Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

No on 8

I can't imagine that anyone reading this would even consider voting yes on proposition 8, the proposed constitutional amendment that would eliminate the right of certain couples to marry. Yep, some people want to prevent Catholics and protestants from getting married. Oops, wait, that was before. We're okay with that now. It's whites and blacks we don't want to let marry. Can't have that miscegenation going on. Oh, nope, that's okay too these days. So what is it that will destroy all life as we know it? Oh, yeah, same-sex marriage.

That's right. If we don't take away the rights from gays, all of the rest of us straight people will have to get divorces and take up with someone of the same gender. Because, you know, marriage is all about SEX; love isn't really all that important. That's why we can't possibly allow two men or two women who love each other to get married but we're perfectly okay with Britney Spears' marriages.

As for the bullshit argument that schools will have to teach that there are gay marriages in the world, well, yes, they should already be teaching that SINCE THERE ARE gay people in the world. Doesn't mean anyone has to like it or approve of it but kids need to know the ways of the world. Just like they should probably know that there are bad people out there or drugs or what-have-you.

Perhaps the best explanation comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit which, in a dismissal of a case regarding the use of LGBT-related books in the classroom, wrote:

"There is no free exercise right to be free from any reference in public elementary schools to the existence of families in which the parents are of different gender combinations."

"Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them."

There is no inherent right to deny others rights simply because it offends your sensibilities. Either suck it up or find somewhere else to live.

Want to know what to do? Mombian knows.