking doctrinal official on Monday forcefully branded homosexual marriage an evil and denounced abortion and euthanasia as forms of 'terrorism with a human face'."

This story was released on yahoo news. It states feelings on how gay marriage and abortion are evil and represent "terrorism with a human face". The worst part about it? It was written on April 23, 2007. People are STILL releasing statements like this to the media dispite all of the politics and history associated with it. I get how people can not agree with gay marriage, but to go as far as to say these things is taking many steps back for the fight for gay marriage and gay rights and it is too insulting for words.

To read the rest of the article go to: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070423/wl_nm/pope_gays_dc

Batboy

So here's my deal with Focus on the Family...

It was my senior year in highschool and I was OBSESSED with theatre. For my senior all-school musical we decided to do one that had never before been seen by my small La Canada community. We were going to do Batboy the Musical. It's an AWESOME play with amazing music and writing and it was a perfect mixture of comedy and drama that was sure to entertain any audience.



Here's the problem...Batboy has a love interest in the show that is a human girl. And since he was half-boy half-bat, that apparently made it beastiality. You also learn later in the show that this love interest is his sister, yet this is all very comical and tastefully done and has great morals to be learned by the end of the show.

The wonderful parents in La Canada decided that this material was too mature for us and started protesting the show. (By the way they did West Side Story the next year, which has a full rape scene on stage and two murders and they had no protests against this). So the parents were basically freaking out because we were doing somthing different with our musical that was not in the "normal" repertoire for a highschool play.

Long story short, Focus on the Family decided to take it upon themselves to come all the way to La Canada to speak with the parents about family values and to get our play cancelled. They had already gotten Batboy cancelled at another highschool that had tried to put it on right before us and had stopped them from doing it. Fortunately for us we rallied together about 20 student castmembers who were very well-spoken and spoke on how Batboy had effected our lives and how eager we were to put it on (in a tasteful way, of course).

SO in conclusion, Focus on the Family needs to mind their own business and stay the heck out of everyone's lives! They need to start accepting things that are not normal for them and focus on teaching this acceptance to people instead of continuing to teach this hate that they are basing their argument on.

Teaching Hate

As I said before, "Focus on the Family" is my new enemy. Their website is www.family.org. They use the internet, radio, television, and public appearances to get their messages across of how they are "nurturing and defending families worldwide".

Part of this defending of course has to do with handling gay members of the community. They take every defense for gay marriage and turn it upside-down, showing how there is no religious or logical reason for a person to be gay. They literally handle the topic of homosexuality as if it is a joke, a disease, or a mental problem.

Does that sound nurturing to you? If they are so into focusing on what is best for a family, is it really best to excercise this hatred toward anything out of their "norm"?

I think that they should focus more on teaching acceptance toward all people. If they want to take the religous route, then God says to "love thy neighbor" not to "love thy neighbor only if they are exactly like you". Kids and parents need to know that not everyone is like themselves and not everything is done the same way that they do it. Teaching them this accepting knowledge is something that will truly improve their quality of life, yet teaching them to be skeptical or closed toward people will only teach them to hate.

Focus on THIS!

I've found my enemy! "Focus On the Family" is going down! They are RIDICULOUS and I can't believe that I didn't think about talking about them in earlier blogs! They've personally offended me before (I will talk about this is a later blog) and they have personally offended the gay community and this will not go unnoticed. As for now they are public enemy number one!

Gays are Human...What a Surprise

On April 17th, ScrippsNews published an article about how BYU is FINALLY starting to change their policies against the gay members on their campus. They stated that:

"As more and more members of the LDS Church are coming to know individuals who are gay and finding out that they're human, that these are people just like them, that they're good people, it becomes difficult for them to demonize homosexuality the way the church positions do."

WOW are you serious?! Gays are humans? No shit Sherlocks!



Don't get me wrong...I'm SO happy that they're realizing how disrespectful they've been to the gay community...it's just that these are realizations that should have been made years ago and it's sad that it's taken this long just to realize that being gay doesn't make someone a bad person.

To read the whole article go to www.scrippsnews.com/node/21424

Sex=Sin?

CAUTION!! I am about to use some naughty words....if you easily get offended, please stop reading.

SO...another (religious) argument against gay marriage is that gay people have anal sex and are therefore not using their sexual organs as they are intended to be used. These same people believe that people are responsible for using sex to create life, and any other form of sex is therefore "disgusting" and irresponsible to these duties.

Ahem...what about masturbation? What about blowjobs? What about handjobs? What about "fingering"? What about anal sex between a man and a woman? I don't see people with signs going around stating that any of these things is a sin. Probably because these same people are participating in all of these "other" forms of sex. So if anal sex=sin...then everyone is sinning each time they pleasure themselves or another person in some way other than the "norm". People who believe this kind of crap really don't have much of an argument...they're just being offensive because it is something that they don't understand or that they don't want to see. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't make it wrong.

Let's Focus on the Family

Thanks to the article "What are the Legal Benefits of Marriage?" by Kathy Belge, I was able to find a list of some of the legal rights that married couples have that gays and lesbians are denied, even when "married".

Joint parental rights of children
Joint adoption
Status as "next-of-kin" for hospital visits and medical decisions
Right to make a decision about the disposal of loved ones remains
Immigration and residency for partners from other countries
Crime victims recovery benefits
Domestic violence protection orders
Judicial protections and immunity
Automatic inheritance in the absence of a will
Public safety officers death benefits
Spousal veterans benefits
Social Security
Medicare
Joint filing of tax returns
Wrongful death benefits for surviving partner and children
Bereavement or sick leave to care for partner or children
Child support
Joint Insurance Plans
Tax credits including: Child tax credit, Hope and lifetime learning credits
Deferred Compensation for pension and IRAs
Estate and gift tax benefits
Welfare and public assistance
Joint housing for elderly
Credit protection
Medical care for survivors and dependents of certain veterans

Can you imagine being in a marriage where you were so legally disconnected to your spouse and family? I couldn't. Yet these rights are being given to people everyday who are abusing these legal priveledges. Some people get married solely for money or medicare, while homosexual couples can't even have legal parental rights of their own children or share their income and taxes like normal couples. It is said that homosexuality would ruin the institution of marriage, but how is it that giving homosexual families these same rights would ruin anything? Would it ruin marriage if homosexual couples both had custody over their children? Would it ruin marriage if they could make medical decisions for thei loved ones? Frankly, if we're not going to let homosexual couples marry, we should at least grant them certain legal benefits that any normal family should receive. Whether or not our government is willing to see two people as married does not make them and their partner or children any less of a family, so it is insulting to ban them of these familial rights.

Well What Do You Know!

Something exciting happened today! Well, not that exciting I guess, but my Ethics professor handed out copies of the SAME ARTICLE I used in my last blog written by Larry Kramer to discuss the ethics of gay marriage. SOOO turns out my blog is pretty legit. I also sounded really smart in class because I had already read the entire article and blogged about it.

Moral of the story: My blog can teach you things that you would learn at a $40,000 a year University. Or it can at least give you the same articles...

Why Straight People Hate Gay People

I found an amazing article in the Los Angeles Times written by a 72 year-old gay male on why straight people hate gay people. It addresses all subjects of homosexual discrimination from unfair taxation to taking away their legal right to love. I love this author's perspective because it is so real and so passionate. It brings real stories of hatred against gay people into full view from a standpoint of someone who is human and has human emotions just like every other person. It also shows the similarity between hating homosexuals and electing people in office who hate homosexuals, for both is an act of hatred, whether or not these actsions represent your opinion of gay individuals. The author of this article is well-informed, as he has both researched this topic for his novel "The Tragedy of Today's Gays" and (being a member of the gay community) has lived through this hatred as well.

Everyone should have the chance to read this segment.

Please visit the site below

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kramer20mar20,1,6605635.story

LOVE

Marriage is first and foremost about love

Here's a religious definition of love.

Biblical definition of love: 1 Corithians

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things.


Homosexual love is also patient and kind; thier love is not jealous or boastful;it is not arrogant or rude. Homosexual love does not insist on its own way; it is not irratable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Homosexual love bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things.

Hmm....you're right, religious people...Homosexual love OBVIOUSLY can't be love...just look at the evidence!

Seems pretty clear to me...

12 Reasons or no Reasons?

When browsing google for gay marriage sites to use as fuel for my arguments, I came across this site (http://grove.ufl.edu/~ggsa/gaymarriage.html) that wrote a list of the 12 reasons why gay marriage should not be legalized.

The catch? All of the 12 reasons are backed by sarcastic comebacks that support gay marriage.

LOVE IT!! These reasons totally incompass why not letting gay people marry is totally insulting to the gay community.

Read em' and weep anti-gay marriage fanatics!!!

1.Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.

2.Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.

3.Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.

4.Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5.Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.

6.Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.

7.Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America.

8.Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.

9.Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.

10.Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to.raise children.

11.Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars or longer lifespans.

12.Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

Sinners?

I suppose these people actually think that they are helping save their religion from "sinners".













Nothing about these pictures looks religious to me.


It looks like hatred.

Religion

I have something else to say about homosexual individuals and religion....

1) Just because someone is gay doesn't mean they arn't religious.

2) Not all religions are anti-gay marriage and there is no proven religion that is necessarily "right", so how can we pass judgement based on the teachings of what one or just a few religions believe?

3) My family friend is gay and has been for 25 years. He is 57 years old and has been Mormon his entire life. Just this year he received a letter from his church telling him that he is no longer a Mormon and is no longer welcome in the church. Since when do religions get to decide who gets to believe or not believe in their teachings? Shouldn't it be up to each individual as to what religion they choose to believe and be a part of? Or are gay people not considered people, and are therefore not given this right? All I'm saying is a murderer can still consider himself Christian or Mormon or any other religion, even after he has committed such a crime, yet as soon as someone is gay they are shunned from their own beliefs...

This makes no sense.

Hypocrites

If people say that gay marriage is against the law because of religious reasons, then isn't that saying that it is against the law to not be religious?

IDIOTS.

I can't believe this commercial...

At first I thought this was a pro-gay marriage advertisement...until the announcer came in at the end. This is disgusting how they make this sound as if it is something that will truly better your children's lives. This is one of the most insulting advertisements I have ever seen...take a look!

Definition of Marriage Unraveled

In looking up the legal definition of marriage, here's what I found:

MARRIAGE - A contract made in due form of law, by which a free man and a free woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, in the union which ought to exist between husband and wife. By the terms freeman and freewoman in this definition are meant, not only that they are free and not slaves, but also that they are clear of all bars to a lawful marriage.

To make a valid marriage, the parties must be willing to contract, able to contract, and have actually contracted.

They must be willing to contract. Those persons, therefore, who have no legal capacity in point of intellect, to make a contract, cannot legally marry, as idiots, lunatics, and infants; males under the age of fourteen, and females under the age of twelve; and when minors over those ages marry, they must have the consent of their parents or guardians. There is no will when the person is mistaken in the party whom he intended to marry; as, if Peter intending to marry Maria, through error or mistake of person, in fact marries Eliza; but an error in the fortune, as if a man marries a woman whom he believes to be rich, and he finds her to be poor; or in the quality, as if he marries a woman whom he took to be chaste, and whom he finds of an opposite character, this does not invalidate the marriage, because in these cases the error is only of some quality or accident, and not in the person.

When the marriage is obtained by force or fraud, it is clear that there is no consent; it is, therefore, void, and may be treated as null by every court in which its validity may incidentally be called in question.

This is just the beginning of the definition (found in the Lectric Law Library) of marriage.

I would like to point out a few sections of this definition that I find to be obviously insulting to the gay community. First of all, gay men and women are free by definition, able to reciprocally live together, and are definitely willing to contract, yet they apparently do not posses the union that "ought" to exist between a man and a woman. But how about ALL the couples that divorce within a month, abuse one another, neglect their children, or cheat on each other? Is that the kind of union that ought to exist? I say we should be giving these gay couples the same chance at union that we are giving to every other man and women who are making a joke out of this holy bond. If a gay couple is serious enough to not only admit that they are gay, live a gay lifestyle, and fight for their right to marry their gay partner, then chances are they are a lot more prepared for this union then the average man and woman marriage.

The next part of this definition I find insulting is the section about underage children having no will power to marry. It clearly states that anyone under a certain age does not posses a legal point of intellect, and can therefore not marry without the consent of their parents. HOWEVER, like I said in my last blog, there are people all over the world and even in the United States who are still performing arranged, underage, and forced marriages, all which would be considered invalid if it weren't for the signature of their parents. Yet these marriages are somehow legal and accepted, while full-grown homosexual adults who are neither idiots, lunatics, or infants, are not given these same rights.

Last time I checked, liking someone of your same sex didn't make you a lunatic or an idiot, and it definitely doesn't make you an infant.....so why can't they marry?

True Marriage

In reading more about arranged marriages in the article "Child Brides" by Sheri & Bob Stritof on About.com, they state that child brides and forced marriages most often occur in Egypt, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Pakistan, India, and the Middle East. Though these underage marriages are illegal in the U.S, some secret illegal child weddings are still being performed. Most of these ceremonies are religious and forced by a child's parents, although some are simply more customary and traditional. In these cases, families will marry off their daughters at an extremely young age to ensure early childbearing, obedience to the husband, and financial and social security. However, forced and child marriage can often lead to isolation, slave labor, lack of education, abuse, and health problems. According to a report issued by the United Nations, "marriage under the age of 18 can threaten a child's human rights (including the right to education, leisure, good health, freedom of expression, and freedom from discrimination)".

So here's what bugs me...WHY can we not let homosexual couples (people who are old enough to understand and abide by the institution of marriage, and people who are willing to love and cherish their partner and their relationship for the rest of their lives) have the right to marry when other people are being married off before they can even understand what marriage is and before they even get a chance to know the person they will be spending the rest of their lives with?!! (I know that was a long sentence, but bear with me, I'm mid-rant). How can we say that homosexual couples can't partake in marriage because they will not be like "normal" familes or that they will bring shame to the idea of marriage and what-not? That is CRAP. There are people out there that are being married off, despite what will-power they may or may not have or whether or not they are ready. THEY are the ones bringing shame to marriage, for they are treating it as an easy way out of financial and social burdens rather than an act of love and unity. When marriage is directly resulting in people's abuse, lack-of-education, unhappiness, and everything else that I stated, we know that that is not a true marriage. A true marriage is something that reveals and confirms love and that begins a life of happiness and well-being with another person. A true marriage cannot be arranged. A true marriage cannot be forced.

Arranged Insults

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbFbwuyUDnA

So here's a segement showing the effects of arranged marriage and the personal feelings of a women regarding this practice. I want to talk a lot about arranged marriage, forced marriage, and child marriage...but I want to do it right, so my next blog will be researched on these subjects. As for now, I would just like to show through this clip how there are people out there that are being forced into the practice of marriage without having any willpower or say in the matter. It is sad how people's lives are being forced and decided for them, especially regarding marriage, when there are so many gay couples out there who have both the want and the will to marry, yet are denied the right. People's natural human rights are taken away through the act of arranging or forcing a marriage, and it is only fair that gay couples should be receiving the same amount of rights to marriage that these infants (who have no concept of what marriage is) are getting.

So that's that...I'll cover more of this later, but for now take in this video and think about what I've said. Or else. :)

Protecting Marriage or Protecting Yourself from the Truth?

According to ProtectMarriage.com, marriage should be a union between a man and a woman. It should be this way in order to raise healthy and happy children in a traditional family.
I read through the website in its entirety, and that's literally the only argument they had against allowing gay marriage...keeping the traditional idea of a family unit. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! That is the LAMEST excuse I've ever heard for simply being scared that gay families may out-family their own families!! Having two men or two women raise children does not mean that a child is only going to have father figures or only going to have mother figures. If this were so, then how can our government allow and recognize divorce between two people once they have had children? If a mother is divorced or widowed and left with children, isn't it true that she will become both the mother AND father figure for her children? Therefore, if there can be two men or two women fulfilling these roles, how can that possibly not be even better for a child's life? Let's also talk about abusive or alcoholic parents. Is that the best environment for a traditional family lifestyle? Of course not. So why is it that people are so scared of allowing two loving people who truly want to raise children this opportunity, when there are so many people out there who do not want or should not be allowed to raise the children that they have.
So how about we stop pretending like just because two people are homosexual they cannot raise a functional family. These "untraditional" families may prove to be twice the parents that most people will ever be!

Introduction

This blog is designed to share my opinions and analysis of truths that exist within society that are an insult to depriving gay men and women the right to marry. I am going to address the various aspects within our own country and others that are an insult to gay marriage by writing about and researching current legal, religious, cultural, and human rights barriers. I hope to be able to take a good look at our legal definition of marriage and relate these current issues to why gay marriage should be legalized. I hope to be able to compare gay rights to the rights given to minors, women, ethnic minorities, and the rights given in other cultures to show how unfair our legal system and society is to the gay community. I plan on discussing and researching these questions of fairness and rights and developing factual yet opinionated debate of these topics.
I hope to raise awareness for the rights of gay citizens and prove that their rights should be equal to those that already exist for others within our legal system and culture. In order to raise this awareness I will be targeting a variety of people. First, I will target this blog to the gay community in order for them to use my comparisons in their conquest for equality and the right to marry. The government and people in higher power will also be targeted, for they will then be able to see how demeaning the gay marriage and human rights laws are when compared to the freedom given to other individuals. Basically, this blog is targeted toward anyone who is willing or able to try to make a difference. Anyone who can help make the connection between gay marriage and other human rights issues can inform others how the barriers within marriage defy other current laws and restrictions to people's human priviledges.