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| So, Idaho is going to vote on an amendment to rewrite the Constitution of the state, to make it so that same-sex partners cannot marry. This amendment would also ban recognition of civil unions or any relationship like that. The end result would actually even effect heterosexuals. The only relationship that the government will recognize between any people will be a heterosexual marriage. Interestingly enough, this had a powerful effect in Ohio, where an identical amendment was passed. A man beat his girlfriend, and because they lived together, it would have been charged as felony domestic battery. However, this "gay marriage ban" was passed, and even though the average person thinks of it as a simple move to prevent the right of gay marriage from being given to the homosexuals, it hurts heterosexual women too! This amendment took away the definition of "family" from this couple, so the woman couldn't file domestic violence lawsuits! That means that unmarried women, and gays/lesbians are crushed by these amendments that are being easily passed in many states across the U.S. I'm not going to cover more about that for now, but here's a link to a blog site: http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/03/when_grandstand.html
And here's a link to a news article: http://feministing.com/archives/005122.html Another thing I've been thinking about is the gay marriage amendment's biggest supporters: the Christian Church. I don't know where the Church is getting this from, but Jesus never taught discrimination. Jesus taught free will, love, and peace. Not dissension, hatred, and bigotry, which seems to be the Church's driving force. Okay, fine...I'll be fair...not all Christians "hate" gays, and some Christians are against this hateful amendment. But for those who are, let's take a look at the Christian's best argument, "The Family Life." It's been proven that children are raised the best in a family with a mom and a dad. We all would agree with that, wouldn't we? The Church gives us this message all the time: "Don't ruin the sanctity of marriage. Don't destroy the family and what it stands for." Did you know that divorce is one of the most crushing things a child can go through? That's obvious. But, did you also know that divorce, if it happens at a certain age in a child's life, can cause extremely serious emotional, mental, and sexual problems (mostly women) later in life? No, I'm not talking depression. I'm talking serious stuff. We can't let these children get hurt! I totally agree with the Church! Let's see how the upright Christians are doing, fighting off the evils of divorce, shall we? Here's a list of the divorce rate among different Christian denominations: - Non-denominational (small conservative groups; independents) 34%
- Baptists 29%
- Mainline Protestants 25%
- Mormons 24%
- Catholics 21%
- Lutherans 21%
(Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm) Man, it sure looks like those Christians are doing well! At best, you could bet on only 1/5 people from your local church being divorced. Don't you just love the example they're giving us? The problem is, they're not displaying loyalty, love, or any of the good characteristics we should expect to see from one of the most preachy organizations. They're displaying hypocrisy, plain and simple. "The gays can't get married because of the children, but we can get divorces at a percentage not much lower than the national rate." It's almost like a big "screw you" to the children they supposedly want to protect. Now, forgive me, because I know some divorces are a horrible process, and some are a last resort, and I offer my sympathy to those victims. But these percentages are inexcusable. Another thing that I can't understand is the way that these Christians think that banning gay marriage will somehow prevent gays from living together, or commiting the act of *gasp* gay sex *gasp*. No one can control who does it and who doesn't. You do know that sex among minors is illegal, right? Guess what happens thousands of times everyday among our high school students? Gays live together, and there's nothing we can do to make that illegal. People can also adopt children, which means that (in some states) a gay couple can adopt a child and raise him or her. There's no legal commitment in a simple relationship, however, which means that gay marriage being banned just promotes children to be raised without any legal recognition of the couple. So, I could leave my boyfriend with no hassle, and the kid will be struck with the same effect as a divorce...how ironic! How stupid! Opponents of gay marriage fail to recognize the horrible effects of denying even civil unions. If my gay partner is dying in the hospital, I can't visit him. Insurance claims, inheritence, all this is messed up without civil unions. If you don't want gay marriage to be legalized, you don't have your opinion maturely formed yet. But if you deny them civil unions, you are a cruel fool. If you vote to pass this amendment, you are a tool that has been mislead by mislead sources. Even if you're the biggest homo-hating, hetero-supremacist in all the States, voting to pass this amendment will hurt straight couples too. Vote "no." | | |
| Today's entry isn't going to focus on Bush, or Democrats, or anything else, but rather the War in Iraq, and how it is an imperialistic, economic, brutal campaign.
First off, I want to commend all of the brainwashed men and women serving our country, and giving their lives, thinking, with their last, dying breath, that an entire country has benefited from their service.
I might be mistaken, but I think that at least half of the people who come here to read this will come with the attitude of: "War is hell. However, the War in Iraq is a neccesary war. We are doing what's right."
Some others might come with my attitude: "War is hell. We shouldn't wage war to gain peace, especially on an innocent country like Iraq."
I'm sure a couple of others might show up with the attitude of: "It's payback for 911! KILL 'EM ALL!" Well, sorry to break it to you, but we're not here to quote Metallica album names (if I quote anyone it will probably be Justin Sane).
When we invaded Iraq, way back when the Bush Administration had us all caught up into a scare-fest about terror, we attacked the country on the premise of WMD. We were told by Cheney, Rove, Rice, Wolfawitz, Rumsfeld, even Bush himself, they knew where they were. Exactly where they were.
After months of war, needless to say, we didn't find them. The Bush Administration started to change their story up a little bit, then a lot. It moved from "we know exactly where they are" to "we know the approxamite location." Before you Bush fans start saying things like "Well, it's impossible to tell the exact location of something," I agree. Therefore, why did the BA tell us they knew exactly where they were? Were they lieing? (Oh, and one more thing...I don't want to hear ANYTHING about Bush's religion in my comment box. Or about how his religion would keep him from lieing. Thank you.)
The Bush fans started to change their story, as well. When asked about the goal of the war, it went from "We need to disarm Hussain" to "We need to bring democracy to the nation." The Bush fans wanted to have faith in their Republican candidate, so they changed the reason for invading Iraq. They told themselves a lie, just so they could see Bush in a positive light.
Well, I'm going to wake you up, if you've done this horrible thing to yourself: We invaded Iraq for the sole reason of WMD, which turned out to be non-existant! Not Democracy, not Hussain, to get rid of WMD. Did we find anything? Answer me that...
I must make a confession...when I watched the live bombings of Iraq, I found it quite gratifying. "Good, I thought, those pieces of worthless garbage are getting what they deserve!" I still feel guilty about that to this day...it turns out I was watching as a city of innocent people was being bombed. I watched and cheered as the power grids were destroyed (which plunged the city into darkness for a large number of months afterward). I was a victim to yet another tactic of the conservatives. Iraq was not to blame for 911. I don't care how you try to sway me, but 911 had nothing to do with Iraq.
Let's talk more about democracy in Iraq. Economically, democracy is the best form of government. Democracy is built on capitalism. Dictatorship, socialism, monarchy; they just don't work as well economically. There's a lot of oil in the Middle East. Why would Bush choose to inject democracy into a place where totalitarian forms of government are the most likely to work? It's a religious civil in Iraq right now. Hussain kept it under control by force, which is how most of the other countries in the Middle East are run. So, why would Bush choose democracy? Is it because he cares about the people there, and wants them to have freedom? No. The Iraqi death count is nearing 40,000. Democracy isn't working. Bush wants to convert Iraq into a capitalist nation, so we can trade with them! It's obvious if you look at the underlying facts.
If you've got some time, watch Loose Change 2 on Google Video. I think you'll like it. It's about 9/11, and conspiracy theories.
Here we are, today, in what seems like an endless war. More and more of our troops are dieing, we're spending millions of dollars a day for the war, and the country of Iraq just keeps spiraling out of control. First our troops screwed up in the prison scandal, and several times they've barged into homes and killed everyone inside, for no reason. Just recently, several troops raided a home, raped a woman, burned her body, and killed her family. What's up with that?
"The War in Iraq is a success in many different ways." I smell a bull, and I think it just took a dook. | | |
| Congress is considering passing a bill that would restrict internet access! In effect, it would take away the First Amendment right of the internet.
It could force bloggers out of the way. It could drive small businesses into the ground. And it could be a huge pain in the back.
Will it effect you? Click here: http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat
We need to join forces and fight this bill! If we don't act now, the entire internet could be changed as we know it. Capitalism has already gone to far, let's unite!
http://www.savetheinternet.com/
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| Yesterday was an unusually good Sunday. Despite the fact that I ended up breaking my friend's light fixture...
We tried a new church (again...*groans*). This time it was Cole, and this time I was actually happy. I like it when there's a youth service on Sunday mornings during church. And, plus, I know two people there.
My parents keep asking me why I don't go to Second Baptist's youth group. They still don't understand that I have a strange fear of large groups of people, unless I know at least two people. If I know two people, that gives me a foundation to go off. I can meet other people through them. Walking into a huge mass of people and saying "Hey everybody I'm Simon!" is going to get me nowhere.
Then, I went over to Tim's house. We jammed for a bit. I'm still making plans to covertly steal his Jackson Dinky. Gotta love double EMGs...and almost perfect action...
Summer's coming up. Should be fun. I now have a bike for short distance journeys to the lands of friends houses. Then, I'll be working full time. I'm going to save it all up, then completely upgrade all my guitar gear. Guitar, amp, effects pedal, etc. I've sort of grown out of my Squire. My wrist hurts if I play long enough. Plus, the action gets annoying.
We ALL know that a guitar player outgrows a Frontman 15G after about 10 minutes of playing...that explains why I got the Magicstomp. The distortion, phaser, and tremolo are perfect. I just run it through my clean channel, and it works great. The flanger is decent, but it takes so much tweaking to get it to sound good. All the other effects on it either suck or take so much knob twisting it's not even worth it.
Forget that. I'm getting the Boss ME-50.
Can you believe I sold my Xbox for the Magicstomp? | | |
| I thought I'd post a couple pictures of me, just for a change. A non-political blog entry is coming soon, I promise. 
^^ Me playing my Takamine acoustic/electric
^^ Playin' my Ibanez bass, a bit too posed-looking
^^ That's right!!! I look emo in this picture! Don't diss me or screw off! | | |
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