No on Prop 8.

I was going to post a vlog I made of why I do not support this proposition but it turned into more of a rant than a structured argument. This subject is very personal to me and I am not looking to fight with anyone about it. But it's time that I make my own statement, even though it is not easy to talk about when I know a lot of people who disagree with me. The majority population of my school, church and work, all oppose gay marriage. Do you think I don't live in fear of being ostracized or fired? I do. But, this is my blog. This is the one place I am entitled to say whatever I want.

I will be voting no because I think it is completely unconstitutional to deny people basic civil rights because they do not share the same beliefs, beliefs that are largely based on religion, that heterosexual people do. "I don't believe what you believe so you should have less rights than me." If this is really the card being played, why not also deny rights for Muslims or Buddhists? Is this about religion or is this about legal rights?

Why have people gotten so impassioned by fighting against gay marriage, in the name that it will ruin the sanctity of marriage and harm children, when I have not seen the church become so outraged by the blatant and complete pornification of media, of physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, the way consumerism and materialism has solidified the love for money over God, human trafficking, current crimes of genocide, war, unfair corporate practices and my list could go on forever...

(I think, on an extremely personal level, I feel very hurt by the church, as a whole, because I have never seen them go out of their way to fight for the true troubles and disturbing things killing our humanity. They have never all screamed, "This is a crisis!" And human trafficking? AIDS? Malaria? These are the cries of our world. These our the blatant crimes against humanity.)

People who do not believe in homosexuality say that gay people are only perversions of their God-intended selves. This is the same thing that colonialism said about black people so they rounded up as many as they could, by the ship load, and forced them into slavery because well, they were different and being black, they weren't really God's intended people. Up until the Civil Rights Movement, blacks were completely seen as lesser than their white counterparts, not able to sit in the same places or exercise the same basic rights.

We live under democracy, not theocracy. If we did, then that would be a different story. It just does not seem fair to me to push a religious agenda upon government when 1) this country operates on the separation of church and state despite what it says on our bills and coins (which in itself should be an insult to God for how we treat money); 2) when people do not even believe in the same religion; 3) we have a freedom of religion.

My last point has really gotten me thinking about whether or not the church should stand up for freedom of religion. There's freedom of religion and then there's freedom to be exclusively Christian and nothing else. Which, wouldn't really be a free choice now would it? You're Christian or you're nothing.

I think what it comes down to is how we define the role of government and how we define what being human means.

And to end with a video. (Hmm, the Apple rip-off is becoming a trend, huh?)