Politics and/or Religion

Before you ask why a person from Florida is concerned or interested in a California voter’s proposition, there are two reasons. 1) I was born and raised in Southern California, so the politics of my home state is still deeply interesting and important to me. A lot of my friends are still there. My parents are still there. And it will always be my home state. Sometimes I really miss L.A., although I’m starting to realize I no longer remember how to get certain places, and I can no longer recall what certain things I thought would always be ingrained in my memory look like. It’s a big concerning. 2) It’s a huge issue for gay society, and I think any time that something happens legally in our fight for equal rights, it’s important to examine and take a deeper look at. It may not affect me personally in my every day life because I no longer live in California, but it has far reaching implications in the fight for equality everywhere, and some states look to others to lead by example. This is an important issue across the board, so I take note of it.

I digress.

I was thrilled at the news earlier this month that a California court (again) ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional. For those of you who don’t remember, Prop 8 (otherwise known as the Mormon proposition) was a measure in California in the 2008 elections to change the State’s constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, effectively taking away the rights of the thousands of gay couples in California who had already gotten legally married. It was the first state to take civil rights AWAY from a minority, after giving it to them, and the first state to amend its constitution to bar equal rights to gay couples. I call it the Mormon proposition due to a documentary I’ve seen a dozen times about how the majority of the funding for this proposition came from the Mormon church, they blanketed the state with decidedly untrue propaganda and founded a coalition of like minded faith-based groups to effectively insure that this proposition was passed. I hold them responsible. As an aside, on the separation of church and state, which I will probably end up doing a whole separate entry about, I believe that if a tax-exempt religious organization is going to get involved in and funnel millions of dollars into a political party, cause or media blitz and push themselves into politics, they should lose their tax-exempt status. On February 7, a federal appeals court overturned the ban on same sex marriage in California, which will make the Supreme Court rule on it as early as next year. Prop 8 was found to be a violation of the US Constitution. I’m sure it will be appealed, by the same rich and powerful right-wing groups that helped pass it in the first place. This fight is far from over, and all we can do is take the victories one step at a time. I hold all gay people, or people with gay friends or people sympathetic to the gay cause, or people supportive of equal rights responsible for taking action. The time for waiting for everybody else to do something has passed. It’s time to get busy. Seriously. This is just one small step in the right direction – but any forward progress is progress nonetheless.

But as thrilled as I was over the court’s decision, I was just as equally disturbed with hopeful gop presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s condemnation of it. “Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. That prospect underscores the vital importance of this election and the movement to preserve our values. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as President, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices”. I’m sorry, Mitt, but aren’t you interpreting the Constitution according to your own politics and prejudices? You’re a Mormon. You’re a member of the church who was the main driving force behind this proposition in the first place. No wonder you’re on this side. On top of that, according to your own words up there, if you want to interpret the Constitution the way it was written, you should be AGAINST prop 8, which wants to amend the constitution to specifically exclude a group of people. Oh, and if we’re going on the constitution “as it was written” should we not have any amendments then? Women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, free speech is out the window, forget the right to bear arms…all those things should go away? The fact of the matter is that your personal religious beliefs should not enter into your politics when it comes to the issue of equal or civil rights. Your personal beliefs are a minority (speaking for Mormonism). The only reason you are against gay marriage is because of your religious doctrine, and your interpretation of it. It is not rational, factual or indicative of any other reason. If your personal beliefs dictate you to be against gay marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same gender. It still gives you no right to deny the right to choose that legally binding marriage to other people. Preventing gay marriage does nothing to protect the sanctity of marriage. It has nothing to do with it. And no one, to this day, has been able to effectively prove to me how my marriage to my wife affects them personally, either negatively or positively. My life, my decisions, my religious beliefs and who I love have absolutely no effect on heterosexual marriage. We are not fighting to take rights away from other people. We are not forcing anybody to perform gay marriages if they’re against it personally. We’re asking and fighting for rights protected under the law, and under the constitution that this country was founded on. They’re legal rights, and since they are LEGAL, the separation of church and state should apply. I don’t CARE if you don’t agree with it. You don’t have to live it. You don’t have to see it, you don’t have to believe it’s right or moral or anything else. But you cannot deny the rights of others – or worse, take those rights away. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, the freedom of speech, etc. Religion should not be a factor in Politics. I understand that if electing someone who claims to be religious, that will impact their decisions. But they are responsible for not only their own beliefs, but the beliefs of the people they represent. And if they’re going against the will of the people, they are not doing the job they were elected to do – to speak for, to represent the people who elected them.

I believe that Romney made a huge mistake, here. I know a lot of moderate republicans, and a lot of middle of the road democrats who were understandably less than thrilled with Obama’s first term in office and were looking at other potential Candidates from any party. I know a lot of them who had spoken to me about Romney, specifically. Even I was looking at him towards some of his more moderate leaning social policies. That time is now over. If Romney is the republican nominee, which is becoming apparently likely, he has just alienated a large portion of his potential voters. What the republicans need to do if they have a chance is to select a candidate that is electable, and in order to be electable, you have to secure not just the vote of the religious right, but moderate or independent voters as well. Unfortunately, I think he may have lost his chance to do that. I personally don’t care about the party of the candidate I vote for, as long as I find common ground with their policies and believe them to be a good leader. Unfortunately, as of late my choice of vote has been forced to go towards the lesser of two evils. We had a country for 8 years that was run by a religious right hick. Do we really want that again? I don’t. And I believe it’s a possibility that the republican party may be willing to sacrifice the presidency in order to hold onto control of congress and the supreme court. It’s been discussed, and the way they’re heading, I see it to be a distinct possibility.

I’m disgusted by the blatant hypocrisy on both sides of the fence, the indoctrination of hate and one’s on interpretation of morality. Your beliefs tell you that something is wrong or immoral, fine. Don’t do it. But you have no right, politically or otherwise to force your morals or beliefs on me. You do not have to be a “Christian” to live in this country. We do not, despite what many may believe, live in a Theocratic or Deist country. We all have freedom here to choose our own beliefs, or to choose not to have them. Just because I may believe differently from you does not make me immoral. I have heterosexual friends that get married all the time – good for them. Their marriage does not affect my life in any way. Why should mine affect theirs? Marriage is not “under attack” or in need of protection. Protected from what? What harm will come to it? It’s marriage. It’s a legally binding contract between consenting adults, and I find it disgusting that it is legal to marry your first cousin in more states to this day than it is legal to marry your same-sex partner. This is not the way it should be. Get over it.

How would the country react, I wonder, if a large uprising of people who claimed the flying spaghetti monster told them that heterosexual sex was disgusting and all straight people should be put to death started running the country? Do y’all KNOW what Mormon’s believe? It’s a cult. Period. And because of his stance on my civil liberties, as well as his personal beliefs (I wasn’t going to go there, but if you’re going to use them to pander to the far right and dictate your political decisions, they are now open to inspection) I cannot stand the thought of him being elected. I don’t think the chance is high, actually. And do we really want someone who believes the afterlife is becoming a god on your own planet with your hundreds of wives and thousands of children sitting on the throne of the USA? Not me.