Proposition 8 video

I seem to be on a political soap box lately. I'm afraid that this post is no exception.

I got an email recently that said, "Hey everyone please check out the link on this video. It is so disturbing, it was just shocking!!!!"

I was intrigued. What could be so horrifying. The email was a forward, so here are some of the other comments:

"This is a amazing video, it goes well with Proposition 102."
"Many of you may have seen this already.....it was sent to me by two different people. It is scary what will happen if we don't vote YES on Prop 8.......watch........"
"A friend of mine sent this to me and I thought it worth passing along."

So by this point I know it's a political forward, and it has something to do with Proposition 8, which isn't on the ballot in our State. Then I get to this part:

"Regardless of your personal opinion on same-gender marriage, this issue will affect your children, or the children of someone you love. Each of us should have the right to teach our children about moral issues in our own way, in our own families, without the State getting involved.

If Prop 8 fails, all schools, both public and private, may be forced to introduce homosexual behavior - in the name of diversity - as early as Kindergarten. Watch the video below to see a scenario we may all be faced with in the near future. Please vote YES on Proposition 8. Your vote counts!"

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. This is an anti-gay marriage video message. I don't normally look at political videos, but I figured I had nothing else going on so why not. I watched the video, which said the following:

Voting no on Proposition 8 will allow gay marriage to happen.
Other states (i.e. Massachusetts) have passed gay-marriage laws and are already experiencing the effects of it.
For example, if gay marriage is legal then schools will have to talk / teach about gay marriage.
Since Kindergartens are part of school, children attending them will be taught about gay marriage.
If kids hear about gay marriage they will be gay.
Parents who choose not to allow schools talk about gay marriage will be put in jail.
Schools hate parents.

This may be an oversimplification, but I think I got the message right. Here's my problem, there's a HUGE flaw in this logic. Proposition 8 says NOTHING about schools. You can check for yourself. I went and looked up the text of the Proposition. Didn't see school, education, teach, etc. once. I did see an amendment that says that marriage will be defined as a union between a man and a woman. Not only that, but this video is actually saying (without saying it directly) that schools are going to teach kids to be gay in kindergarten. Huh? Did I miss something here?

I'm not saying that Proposition 8 is right or wrong. That's for the people in California to decide. What I am saying is videos like the one I received are propaganda designed to scare people with twisted logic. And more importantly, one of the last comments says that if gay marriage is legal then you'll have to talk about it with your kids. Are you kidding me? When did teaching your kids about the world become a bad thing?

When did schools ever take away a parents' rights to teach their children? I think parents give up those rights when they FAIL to teach their kids. As the saying goes, "If you don't someone else will." Like it or not, in our age of information children are going to learn anything they want to, from school or other kids... or heaven forbid the internet. As a parent you can choose to talk about something and help your child to understand your experience and view of the world.. or you can cover your ears, close your eyes, and pretend nothing is bad out there. You can even tell schools not to teach your kids anything about the world, but don't be surprised when they find out someday, because they will. The question is, will they be prepared and ready to understand it when they do.

Videos like this upset me because they talk about everything except the actual issue. I think I'm probably just tired of politics and moral fundamentalists dreaming up scenarios about what could happen and not talking about what does happen. Maybe I'm too much of a scientist, but since when did we go freaking out because someone says the sky is falling? I want to see a piece hit the ground before I make a decision that the end is near. (Though hopefully the whole thing doesn't hit the ground at the same time so I have time to prepare.)

Why aren't reason and logic part of our political and moral discussion anymore? And when did talking about something make it a moral issue? I thought morals were more about actions than words. You don't kill, you don't lie, you don't cheat... all actions. Words themselves, or discussions about topics aren't moral.

I'm interested to hear your comments.

By the way, I'm not posting a link to the video on purpose. I was indeed outraged, but obviously because the message of the video was taking advantage of people who would think with their feelings instead of their minds.

Congress listened!

Well, they kinda listened. What a cool thing it was that representatives voted down a measure that was practically a sure thing because of the feedback they received from their constituents. Listening to the media, you would have thought they were cows being led to the slaughter. I've had it with the media. They are painting this to make it look like the general public doesn't know what we're talking about. We're the dumb idiots who don't realize the implications of our outrage at providing billions of dollars we don't have to people who took a chance and lost.

None of what is on the media gets to the point of anything. More money won't solve the problem. We are a nation of debtors. We rely on credit today more than we ever have. The whole idea of credit is pretty ridiculous. I'm reminded of Wimpy on Popeye. He was always pleading for "a burger today, that I will gladly pay you for tomorrow." Sometimes you have to suck it up and actually work for something. (Here's an article published almost a year ago, which is oddly foresightful about our current mess: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IK21Dj01.html)

Beyond the credit crisis is a deeper crisis of leadership. All of the financial markets are now victim of a thing called fear. I'm amazed that no one sees the correlation between what Wall Street thinks will happen and the prices of the stocks they trade. When the media says the Congress is going to dump a bunch of money into Wall Street, stocks go up. When the bill fails stocks go down. Why? Because people make decisions based on fear. Wall Street is no exception.

What happened to the days when the president came before the nation and said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Or "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Granted these sayings were both said by Democrats, and I hardly consider myself a staunch liberal. More to the point, both of these go beyond party politics. They reminded Americans that we are something more than the current crisis we face. We built this nation into what it is not by promising to make good on a debt sometime in the future, but by using every resource we had to make something work. We need a leader who will remind us that we can be better, that this too will pass, and that there is hope in our future. Most importantly we need someone who will do more than just pay lip service to our hopes and dreams.

I'm tired of the blame game and the currency of despair we face every day. No wonder people get discouraged by the news and politics. I think we all need to make a point to find something positive in our lives to remind ourselves that life is a beautiful thing.

Enough of my soap box. For those of you reading this, thanks for your patience while I have vented my opinions about these things.