| I can’t sleep… Ever since Prop 8 passed in California, everything for the past two days has bothered me, irritated me, and made me snappy, even when the topic wasn’t related to prop 8. *Silence* Kyle: Hey what do you want to eat? Me: I don’t care… Kyle: Something wrong? Me: No *Silence* Kyle: Hey what do you want to eat? Me: I DON’T CARE!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE PEOPLE VOTED YES ON 8!!! $#!+!!! For two days, I’ve only had 4-5 hours of sleep per day due to the fact that my mind has been running a mile a minute being angry and thinking of why citizens of California, a liberal state, is against same-sex marriage as a majority? After leaving my English class on Tuesday, I started to check the polls for prop 8 every 5 to 30 minutes on the computer. I was practically glued to the computer screen with anxiety and anticipation. The website I went to was LA times to check out the rating of how many precincts have been counted for in every county. Along with the LA times’ website were some statistics of the population in each county. Slowly, as each county in California was being counted, the gaps between the yes and no on prop 8 kept fluctuating within a 3% difference through each time I clicked refresh. This process kept going from 10:30PM to around 5:30AM in the morning. Within this long period of time, I learned a lot about the people that voted on prop 8. I learned that many of the people that voted yes on prop 8 lived in counties that didn’t have more than 10% of their population per capita with a bachelors degree; work status has a difference between how people vote; of course religion that plays a major role into voting along with the types of people and age that strongly are devoted; and lastly people believing in the media. All that was listed are what is wrong with our “liberal” state of California to which could even be pushed into a country level argument as well. The reason I state that race, religion, age, media and education/work made a difference between how many people think is because the list is all correlated as an environmental influence to these people who voted yes on 8. The main reason why many people vote yes on 8 is because of race. Race plays a major role because of the environmental surroundings of particular races depending on their situation. Many Hispanic/Latino(a)s and Black/African-American/Afro-Americans that voted yes on 8 are citizens that has not gone to college to be taught some level of tolerance through civil rights as well as gotten a BA or higher. Not being taught any type of civil rights may render a person’s mind to be open-minded about other people’s rights other than their own. With less education, many of these people, as well as Asians and Caucasians, tend to just work. Statistics show that many people that work part-time are less likely to be compassionate about civil right towards others compared to people that work full-time. People that tend to work full-time usually spend most of their lives at work and are more compassionate about civil rights for themselves as well as others because they tend to see more discrimination than anywhere else. Part-time workers tend to grasp a smaller amount of understanding because most part-time workers would leave a job if they are slightly discriminated and find another job due to a lower level of loyalty then full-time workers. With higher exposure to discrimination such as many full-time workers, civil rights for same-sex marriages would be more supported because they have a higher understanding of discrimination through their experience even though same-sex marriage discrimination may be at a different level. Even though work and education plays a major role into race, another major aspect of race that influence their aspect of homosexual rights is of religion and age. Religion is one of the most powerful tools that Americans stand by, particularly religions that believe in God (not a god, the God!!! Jesus Christ, Mary, and all!!!). These religions have many types of theories to what they believe in which are almost the same. Unfortunately, many of them believe that homosexuality is a sin and that marriage is only between a man and a woman. These beliefs of marriage and homosexuality are held nationwide for the fact that around 80% of Americans are Christian. United States is basically a Christian state that says that America is the “home of the free” and also believes in “Freedom of religion.” Funny how Christian beliefs of marriage became a part of United State’s law where ONLY between a man and a woman can marry, yet a man can not marry another man, and a woman can not marry another woman. What has happened to the separation between religion and state? Why is the word and meaning of marriage an exception to that rule? With majority of the people being Christian in the United States believing that homosexuality is a sin and with the United States having the word “marriage” in as part of the law, no on prop 8 was impossible. The only hope that similar propositions like yes on prop 8 would fail is if more young people are debunked of their hardcore religious beliefs of homosexual sins through public education and older folks gaining experience of homosexual people to open their minds. Many young people tend to be open minded when going to public schools because they either meet other young students that happen to be homosexuals or are taught about homosexuality in classes such as sociology in college. Many times, hardcore Christians would frown upon these types of issues, but going to public schools opens their minds more in being less discriminative of homosexuals then they are if they didn’t experience it at all and kept to their anti-homosexual ways that was taught through childhood (religion that is influenced through family morals, resulting from parents teaching the child their religion.). For many older folks, public education is the last things on their mind. They tend to hold onto their religion, and go to work. The only hope that they could open their minds about homosexuality in a positive light is through interactions with homosexuals. Through those experiences, older folks are more likely to be open minded more so then no exposure at all. Since it is hard to convince many older folks then younger Christians that homosexual rights on marriage should be the same, the media, does not help in judgment. The Mormon Church of Latter-day Saints donated $8.1 million to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. With that money along with other supporter’s contribution, they distributed tons of flyers as well as placed an ad on yes on 8. The ad for the yes on 8 campaign gave a show telling many watchers that schools would force children to learn that they could marry the same sex as them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PgjcgqFYP4). Many people saw that as a threat to their beliefs on shielding their children about homosexuality. As a response to that ad, the no on 8 campaign responded that parents DO NOT have to have their children learn about it without consent, and teachers would not tell children that they could have a husband or wife as the same-sex as them(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIL7PUl24hE). Fear tactics has given many people that are high on family beliefs and Christians the shivers when they think about children being forced to learn about homosexuality at such a young age to which they remember over the truth. If parents are so worried about children learning about homosexuality, parents should block out TV all together, such as Ugly Betty (a family show that is shown on channel 7) with the main character’s nephew being gay, it will jeopardize their child’s mind to possibly be influenced to become a homosexual. 
Out of all the things I’ve learned through those hours that I was waiting for the final results on prop 8 before I passed out and woke up to find out for sure that prop 8 has passed, there were two main questions that I have not gotten the answers to: 1) How could minorities such as Blacks/African American/ Afro-Americans vote yes on prop 8 by 70%, and Hispanics/Latino(a)s that voted yes on prop 8 by 60%, vote for the proposition when they were the most discriminated on marital discriminations between “colored people” marrying Caucasians in the past (anti-miscegenation)( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj-0xMrsyxE); 2) How majority of Californians denied same-sex couples the right to see their “spouse/other half” in hospital visits in critical conditions. Back in 1661, Americans implemented an anti-miscegenation law for black slaves to only marry and breed within his or her own race. Up until 1901 did Japanese people came into America where Americans added them into that act as well. This meant that no one was to have babies or marry anyone other than their own race up until 1967 when the law was over-ruled in Virginia by Supreme Court under the Loving vs. Virginia case. The Loving vs. Virginia case opened up “colored-people’s” rights to interbreed with other races including Caucasians. For over 306 years, minorities fought rights to marry whomever they wanted, and succeeded over that long length in time. Why would they band rights for people of the same sex to marry each other? Do homosexuals have to wait that long for the United States of America to allow them to marry one another? As for my second unanswered question, why would the majority of Californians deny the right of two loving adults of the same sex to see each other when one of them is in a hospital bed, just because they were not married? This question phantoms me because again as a liberal state, they are denying the rights of every dying homosexual the right to see their potential husband or wife right before they die in hospitals. It would even be worse if those same sex couples adopted a child. If you were one of the homosexual parents, how could you tell your adopted child that he/she could not see his/her other father/mother because the hospital rejected you from seeing your lover? This scenario would most likely happen in many cases since most businesses’ healthcare does not cover a homosexual employee’s significant other because they are not married. Only some businesses cover a homosexual employee’s significant other if the business has a domestic partnership plan that very few have. Even though there are Civil Unions/ domestic partnership agreements, homosexuals would only gain a fraction of National benefits compared to heterosexual marriage benefits, and then you have to keep into account that not all states in America would except civil unions/ domestic partnership agreements. So please, someone tell me where the logic in discriminating against homosexuals upon marriage is right. Explain to me why the word “marriage” became a law in the United States where only between a man and a woman can marry. Tell me why it is wrong for same-sex couples to get married even though church and state are supposedly separate. Debunk my thoughts on how Christians could stop homosexuals from getting married to each other even though some of the homosexuals that would participate in same-sex marriages do not believe in the same religion, but yet we have the freedom to religion in America? Describe to me how the purpose of anti-miscegenation back in 1661 – 1967 different from the discrimination of same-sex marriages today. Finally, give me an explanation on how saving a child’s purity from the idea of homosexuality compensates for many homosexual deaths due to the lack of benefits from civil unions that would have been fully gained as a married couple, the pain of a man/woman not being able to see his/her “domestic partner” before he/she dies (keep in mind that not all states recognizes civil unions/ domestic partnerships) in hospitals, and keeping a adopted child from seeing his/her sick father/mother in their death bed because the other father/mother was rejected from seeing them in the first place? There are so many questions that are left unanswered and here I thought us as a nation that stand for freedom were in a better time, a better future, and in a better life. We don’t learn from our mistakes. Many were once discriminated, and yet, they discriminate for the exact same issues onto another. |
