Sunday, November 02, 2008

Prop 8.....

I am confused, folks.

Marriage is a word. A noun, in fact....for those of you old enough to have been taught that kind of old-school stuff.

I revere the English language. I love nouns, verbs, participles, adjectives......I really like adverbs, though I think "really" is a lazy adverb....and I don't like it.

The way things go, sometimes nouns....and verbs, though less so.....go on to become legal definitions. Murder. Manslaughter. Battery. Libel.

All these nouns seem to involve violence. Hmmm.

Marriage involves the joining together of some number of folks who agree to agree on a set of philosophies and procedures and ways of living. The law has stepped in to help out when the shit hits the fan, and all of the above fly out the window and we go back to the basic noun/legal violence thing.

There is nothing in the legal description of marriage that does not seek to avoid, or fix up the damage to society and regular folks that ensues when marriages turn to violence. Or cold-hearted disdain.

The "Protect Marriage Act"? In my experience.....as a heterosexual who needs a marriage 12-step program...."marriage" only needs protection from those of us who engage in it foolishly.

Which is all of us.

Ooops. Not everyone is currently allowed to engage in this foolish, glorious, hopeful adventure of human spirit.

When I graduated from high school.....way back in 1967 it was illegal for people of mixed races to attempt the impossible and mix love with law. Barack Obama would not have been allowed to marry Michelle in Virginia when I graduated from high school while listening to Sgt. Pepper.

People quoted scripture to defend the practice of whites marrying whites, blacks marrying blacks......and Mongoloids, well.....good luck.

Then we grew up. We are all pink on the inside.....and if you are a Christian, God created us all in his likeness.

I don't want to stir stuff up, but Jesus didn't marry...and lived at home with his mom and dad until months before they strung him up for his lifestyle.

Sound familiar, Wyoming?

In my world, God is Love.....and if there is no love, I don't see God hanging around. By modus ponens.....if there is love, there must be God.

Why punish people who have evolved to a place where they seek to entangle their personal feelings towards each other with the legal nightmare that runs our lives.

Black, white, gay, lesbian......Jesus loves all of us. Why would one group of people have the effrontery to decide what He thinks about Love and its many subtleties and facets?

Meanwhile....we work a lot on Carmel Beach. To get there, I do the local thing and turn up Hwy 1 and turn left against the traffic onto Atherton. This scoots me down close to Larson Field and avoids all the traffic and lights around Carmel Rancho and The Crossroads.

Also......Carmel PD never has radar traps on Atherton, and they always have them on Rio Road.

There is a guy on Atherton with a McCain/Palin sign. Lots of trucks in the yard, so he is probably our local version of Joe the Plumber.

At first I was pissed off every time I saw his sign. In fact, one night I actually pissed on his sign....while his dogs went nuts behind his fence.

Then, after my Obama/Biden signs were constantly stolen in Cachagua.....I started to appreciate his sign. Hey.....lots of different outlooks, lots of room in the Big Tent we call America.

Wednesday we had another beach party, and when I drove down Atherton the guy's sign was gone. I thought he might have taken it down, but on the way back I saw that the wire supports were still in the ground.

I was pissed. Next day we were working in Monterey across from Abel Maldonado's office in Old Monterey. There was a McCain/Palin sign....many....in front and I stole one. I drove it back over to the guy on Atherton and knocked on the door. No one in Carmel is happy to hear unexpected knocks on the door after dark.....and this guy and his dogs were no exception.

"What do you want?"

"Uh....I am an Obama guy.....and I noticed that someone stole your McCain sign and that pisses me off so I brought you another one. Everybody ought to be able to say what they think."

The definition of jaw dropping........The guy's jaw almost fell out of his head. We chatted, and an amazing amount of tension disappeared from both of our lives. The guy is cool. We both work our asses off all day long every day.....

Obama style. Heh heh heh. Love your brother.

This is not so with Prop 8.

With Prop 8 there are churches that are organizing kids to steal "No on 8" signs and replace them with "Yes on 8" signs.

Kids.

Because of a noun?

And sadly......I'll bet that few of those church inspired sign stealing kids could even tell the difference between a noun and a Twinkie.

I am not real religious......but I don't think Jesus is happy with all this.

He may have been a carpenter....but I don't think his world view involved his people fighting over nouns.

Well, except for Hunger, Poverty, Ignorance.

Those kind of nouns.

Let's throw in some adjectives....

Stupid.

Wasteful.

Silly. Sad.

Demeaning.

Unjust.

Un-Godly.

Wrong.

2 Comments:

Blogger Pexster said...

Yesterday, all four corners of Canyon Del Rey and Fremont were occupied by people waving "Yes on 8" placards and shouting slogans at the cars passing by. I heard "I love my children!" Now THERE'S a controversial statement, if I ever heard one. [/sarcasm]

I'm guessing that a local church organized this. Many were Pacific Islanders -- entire families demonstrating together. What sick kind of church teaches children to hate?

5:17 PM  
Blogger azazl said...

My feeling is gays have as much right to be miserable as the rest of us :P

I grew up in the Ca public school system and not once was marriage discussed. What do they think is going to happen, gay hardcore porn is going to be handed out and kids told to aspire to that?

Hell, I have 3 little kids, I think one of the single most important lessons I can teach them is tolerance for others, I honestly dont care if they learn that gays can marry and if one of my kids should be gay there is no lessening of my love and nurturing for them.

And what exactly is marriage being protected from? Do ya think there might actually be a fear out there that gays might end up being happier and more successfull at the matrimonial game than the straights? Cuz if you look at the statistics, we arent doin so good.

9:03 AM  

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