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Let’s take marriage out of the equation.

by cedric on Mar.11, 2009, under Human Sexuality, civil rights, love is the answer, proposition 8

In the fight for equal rights in California for same sex couples a new idea has been placed on the table. Funny thing is I and a couple of friends have talked about this before. With most religions strongly against same sex marriage the idea of taking marriage out of the constitution and putting it squarely in the realm of religion seems like the right thing to do. Thus taking religion out of the equation.

Under this new plan the state will only recognize civil unions and all religious marriage ceremonies will only be recognized by the church but not state law. In other words you need to register your civil union with the state and if you want to get married in the church it will only be valid if you have a registered civil union. That will take religion out of the equation and make it a non-religious issue. That will make all of those who chose to have a civil union equal under the law.

Under this new plan it will not effect current marriages. They will be grand fathered in and not effected. Only new civil unions and new marriages will be effected by this change. It makes sense to me and anyone who has an issue with that is clearly against equal rights for all. The term marriage will no longer be a recognized legal term any longer in the state. The church will no longer have a role in state policy. The seperataion of church and state is already a part of the constitution.

Civil Union recognized by the state.

Marriage recognized by the church

Civil Union + marriage in church recognized by the state

Simple problem solved. Common sense over rules hate.

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Keith Oberman’s comment on MSNBC

by cedric on Nov.11, 2008, under Gay Pride, Human Sexuality, brent Everett, hate, proposition 8

I was going through my blog roll and popped over to Brent’s blog, no not that Brent the other Brent the one who just got married and his husband is celebrating a birthday, Scorpios rule. I read a moving post by him and saw a video by Keith Oberman of MSNBC which must of made anyone who supported the passage of proposition H8 feel like a total hypocrite. He laid it out there and made it perfectly clear that to deny anyone there rights is wrong. Not just in the eyes of those who were wronged but on so many other levels. I have said it all along that this really not about Marriage but the right to love and to have that love respected by the law of the land.

What he said totally moved me and inspired me to write this post and I think we should thank him and let him know that we really appreciate what he did for everyone, not just us. We can not let those who hate win this fight. Their hate will consume them and we should use love to win this fight. The reason we have a new President is because of the hate that George Bush represented. It is through the hate he fostered that has us in the sad financial situation we are currently in. It is George Bush’s hate that has the standing of America so low in the eyes of the rest of the world.

It was George Bush’s hate speak to us as Americans that made it possible for this amendment to pass. George Bush campaigned on this issue 4 years ago and his legacy will be that he divided this country. I for one will not sit here and let him do that. This is not a religious issue any more this is a issue that is more personal than that. This is a civil rights issue and just like we got the “Jim Crow laws” overturned we shall get this one overturned as well. The United States Constitution does not allow for this type of law to be passed. This will go to the United States Supreme Court and it will be overturned for the entire country. And all citizens will have the same rights. If they have to take marriage out of the Constitution and rewrite the laws it will happen.

This little act of selfishness will cause a backlash that those who voted for the ban will have never expected. Their very own marriages stand a good chance of being outlawed in favor for a more inclusive one. This country can not tolerate anymore segregation and discrimination especially in the eyes of God. God is love and God does not divide people. People do that themselves. To think that the word of some who claim that they have been spoken to by God and claim that they were told that it was OK to hate, is in my opinion blasphemy. They are using the name of God in vain. When you go to Church do you worship your Paster or do you worship your God?

I have personally been to far to many churches where the pastor stands at his pulpit and preaches hate in the name of God. My question to all of you who supported the passage of that hate bill is what are you scared of? All we want is the same right to love as you. Is it our love that scares you? You claim that we have an agenda. You seem to have the idea that we want to convert your children to be gay. Well the truth is you are the ones who are raising gay children. You are the ones who disown your gay child because they are gay. You are the ones who want to oppose your will on us yet you seem to think that we are the bad ones. You are so wrong on so many levels. You are just plain wrong!

This is Elmysterio and I’m out

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Election day 2008

by cedric on Nov.05, 2008, under Barack Obama, John McCain, bigotry, civil rights, mathew staver, new president, proposition 8

Yesterday was my birthday and all I wanted was a new President and for proposition 8 to fail. I spent the evening with my family and some great friends and we watched the election results. We were channel surfing between CNN and the local affiliate and we decided to go and see what the FOX news network had to say about it. We knew that Barack Obama would win but we were totally shocked at how soon it was called. And the network that called it was FOX. Well we were all stunned by what we saw. The FOX News Network had called it even before the California polls had closed.

Now from all of the reports that were flying around and the exit polls and such we knew it would be a close race but we were stunned. It is really funny because we did not know what to think. Is this real? Fox was fucking with us. IT WAS REAL, the phone then started to ring off the hook and text messages were coming in fast and furious. The United States had just made history. We had just elected our first black President. My hopes for a better future were realized. Barack Hussein Obama is the first black President and the youngest president ever elected to office. Barack the son of a black man from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas embodies the true American.

We are a melting pot and Barack is truly Representative of that. It is this that makes America beautiful. Now there was also a sadness to the evening as well. Proposition 8 was passed which cast a small shadow over the whole evening. So just to give you a little history did you know that in some states that when Barack was born it was illegal for a black man to marry a white woman? Yes in some states the new President Elects parents were not allowed to marry, this law was not repealed until 1967.

Just ten years before that my parents got married in Texas. On there trip back to California they had to sleep in their car because they were not allowed to stay in a hotel unless it was black owned. They were not allowed to go to the Casinos in Las Vegas.
Yes the world was a different place in 1957 it was just 2 short years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus.

This was before Lydon Johnson signed into place the Civil Rights act of 1964. It was a new world no more separate but equal. The south just had not received the message yet. The year before Doctor Martin Luther king.jr gave his great address during the March on Washington. In 1965 the voting rights act was past.

Now in 1964 we drove across country to visit my grand parents in Texas I was a small 5 year old child then and we still could not stay at just any hotel and we did sleep in the car and we ate there as well. My parents told us that we would have a picnic and we would eat our breakfast on the tailgate of the station wagon at a roadside rest area. Because we could not go to just any restaurant and eat. My parents tried to shelter me and my brothers and sisters from the hate that they grew up with but even as a small child I could see things were different in Texas. There were no white kids at my cousins school but they lived in the neighborhood. Her school was still segregated.

My point with this is that some narrow minded people have just voted to pass a law in California that discriminates. Under some blind religious ideology that marriage is just for a man and a woman. They claim that Gay people are trying to destroy the sanctity of marriage. If two people love each other they have to be a man and a woman to get married. That my friends is bullshit and it discriminates. They think that people who are the same sex will destroy the American family. Little do they realize that they just did just that by passing that law.

Marriage is and has always been a way to spend your life with someone that you love. To show that you are committed to that person. But it is also about rights. Now if you want to out law marriage for people of the same sex that is fine by me but I will be damned if you try to take away my right to be with the person I love. So to this I say fuck marriage you can have it because I have just come up with something that is better than marriage.

Civil unions: yes they will have all of the same rights and protections as a standard marriage and it is not against the law for ignorant and bigoted people to join in on the fun. So since the word Marriage is so sacred it will now be only used in religious ceremonies and the state will no longer sponsor them or recognize them as legal. When gay marriage is baned so is all state sponsored marriage. All marriages that were performed before the ban will be grandfathered in but any new marriages are only recognized by the church and not the state.

You will have to get a civil union license to receive protection under the law. You can not have it both ways you can not take away the rights of people under the name of a church and expect to have protection by the government. Marriage you can have it but we are going to get what we want and you can not stop us. We want our rights and you can not legislate that way from us not in the 21st century. These people are pissed that your lies and scare tactics did not work this time too win them the White House.
Their hate showed in there faces when McCain made his concession speech. You Booed Obama, McCain handled that remarkably well and I was proud of John McCain he was pure grace. I think on his trip through America McCain realized just how fucked up some of the people who supported him really were.

You showed a side of America that I was hoping was dead and buried but it lives in your hate and bigotry. So you can learn to live with us and we can all be happy or you can hide behind your false god who stands at the pulpit of your little fundamentalist church and go to hell with him for blasphemy. Yes using the name of God to spread hate is a sin. God is the only one who can judge a person not you. So if heaven is your goal then I say repent.

This is Elmysterio and I’m out

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The reasoning behind proposition 8 is flawed.

by cedric on Oct.30, 2008, under Gay, Gay Pride, california, civil rights, proposition 8

The idea that gay marriage will destroy the family structure is wrong. A man and a woman are not the only thing that makes a family. The family dynamic is based on love and trust and compassion. With more single parents raising children now and most of them are doing an excellent job I might add does not bode well for those who say that gay marriage will destroy a family.

Just like I do not believe that a man should be able to tell a woman not to have a abortion. I do not think that someone should be able to tell me who to love. The basis behind this proposition is to change the Constitution of California and to allow this group of people to legally discriminate. What is wrong with this picture.

The facts are clear why so many are opposed to gay marriage. They feel threatened by gay people and the fact that two people of the same sex can love each other disturbs them. Most people think that being gay is about sex. They also think that being gay is a choice they could not be more wrong. Why in gods name would anyone want to go against what they are taught from day one? To be different? Different is dying your hair blond when you are a brunette or getting a Mohawk hair cut or a tattoo.

Gay is not a choice or a life style. We just are, so I guess the rest of the world will just have to deal with it. The definition of a family is not as clear cut as it was once thought. If there is love and compassion that makes a family.The idea that two gay people would raise a gay child is as absurd as the notion of denying us the right to marry is.The fact is most gay children come from heterosexual families and that can not be denied.Gay people are gay because they are born that way. We are not made gay and you can not make a person gay.

Sex with a person of the same sex does not make you gay it just makes you adventurous or super horny. I really don’t get the big deal about gay men wanting to have sex with straight men. What is the point? Don’t get me wrong I love men, I find them sexy and fun but the idea of a straight guy is not a big turn on for me. I want a man who is as much turned on by me as I am by him so that pretty much excludes straight men because they want woman and I appreciate them for that.

I say keep the church out of the constitution and let the state deal with the laws. If you want to get married in a church that’s fine but the church should not try and set public policy. The laws are written by the state and they are set in place to protect us and they should not be there to segregate us. I say equal rights for all citizens and I do mean all of US. Protect civil rights and vote no on proposition 8

This is Elmysterio and I’m out.