Why is it that you are "sticking up for Family Values" when you rail against gays getting married or adopting, YET, when we question how you can be a Family Values candidate after 2 divorces - we are the ones on the attcak?
How come you shout and scream that Family Values are paramount, YET, when we're questioning a value you've imposed on your family, we're on the attack? You put it out there.
How come Family Values means putting value on a family, YET, you want to destroy so many loving LGBT families?
How come you can quote Family Values as a reason for denying Marriage Equality, yet when we try and point out, that it's because of Family Values that we want to get married and raise kids we're taking things out of context?
How can you say that you are for Family Values and want to "defend marriage," YET only want to keep the LGBT community from getting married? You're not doing anything to outlaw divorces. I mean, we know I'm a slick, NYC liberal, so I might have this wrong, but I think divorce is doing more harm to traditional marriage than the loving gays that want that right.
How can you say you are for Family Values, yet want to cut public assistance? You do know that military families rely on food stamps at twice the rate of civilians? You do know that that assistance is what is helping some families stay afloat during these trying economic times, right? If you cut those programs, you would be hurting those families. How is that Family Values?
How can you say your are for Family Values and not support a woman's right to chose, but then demonize and demean her if she does get an abortion OR if she keeps the child and raises it as a single parent, outside your Family Values? She's in a no win situation.
How can you say you are for Family Values, YET, you try and force YOUR religious beliefs down everyone else's throat? Don't all families have the right to determine their own religion? Or did you mean that only if they chose yours?
How can I have been the product of a traditional family, full of the
Family Values you espouse, yet I'm demonized by you now as a threat to
society?
How can you say you are for Family Values at all?
Showing posts with label marriage equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage equality. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2012
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Disappointment
There's a great line in the movie The American President that I absolutely love. It comes as Annette Bening's character is searching frantically for a sweater that is her sister's that she thought she's left at the White House. After searching and not finding it she utters:
"Oh, fuck the sweater! She'll have to learn to live with disappointment!"
I'm feeling a bit disappointed these days. New York is on the verge of voting on a bill that would give gay couples the right to marry. Marriage Equality is a big fight. I am on the side that says, we should all have the right to be married. I don't have a partner, I don't even have a boyfriend...I don't know that I would want to get married right now if I did, but I HATE being told I don't have the right to based purely on my sexual orientation. I pay taxes just like every other citizen of New York. I don't pay any less based on the rights I don't have. I pay the same amount as any other male NY'er that makes my salary and happens to be straight. I am denied over 1100 rights, that he gets just by signing a marriage license. A license that is state issued - not issued by the church. I am not asking for ANY church or religion to sanctify gay marriage. But churches and religions are not the ones issuing marriage licenses, the state does that. I AM asking the state to recognize me and treat me as an equal.
I have always lived my life so that I am not a disappointment to my parents...I tried very hard not to be. I don't believe, deep down that I am, but I do know that I disappointed them. I know that as the first born there was an expectation for grandchildren...that they got later thanks to my brother and now sister. I know that having a gay son is not what was on their list of expectations - but it's the hand they got dealt. I know that I am loved and that they are not fundamentally disappointed in me. I know that my father would rather change the liberal democrat in me than the gay...these are things that I should be really happy about. I'm disappointed though because I can't get my father to see me as an equal citizen. I can't get my father to understand that by not having marriage rights, I am, in fact sitting at the back of the bus. I don't know what else to do to help him understand that, and I'm at a loss to proceed. I am disappointed about that. I wonder, since I can't even get my father to understand this, how do I get politicians? I am disappointed that if this were my sister and she were fighting for the right to marry her husband and the law said they couldn't because they were not the same race, my father would be out there leading the charge on her behalf...I am disappointed that he doesn't see the parallel.
I am disappointed that a state as large as NY does not already have Marriage Equality. I am disappointed that the Republican Senate is holding the vote hostage. I am disappointed that when I called and asked why a vote had not be scheduled, I was told that if I were going to be argumentative the conversation would be ended, simply for asking why a vote on marriage equality had not been scheduled this session. No more, no less. A thoughtful and appropriate question, asked in a polite and dignified manner, yet considered argumentative by the office manager of NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Disappointed that said Office Manager let his bias and prejudice dictate his response to my legitimate question rather than treat me like a human being and not a second class citizen who's opinion didn't matter.
Fuck it...I guess I'll just have to learn to live with disappointment.
"Oh, fuck the sweater! She'll have to learn to live with disappointment!"
I'm feeling a bit disappointed these days. New York is on the verge of voting on a bill that would give gay couples the right to marry. Marriage Equality is a big fight. I am on the side that says, we should all have the right to be married. I don't have a partner, I don't even have a boyfriend...I don't know that I would want to get married right now if I did, but I HATE being told I don't have the right to based purely on my sexual orientation. I pay taxes just like every other citizen of New York. I don't pay any less based on the rights I don't have. I pay the same amount as any other male NY'er that makes my salary and happens to be straight. I am denied over 1100 rights, that he gets just by signing a marriage license. A license that is state issued - not issued by the church. I am not asking for ANY church or religion to sanctify gay marriage. But churches and religions are not the ones issuing marriage licenses, the state does that. I AM asking the state to recognize me and treat me as an equal.
I have always lived my life so that I am not a disappointment to my parents...I tried very hard not to be. I don't believe, deep down that I am, but I do know that I disappointed them. I know that as the first born there was an expectation for grandchildren...that they got later thanks to my brother and now sister. I know that having a gay son is not what was on their list of expectations - but it's the hand they got dealt. I know that I am loved and that they are not fundamentally disappointed in me. I know that my father would rather change the liberal democrat in me than the gay...these are things that I should be really happy about. I'm disappointed though because I can't get my father to see me as an equal citizen. I can't get my father to understand that by not having marriage rights, I am, in fact sitting at the back of the bus. I don't know what else to do to help him understand that, and I'm at a loss to proceed. I am disappointed about that. I wonder, since I can't even get my father to understand this, how do I get politicians? I am disappointed that if this were my sister and she were fighting for the right to marry her husband and the law said they couldn't because they were not the same race, my father would be out there leading the charge on her behalf...I am disappointed that he doesn't see the parallel.
I am disappointed that a state as large as NY does not already have Marriage Equality. I am disappointed that the Republican Senate is holding the vote hostage. I am disappointed that when I called and asked why a vote had not be scheduled, I was told that if I were going to be argumentative the conversation would be ended, simply for asking why a vote on marriage equality had not been scheduled this session. No more, no less. A thoughtful and appropriate question, asked in a polite and dignified manner, yet considered argumentative by the office manager of NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Disappointed that said Office Manager let his bias and prejudice dictate his response to my legitimate question rather than treat me like a human being and not a second class citizen who's opinion didn't matter.
Fuck it...I guess I'll just have to learn to live with disappointment.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Modern Hypocrisy Problem
That is not to say that Hypocrisy is a new problem, or even a modern one. I dare say its as old as time itself. It just has new ramifications in modern society, ones that it didn't have even 10 or 15 years ago.
It used to be you made a public statement, it got reported and we moved on to a different news story. Years later, when you were running for public office, someone in your opponents camp would have to remember your former statement - know it could be used against you and then be able to commit to doing the leg work to find said statement in back copies of the newspaper - and be able to find it. That took work, and a good memory for details.
Now, you make a statement and its in the public record, in sound bytes and 30 second clips on news websites and on the blogosphere. There is no forgetting it, and there is no trouble tracking it down. A quick Google search and you can yield amazing results. I think that people tend to forget that. Because they're not used to the modern age, don't use modern technology, or just think that they can spin anything at a later date.
Let's take the Marriage Equality issue as an example. Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage frequently say that marriage is only between a man and a woman, because, in essence, marriage is for procreation purposes only. So, Maggie, only married couples can reproduce? I am not a straight man, but I do remember my biology, and nowhere in biology class when we discussed procreation was there a caveat that you can only reproduce if you're in a marriage. In fact, if that were the case, wouldn't the abortion rate in this country be lower than it is? That would no longer be a wedge issue.
More importantly Maggie Gallagher, if you truly believe the words you speak, how come your own son was born out of wedlock? How come you have sinned and been divorced twice? More importantly, your current marriage wouldn't have been legal without Civil Rights decisions from eons past as you're currently married to a man that is not the same race as you.
Where were you to protest the wedding of Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris?. CLEARLY this was not a union that would produce children, which as you've cited time and tired time again is the only reason for marriage and why marriage can only be between a man and a woman. You didn't offer one word of condemnation at this un-holy union and how it would clearly violate the sanctity of marriage and threaten your own marriage. Things you claim that Marriage Equality will do.
The real problem with modern hypocrisy is that it comes back to bite you in the ass. You can't have it both ways Maggie, and since marriage is only for the procreation of children you should have been out in public loudly shouting and protesting Hef's wedding at the top of your lungs for the same reasons you're protesting Gay Marriage. The problem is that you don't care if Hef gets married to someone 40 years younger, as long as he's marrying a woman. You don't care that it goes against the same tenets you claim to hold dear. Why? Because you don't believe any of them truly. You just hate the LGBT community and will do anything to keep them second class citizens.
Here's where your hypocrisy bites you in your sizable ass Maggie. Until you start shouting at the top of your lungs against marriages that take place in retirement homes (clearly low chance of procreation there) or marriages that have produced no offspring (the sole reason for marriage, as you claim, remember) you can't possibly hope to be taken seriously. If you're going to spout facts, bring it. Realize that you are going to be accountable, and now, more than ever before in history it is really easy to find out which side you fall on. The rights you so take for granted, to be able to marry the man you love, for example, are the rights you are shouting at the top of your lungs to deny others. Hypocrite much? Let's not even get into the finance issues that surround NOM and where you get your funding.
Get the F*$K out of my state, go home to your husband and enjoy the fact that it's legal for you to marry him and love him openly and publicly. That you have over 1100 rights just by signing your marriage license with him. 1100+ rights you are trying to deny other loving couples, purely because they are different from you! I wonder where you would stand on this issue if we were in the 1960's and you were fighting for the right to marry the man you love. HMMMM, don't have a good answer for that one, do you hypocrite?
It used to be you made a public statement, it got reported and we moved on to a different news story. Years later, when you were running for public office, someone in your opponents camp would have to remember your former statement - know it could be used against you and then be able to commit to doing the leg work to find said statement in back copies of the newspaper - and be able to find it. That took work, and a good memory for details.
Now, you make a statement and its in the public record, in sound bytes and 30 second clips on news websites and on the blogosphere. There is no forgetting it, and there is no trouble tracking it down. A quick Google search and you can yield amazing results. I think that people tend to forget that. Because they're not used to the modern age, don't use modern technology, or just think that they can spin anything at a later date.
Let's take the Marriage Equality issue as an example. Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage frequently say that marriage is only between a man and a woman, because, in essence, marriage is for procreation purposes only. So, Maggie, only married couples can reproduce? I am not a straight man, but I do remember my biology, and nowhere in biology class when we discussed procreation was there a caveat that you can only reproduce if you're in a marriage. In fact, if that were the case, wouldn't the abortion rate in this country be lower than it is? That would no longer be a wedge issue.
More importantly Maggie Gallagher, if you truly believe the words you speak, how come your own son was born out of wedlock? How come you have sinned and been divorced twice? More importantly, your current marriage wouldn't have been legal without Civil Rights decisions from eons past as you're currently married to a man that is not the same race as you.
Where were you to protest the wedding of Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris?. CLEARLY this was not a union that would produce children, which as you've cited time and tired time again is the only reason for marriage and why marriage can only be between a man and a woman. You didn't offer one word of condemnation at this un-holy union and how it would clearly violate the sanctity of marriage and threaten your own marriage. Things you claim that Marriage Equality will do.
The real problem with modern hypocrisy is that it comes back to bite you in the ass. You can't have it both ways Maggie, and since marriage is only for the procreation of children you should have been out in public loudly shouting and protesting Hef's wedding at the top of your lungs for the same reasons you're protesting Gay Marriage. The problem is that you don't care if Hef gets married to someone 40 years younger, as long as he's marrying a woman. You don't care that it goes against the same tenets you claim to hold dear. Why? Because you don't believe any of them truly. You just hate the LGBT community and will do anything to keep them second class citizens.
Here's where your hypocrisy bites you in your sizable ass Maggie. Until you start shouting at the top of your lungs against marriages that take place in retirement homes (clearly low chance of procreation there) or marriages that have produced no offspring (the sole reason for marriage, as you claim, remember) you can't possibly hope to be taken seriously. If you're going to spout facts, bring it. Realize that you are going to be accountable, and now, more than ever before in history it is really easy to find out which side you fall on. The rights you so take for granted, to be able to marry the man you love, for example, are the rights you are shouting at the top of your lungs to deny others. Hypocrite much? Let's not even get into the finance issues that surround NOM and where you get your funding.
Get the F*$K out of my state, go home to your husband and enjoy the fact that it's legal for you to marry him and love him openly and publicly. That you have over 1100 rights just by signing your marriage license with him. 1100+ rights you are trying to deny other loving couples, purely because they are different from you! I wonder where you would stand on this issue if we were in the 1960's and you were fighting for the right to marry the man you love. HMMMM, don't have a good answer for that one, do you hypocrite?
Monday, May 16, 2011
I just can't...
I've had it with the lies and the bullshit surrounding the Marriage Debate.
Hey...Brian Brown - you Horse's Ass. I have a very good understanding of the separation of Church and State. I understand that you have the right to define marriage within the walls of your church...since there is a separation of Church and State, however, your religion does NOT have the right to define what civil marriage is. I am not asking to get married in your church, so stop telling me I don't understand the separation of Church and State and that I am violating your rights by trying to define marriage.
By the way, you're lying about us hating on the religious folks. We didn't shut down adoption agencies because we hate. The truth is those agencies were funded by states with non-discrimination clauses that said in order to get funding they had to not discriminate. They chose to close rather than allow same sex couples to adopt...we didn't shut them down because we hate them...they were shut down because they hate us, just like this pastor. Yes...religion...all about love!
Just sayin...
Hey...Brian Brown - you Horse's Ass. I have a very good understanding of the separation of Church and State. I understand that you have the right to define marriage within the walls of your church...since there is a separation of Church and State, however, your religion does NOT have the right to define what civil marriage is. I am not asking to get married in your church, so stop telling me I don't understand the separation of Church and State and that I am violating your rights by trying to define marriage.
By the way, you're lying about us hating on the religious folks. We didn't shut down adoption agencies because we hate. The truth is those agencies were funded by states with non-discrimination clauses that said in order to get funding they had to not discriminate. They chose to close rather than allow same sex couples to adopt...we didn't shut them down because we hate them...they were shut down because they hate us, just like this pastor. Yes...religion...all about love!
Just sayin...
Thursday, December 3, 2009
I'm not paying 100% of my state taxes anymore!
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Before I begin my Abolish Seafood Law, I have another important matter to discuss.
I'd like to know, officially, what percentage of a New York State citizen I am. It's not 100% since I don't have all the rights that heterosexual citizens of the state do. I ask, because, in this fiscally challenged world we live in, I'm trying to eliminate expenses. Since I'm not 100% a citizen, I don't think I should have to pay 100% of my New York State taxes until I am. So, Senator - what percent of a citizen of this once great state am I? Answer that carefully. If you think I should have to pay 100% of my state taxes, then you should have given me 100% of the rights I deserve. Until then, I think it only fair that I pay a portion of my taxes, and YOU can figure out how to balance the state budget!
Since we are voting on the way people can and cannot live their lives, and we are using the Bible as our platform, here's my proposal. Since you believe in the Bible, and used that as your rationale for voting against the Same Sex Marriage Bill, I'd like you to introduce a bill that would make catching, serving or merely eating seafood illegal.
The "Moral Majority" or the "Christian Right" is putting my rights on the voting block and telling America that the Bible says Homosexuality is a sin, and that we homosexuals aren't deserving of the same rights and protections as everyone else. They frequently reference Leviticus as their claim that homosexuality is against God. (even though, it should be pointed out that God is about love, but we won't go there.)
In that same book, Leviticus, comes the verse: “Anything living in the water that does not have fins or scales is to be detestable to you” (Leviticus 11:12) If we are to believe the Moral Majority and the Christian Right and are citing Leviticus as our rule of law, then, seriously, let's have at it! If we, truly are waging wars against the sin and depravity in this nation, then let's wage that war against all of it. Seafood is out! Sorry. Simply has to go! Hope you aren't too attached to those lobsters - you simply can't eat them!
I say we put it to a vote. Let's make it a referendum, state by state to take seafood off of America's table! You can lead the charge and start it all off here in New York. You've already helped to prove that Iowa is more progressive than we are, so let's set the state back even further.
Let's advocate kicking the crap out of anyone who eats seafood. You could preach a sermon about it! Caught leaving a seafood restaurant? Well, you will have to worry that the angry mob is going to move in, call you a seafood lover and kick the crap out of you so badly you're left in the intensive care unit. Your family and friends, crying by your bedside will utter the same old statements we hear all the time, he was a good boy, going about his life, he just wanted a little seafood, he shouldn't have to die because of that.
And they'd be correct. You shouldn't have to die because you love seafood. You shouldn't have to worry that you might be beat up by an angry mob leaving a seafood restaurant or a sushi bar. You shouldn't have Bible verses thrown in your face daily and be told you're a sinner. You know what, neither should I. Neither should my friends. If we are going to really use the Bible as our platform, then let's use it as they say we should, as the rule of law for our life. We don't get to pick and chose the parts we like anymore. That's not how the game is played.
We either take all of it as "law" or we accept that it is a book that was written as a guideline for living life, as life existed, centuries ago. If we are willing to admit that times and attitudes have changed about seafood, then, we must be willing to admit that times and attitudes are changing about other things in the Bible, and then not cart out the same old crap as a defense for our fears of difference.
We must not pick and chose. It's all or nothing, and I'm sorry, but that means your teenage daughter can be sold into slavery at an early age and any woman that commits adultery is getting stoned in the town square.
If you don't think I should be voting on your right to put seafood on your table, stop telling people that they can vote on my right to love! I don't care what you do in your kitchen - why should you care what I do in my bedroom????!!!!!???
Questionable NY State Citizen,
Greg Petruska
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Duplicity...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." - The Declaration of Independence.
When I was in college, I took an American Colonial History course. It was taught by a new professor at the school (he's now a Dean) and I was actually interested in the course because the focus was on colonial times, and we would be looking at the Salem witch trials. Anyway, one of the books on the reading list was, American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan. I don't remember when during the semester we read the book, I just remember that we read it.
The central premise of the book was that while America was fighting for its own freedom from the tyrannical rule of England, we were, in fact enslaving thousands and thousands of Africans. We were fighting for liberty, justice, happiness (or at least the right to pursue it) and freedom. So, how could we not recognize the injustice and lack of humanity we were putting fellow humans through? Every second, minute, hour and day that we fought for freedom we were simultaneously denying other humans liberty and dignity every second, minute, hour and day. American Freedom became based on race. What happened to all men are created equal? I see nothing about race in that statement above.
American Freedom today is based on sexual orientation, and again, we are having debate over separate yet equal. If you are not straight, you are not a real citizen. You are not entitled to all the rights and privileges that come with citizenship. You can pay taxes, but not be granted the same rights (gee that sounds vaguely familiar...oh wait, that is why our country was founded, that's right). You can be fired from your job if you're gay or lesbian. You cannot get married everywhere (civil or otherwise). In fact, our federal government actually says, through DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) that marriage is between a man and a woman. You cannot adopt or foster children in some parts of the country. Hell, in some places you can't even walk down the street without fear of being attacked if you're openly gay. Again, I ask, what happened to all men are created equal? I see nothing about only heterosexual men in the statement from the Declaration of Independence above.
How can a nation that fought so hard for its independence from tyranny, that wants so desperately to be the standard bearer for democracy and equality still be treating segments of its citizenry so poorly? How can the rest of the world take us seriously when we talk about equality if we can't even treat our own citizens equally? How can we have learned some lessons, but not others when the standard is equality? How can our Bill of Rights guarantee a separation of church and state, but when it comes to marriage equality, we have to look to religion before we enact law?
Is it our innocence or ignorance as a nation that makes us so duplicitous?
When I was in college, I took an American Colonial History course. It was taught by a new professor at the school (he's now a Dean) and I was actually interested in the course because the focus was on colonial times, and we would be looking at the Salem witch trials. Anyway, one of the books on the reading list was, American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan. I don't remember when during the semester we read the book, I just remember that we read it.
The central premise of the book was that while America was fighting for its own freedom from the tyrannical rule of England, we were, in fact enslaving thousands and thousands of Africans. We were fighting for liberty, justice, happiness (or at least the right to pursue it) and freedom. So, how could we not recognize the injustice and lack of humanity we were putting fellow humans through? Every second, minute, hour and day that we fought for freedom we were simultaneously denying other humans liberty and dignity every second, minute, hour and day. American Freedom became based on race. What happened to all men are created equal? I see nothing about race in that statement above.
American Freedom today is based on sexual orientation, and again, we are having debate over separate yet equal. If you are not straight, you are not a real citizen. You are not entitled to all the rights and privileges that come with citizenship. You can pay taxes, but not be granted the same rights (gee that sounds vaguely familiar...oh wait, that is why our country was founded, that's right). You can be fired from your job if you're gay or lesbian. You cannot get married everywhere (civil or otherwise). In fact, our federal government actually says, through DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) that marriage is between a man and a woman. You cannot adopt or foster children in some parts of the country. Hell, in some places you can't even walk down the street without fear of being attacked if you're openly gay. Again, I ask, what happened to all men are created equal? I see nothing about only heterosexual men in the statement from the Declaration of Independence above.
How can a nation that fought so hard for its independence from tyranny, that wants so desperately to be the standard bearer for democracy and equality still be treating segments of its citizenry so poorly? How can the rest of the world take us seriously when we talk about equality if we can't even treat our own citizens equally? How can we have learned some lessons, but not others when the standard is equality? How can our Bill of Rights guarantee a separation of church and state, but when it comes to marriage equality, we have to look to religion before we enact law?
Is it our innocence or ignorance as a nation that makes us so duplicitous?
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