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It is time to sanction gay marriage. Gay marriage is different from civil unions. Gay marriage means much more. Someone who is gay, who can now be married for life is finally an equal citizen. Without that certainty the rest of their rights are meaningless….
“Oh, we’ve got nothing against gays!. You are equal to the rest of us, except, snicker, snicker, when YOU marry, we will give it a lower second class status and call it a civil union.”
Until Gay Marriage is made legal gays are only second class citizens….
It is interesting that very conservative parents of gay children, see it with open eyes… “Yeah, why can’t they get married?” Senator Portman who was flirted with as Romney’s running mate, and the odious Dick Cheney are both in favor of gay marriage. They credit their openness to learning from their children… every parent wants their child to be happy.
As a nation we’ve been here before. Blacks were given freedom by the Federal government, but local governments who disagreed, would not allow them to marry whites. Obviously the signal being sent was no, they weren’t equal after all. Mexicans in the West, legal and forced to be accepted so by whites, had to deal with local laws disallowing mixed marriages… After all, they “really” weren’t equal, not even close?.” American Indians, even though there were many interracial lifelong monogamous sexual unions during the exploration of our frontier, those unions were banned by laws intent on maintaining the purity of the Caucasian race, “Indians, equal with the white man? Get real!”…
All these laws have fallen away, shredded by common sense and common decency. It it easy to label a group with which we have no connection, as a “they” and say “they” are different, allowing it to be “ok” to treat “them” with disdain……
It is when “they” become part of “us” and we finally realize that treating “them” with disrespect is exactly the same as “us” being disrespectfully treated; we certainly would find that to be unfair. …
It is upon that realization, that discrimination against them… finally becomes unfair….
Our Constitution and Declaration of Independence are pretty clear… all humans are equal at birth… and once we widen our perception of what is human, we are forced by our beliefs to accept them into our family as well….
Hard as it was for the South, we finally accepted that slaves were human beings, and therefore agreed they should be afforded the same protection as their owners….
Hard as it was for mankind, we finally accepted that women were human too, and therefore agreed they should be afforded the same protection as their “owners”….
We later had to revisit the treatment of those whose ancestry derived out of our former African slaves, even to the point of guaranteeing them by law, actually making it punishable to treat them with disrespect, in order to drive home this point to Southerners, that…. all people are created equal….
Any baby born within our borders becomes a citizen. Whether its parents are or not… They were born here; they are equal to the rest of us… We allow any baby to grow up and marry any other baby who grew up here, unless they are gay.
The overwhelmingly majority of our culture has recently come to the realization that people who are gay, are created that way. They can change it no more easily than one can molt the color of their skin, or alter the slant of their eyes, or raise or lower their cheek bones… That is how God makes them…..
For anyone to vote no against Gay marriage in Delaware’s General Assembly, they will have to first imagine themselves in a Twilight world, one where genes gave dominance to gays, and heterosexuals occurred rather rarely… Being one of those heterosexuals, who had deeply fallen in love with someone of another gender, would you, a Delaware Representative, settle for only having civil unions for you and your heterosexual spouse, when all the gays around you were getting married and raising families?
Their gay clergy would spout: “Oh, you are one of those… We can’t let you marry….”
If you CAN’T IN GOOD CONSCIOUS agree that you yourself should be discriminated against because you happen to be heterosexual in a gay world, something you were born with and couldn’t change, then you cannot vote AGAINST gay marriage when it comes up for a vote with any good conscious.
Voting against gay marriage, carries the same moral price as did the voting against the freeing of slaves, as did the voting against allowing women to vote, as did the voting against letting blacks finally be allowed to succeed….
Now, since all of those are so much woven into the fabric of our society, we forget today that back then there were people who actually argued vociferously against allowing these citizens to become equal members of our society… it was just like people argue against gay marriage today.
They arguing were wrong then. Those same people doing it to gays, are wrong now….
Settling for Civil Unions instead of marriage is a slap in the face. It has only one point and that it to say: “Oh, you aren’t as good as us, and never will be.”
Each time in our nation’s past, it took the will of strong people to overcome the strong wills of weak people…. Delaware needs to allow gay marriage, simply because not doing so is the morally wrong thing to do…. Those crying against it with self thought-up platitudes, will come around eventually after the deal is done and the battle is over…
They have to!… One can only argue against what is right, … for so long.
Delaware Senator Chris Coons has a chance to do something good tomorrow.
Tomorrow with him there, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a bill S.285 by Senator Levin, of Michigan, to allow this man to say in this country.
Victor Sopuruchi Chukwueke has an amazing story to tell. And he loves to tell it to anyone who will listen.
Victor was a victim of tumors. In his homeland of Nigeria, he was told there was nothing that could be done. He continued anyway. A nun arranged for him to come to the US and work for a plastic surgeon and receive a free operation.
All accounts describe him as an uplifting speaker, one who causes us to look harshly at ourselves and ponder why we’ve let our minuscule traumas, set us back from our own dreams. Victor wants to be a surgeon. He is scheduled next year to begin medical school at Wayne State University.
That dream, once again is in jeopardy. For somewhere along the way, Victor didn’t file to continue his VISA. It expired, and he is an illegal alien. Michigan Senator Carl Levin put a request back in the 209th Congress, it wasn’t acted upon. He did it again on the 210th. And again in the 211th. And now in the 212th Congress.
This bill was filed, February 3, 2011. It has had 16 months, and 10 days of just sitting in that committee’s drawer… Delaware’s Senator will cast the pivotal vote tomorrow….
At his commencement address Victor said this….
“I say to you, strive to be all you can be in your life. My presence here today shows that anything is possible.”
America needs this positivity now, more than ever. Let’s hope some of the positivity sinks into at least those Senators blessed with hearing this amazing tale….
This one is a no-brainer… He must be reinstated……
Chris: don’t even think of shuffling out early after discussion of S-250 Justice for All Reauthorization Ac in order to make the Law of the Sea Hearing, scheduled at the same time!!! 10:00 tomorrow.
Good luck today, Victor!
Photo Courtesy of the horse’s mouth
Closing remarks of FDR’s declaration of war:
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday the Japanese government also launched as attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. .
You can tell she’s a new teacher; she still cares.
But as a child this person had a learning disability. One of those programs about to be cut from our budget.
After all, you can’t spend inordinate amounts on one or two children and take away from teaching all the others…
This person could not read until 5th Grade. By their own admission, they should have been held back each year, but weren’t. Oh, they could get by up to that point. They were smart and knew how to game the system at an early age, but they never understood how letters on a printed page corresponded to the sounds in speech that are heard by us all.
In the fifth grade, they finally got an IEP.. From the testing it was learned that this person suffered from a treatable auditory learning disability. The solution was offered and this person went on through the full 16 years of school and is currently in the process of receiving their masters in education..
This person now teaches in the Red Clay School District. The stories I hear of what goes on in that classroom are pathetic. No ones fault, mind you, but pathetic.
Kids can’t learn because they are starving. Yes, despite all our free lunches, breakfasts, etc, some kids in Red Clay are starving. This teacher through trial and error eventually found that they had to keep candy bars on hand in order to keep the class quiet enough so that others could learn. It is hard to teach when one student is whimpering and just … won’t … stop… Eventually, Child Services were alerted, and upon their investigation, the child was removed from it’s home environment.
The IEP costs may appear to be excessive. But they must be seen as an investment.
Because of their use years ago, today some child who may have otherwise slipped through the cracks …. won’t….
El Somnambulo on Delaware Liberal announces that Bob Venables and others are preparing to propose a Marriage Protection Act: SB 27… This will limit marriage to a relationship between a man and a women..
Once again, Bob and his group are more worried about protecting their own assholes, than they are about the needs of their constituents…
Their priorities are ass backwards… When you can show me protection all children abused in heterosexual marriages, when you can show me protection for all women beaten on a regular bases in heterosexual messages, when you can show me a plummeting divorce rate especially in heterosexual marriages, then heterosexual marriage might sound like an institution worthy of protection…
But it until then, in their twisted moralism, they are serving to protect child abuse, wife beating, and painful divorce ….
Living in their cultist enclaves may make them unaware of how the rest of the world lives.. We think it is time they stop worrying about other people’s vaginas and assholes and instead focus ….. on helping people.
lol.
The old oak that owned the town,
Came down last night.
The house, the street, the corner,
Stand now startling in their openness.
Oh, yes,
It’s role was finished long ago,
It’s soft decaying wood,
Could no longer fetch it’s youthful price.
But hang around it did,
Growing roots deep into the history of our lives.
All throughout our youth,
Peace was hidden beneath its leaves.
Wisdom found solace in its shelter.
Boyish ideas pitched hard up though its branches
Always came back
Refracted in startling directions.
Always right?
No.
Always wise?
Perhaps.
Always there?
Always.
But today there is a big hole.
And something big
In me,
Must step up and take its place…
The night before Father’s Day was a beautiful one. Not too hot, not too cold, just a small breeze to rustle the hair. The moon was a sliver, and the planets bright. I took a little too long exiting the car with the family and stopped for a few moments to be alone with the sky…….
Inside the family was stirring. The buzz of voices was blurry, and if I tried, I could have picked out what they were saying if I wanted to, but I had lagged to be alone. Instead I became preoccupied with what I was experiencing at that time.
I sat down on a waterproof seat cushion, and looked up. A couple of friends I had known since college stared back. Arcturus, the mighty giant was overhead, and slightly southwest lay the sparkling beautiful Spica. But tonight this summer sky was dominated by Saturn hovering over the southeast. And as I relaxed, ….. I let my mind pull up, high above the accretion disc of planets, and attempted to visualize where I sat in the context of this solar system. That yellow orb of Saturn was over 7 times the distance of the sun from earth. And right now, a metallic object, built by several members of our species, was orbiting that orb surrounded by 59 moons, and was at this moment sending digital photo’s back to earth. Not to mention that we had been able to put a probe onto one of its moons, which looked eerily like parts of earth, even though any water had been locked up as ice for billions of years……
And then out of nowhere the thought came, from where I don’t know, that asked me the question of just how such a species, capable of manipulating the laws of physics so precisely as to send an object into that planetary system from ours, the equivalent of aiming an electron the length of a football field and have it land on a softball over a hundred yards away,………how could such a species, capable of cooperating so precisely, be at odds over something like Iraq?
And where do I, one tiny electron, fit into this vast expanse of empty space?
Occasionally the “philosophical” muse finds me, like a little boy who looks for bugs under a rock. Suddenly it is there, scaring me. This night was one of those increasingly infrequent times. As I stared at Saturn, which to my eyes was nothing but a yellow dot, ( but knowing full well the power of its 900 mph winds and its immense beauty,) I switched topics and asked myself this question: how do I define myself……….who or what am I?
To most of you who will read this, you know me as a blogger. I write down ideas. I try to express them as interestingly as I can. I have been doing it for only a short time. And as I peruse my archives today, most of what I once wrote, now matters little. However, my perusing through the archives of other local bloggers, turned out to be rather fascinating. Looking at those blogger’s early days were reminiscent of looking through their high school yearbooks; one could see the seeds of what they would one day become, mixed in with the joyful exuberance over their own discovery of just what their abilities would allow them to do…………
But if our electronic memories like this, fade in such a short time, how does one stack up in a long term analysis. Fame is fleeting. We may remember a name for awhile, and maybe a couple of trivial facts, but then we move on. Take Ronald Reagan for instance. Just less than 20 years ago he was the driving force of our society, all over our newspapers and TV’s. Today he is still somewhat the driving force behind one of our nation’s political parties. But ask a fifteen year old who has finished American History, and you get this answer: “uh…….was he one of America’s Presidents?” “Yes?…………………………………………..” and that is enough of an answer for him. He feels vindicated. He got it right. Today it takes two or three college courses in Reaganomics to reach that level of knowledge that everyone who was alive in the eighties, now takes for granted. So if Ronnie Reagan’s influence has faded this fast, what on earth does it take to make a concrete, lasting impression?
Ask about Lincoln, and you get “He freed the slaves”. So that’s the magnitude of an act necessary to be remembered just 142 years. So what do we know of a hundred years before that,… five hundred before that,….. a thousand,….. two thousand, …..four thousand?…………………….Surprisingly we actually know a little from those vast expansive time frames. We know of Abraham’s journey, from what today is Basra, up to Damascus, and down through what today is Israel and over to Egypt. We know of the attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah. We know these things because religion…..one religion in particular, made a point of writing it down. Why? Why did they not follow the trend of all other local religions who emphasized power, the accumulation of wealth, and exalted position?
We don’t know why. But for some reason they just thought it was more important to tell their stories, which emphasized the common elements of our existence, and by preserving such stories of life and love, that relate to all men and women, their stories were told from generation to generation, and therefore got passed down to where we know of them today…………. ……One should note, we know much less about the pharaohs who left the longest-lasting monuments ever built by man. And we know even less about all other civilizations who studiously logged each accomplishment of every king throughout their civilization. Those names never survived the conquering armies and now are lost forever………………………..but we know of a lady named Ruth.
The window suddenly opened behind me and a voice full of love and life said, “Daddy, oh, there you are………………….” and that is when it hit……………………I am a dad…………….and that…………. is how I define myself…….. ….Whether planned or unplanned, those four indiscretions of my youth, have in their turn, now defined me. No matter how else I choose to define myself, it will be that special code of proteins, which got passed down to this small, select group of the next generation, enhanced with those of my wife, that will carry what I am, long and far beyond after anyone will have any clue of who Bush I, Bush II, or Clinton I, Clinton II were. It is this gift of life, given to me by my father and mother, stretching back to the beginning of our species, a chain of which I am most grateful to have been a part of, that now, has been passed on…………………………
Someday……….. a small living part of me may grow up in a floating colony plotting its own orbit around the giant orb of Saturn. … Wouldn’t surprise me….. I am almost sure I carry that gene.
But my greatest responsibility as a man on this planet, is to prepare my own kids for the success of their own lives. Those of you who read these blogs know first-hand the personal cost exacted by the inordinate amount of time it takes to research and track down elusive leads. You know the choices neglected to make it happen. But your contribution to the blogosphere, no matter how spectacular, matters little if you neglect that progeny that wants to spend some of that fleeting time with you, before they are grown and literally, gone……………………….
So if our life is this important, with the continuation and passing down of traits from one generation to another, when is it morally and proper to kill someone, and thereby break that link and chain forever? When are we morally entitled to stop that genetic line in its tracks and prevent it from continuing through time up to our species extinction?
For instance, is it theoretically ok to kill another family’s son, who is at that moment is in the process of trying to kill me? ……………………..Yeah, we all have the right to survival. Ok,…..So let’s try this one: is it ok… to kill another family’s son who is preventing me from taking something of his that I want, like oil? Do I, because of the special configuration of my own amino acids, have that moral right to take his life?
On this point……….I find it hard to justify permanently erasing something that has taken over million years to evolve, like someone’s unique genetic code. I cannot sanction the removal of a unique human history, spawned from the mixing of memory and desire, just so I can drive my SUV.
So as a “dad” ……….on this Father’s Day or anytime, …..do I have the moral right to remain silent, as other sons and daughters are getting slaughtered for a reason,… …one that borders on lunacy whenever, and if ever, it is rationally probed?
Well, let’s think about it……I definitely have that option……I can certainly choose to say nothing,………but do I have the right to say nothing?……….. And this is what I struggle with…….
The Constitution gives me the right to remain silent whenever I am wrongfully prosecuted. But for the Constitution to remain relevant, it demands that all of us stand up and speak up, whenever we feel that the Constitution is misused to wrongfully persecute others. So as an American citizen, by default, I am required by my Constitution to make my views known……………in any public forum to which I have access. If my views are relevant, they get picked up and rise to the top. If they are not quite all there…….they get passed over, forgotten, and sink to the bottom……..But as a citizen of this great country, I , as well as you, continue to have the obligation, or duty, to make our views known.
So as a “dad”, here I am on this Father’s Day: Just doin’ my part, man. Just doin’ my part…………………..
kavips 
