I fear for my nation
Undaunted governor of Wisconsin gives up billions in Federal highway funds to strip workers of collective bargaining rights. Balancing his budget on the backs of teachers and cops. I'm guessing the sex between him and the Koch brothers must be spectacular.
We don't really know what Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would have said about gay marriage, reproductive rights, or climate change. I would like to think that some of the finest minds of the day would have been open ones. As intelligent as these men were, they had no way of knowing what challenges the country was going to be facing 200+ years after the Constitution. That's why the Constitution was left open for amendment. That's why it's been amended 27 times.
The gouging of workers in Wisconsin has overshadowed the good news out of Hawaii and Maryland, both of whom have jumped on the marriage equality express, Hawaii approving civil unions, Maryland going for full-on marriage for gay couples. Civil unions are a step; at least gay couples get some legal rights. I know how frustrating it must be for gay people and their families, but civil union laws seem to be meeting less resistance. It's a middle way. As more kids from these families enter mainstream American life and people see that it's more important for a kid to come from a loving family regardless of their sexual orientation, I think people will eventually have to drop their prejudices just as they've had to do for children of mixed-race couples.
The Mormon church spent millions in Hawaii back in 1997, using the Catholic church as a front because opinion polls favored Catholics over Mormons. This was before all the child sex abuse scandals involving priests, of course. This article describes briefly their shenanigans. And it's no secret that the National Organization for Marriage was founded by church members. Utah Valley University's new president Matthew Holland had to give up his position at the head in order to be made president of a state-run university that harbors a gay pride club on their campus.
I think it's funny as hell that all the money that was pissed away on that campaign in Hawaii has been for naught. Reason and fairness prevail.
And the church is haemorrhaging members because of it. Missions in Europe are closing and being consolidated. I belong to a couple of ex-Mormon online communities, and many members there cite Proposition H8 as their last straw.
What worries me is I feel I live in a nation that is becoming increasingly bipolar. On the one hand, states are legalizing same-sex unions while others want to prosecute women whose pregnancies end in miscarriage. There will be no more "one nation, indivisible" nor e pluribus unum. We will return to a tribal mentality and nothing great will be accomplished ever again.
This is what happens when Big Business runs the country. Don't you love how the Tea Party people invoke the Founding Fathers at every turn, when the truth is that the Founding Fathers were mostly Deists who didn't necessarily trust corporations., not Xtian Libertarians. These men weren't "common" men, either. They were scientists, lawyers, philosophers. They were the intellectual elite of their time. Today the Tea Party base would scorn them as "eggheads."
We don't really know what Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would have said about gay marriage, reproductive rights, or climate change. I would like to think that some of the finest minds of the day would have been open ones. As intelligent as these men were, they had no way of knowing what challenges the country was going to be facing 200+ years after the Constitution. That's why the Constitution was left open for amendment. That's why it's been amended 27 times.
The gouging of workers in Wisconsin has overshadowed the good news out of Hawaii and Maryland, both of whom have jumped on the marriage equality express, Hawaii approving civil unions, Maryland going for full-on marriage for gay couples. Civil unions are a step; at least gay couples get some legal rights. I know how frustrating it must be for gay people and their families, but civil union laws seem to be meeting less resistance. It's a middle way. As more kids from these families enter mainstream American life and people see that it's more important for a kid to come from a loving family regardless of their sexual orientation, I think people will eventually have to drop their prejudices just as they've had to do for children of mixed-race couples.
The Mormon church spent millions in Hawaii back in 1997, using the Catholic church as a front because opinion polls favored Catholics over Mormons. This was before all the child sex abuse scandals involving priests, of course. This article describes briefly their shenanigans. And it's no secret that the National Organization for Marriage was founded by church members. Utah Valley University's new president Matthew Holland had to give up his position at the head in order to be made president of a state-run university that harbors a gay pride club on their campus.
I think it's funny as hell that all the money that was pissed away on that campaign in Hawaii has been for naught. Reason and fairness prevail.
And the church is haemorrhaging members because of it. Missions in Europe are closing and being consolidated. I belong to a couple of ex-Mormon online communities, and many members there cite Proposition H8 as their last straw.
What worries me is I feel I live in a nation that is becoming increasingly bipolar. On the one hand, states are legalizing same-sex unions while others want to prosecute women whose pregnancies end in miscarriage. There will be no more "one nation, indivisible" nor e pluribus unum. We will return to a tribal mentality and nothing great will be accomplished ever again.
s majorly pissed off about Reed Cowan's film "8: The Mormon Proposition," which is premiering at Sundance. What was that 
about glass houses and stones? How many faithful got sent to Canada and Mexico so they could continue to live "The Principle"? How many church leaders were jailed after 1896 when the Mormons supposedly eschewed "plural marriage" so Utah could become a state? The Mormons wrote the book on bucking the system re: "traditional marriage." 
bitchy