We’re Working Hard
►
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Category Archives: Personal
These can range from gripes to interesting pieces I do to let a little light in on the person I am. These pieces are more personal and emotional for me.
Cyberbullying: Throwing the Tormented Baby Out With the Bathwater
Cyberbullying. The word evokes myriad emotions. Since 2005, according to the NCSL website, 34 states have laws to prevent and prosecute cyberbullies. From Alabama to Wyoming, there are significant efforts to empower schools, review boards, and committees to punish cyberbullies where proof can be delivered for actions taken by one, or multiple, students picking on and teasing another. This was called something else in my day…bullying. You can invent a word, you can admit that technology has provided a new forum, but it is nothing more than what kids have been doing to one another since two or more were put in a small room together. I am not advocating bullying via any means, but one question comes to mind when I think of the scope of these laws: What could be waiting for us at the bottom of this slippery slope?
My mother brought me up reciting the old adage that, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Good advice as far as I could tell. Let the water roll off the ducks back, but I never had feathers. Words can hurt, and they did hurt. I was bullied and teased me when I was in school. I was poor, smart, and overtly awkward and nerdy. I was Sophomore class President, I was in Leadership class, and never went out for sports. I was an easy target, but in my day, if it wasn’t at school, school couldn’t do nothing. You ratted to your mom if anyone.
Bullying today seems to be on another level, or it is made out to be awful. I get the sense, having not experienced schoolyard bullying in more than a decade, that kids today are more articulate, vulgar, and unrelenting in their torment. I don’t know what this says about kids today, but cyberbullying certainly says a lot about the modern conveniences technology provides. Cowards today take to the Twitterverse and Facebook to lambaste and abuse a classmate. Gone are the days requiring face to face torment, technology has allowed for an efficient means to torment from the convenience of home.
Today, there are laws and regulations on the books empowering schools to enforce penalties for bullying outside the school’s direct purview. See this as an example:
Colorado 2005; HB 1036
Requires each school district, to adopt an internet safety plan consisting of a comprehensive, age-appropriate curriculum teaching the safe and legal use of the internet; encourages each school district to use existing internet safety resources available from nonprofit organizations and to work with local law enforcement agencies in adopting and developing the curriculum; directs each school district to identify a person who is responsible for overseeing implementation of the internet safety plan. Includes online bullying as a topic that the curriculum may address.
This is a terrifying precedent to set. The school is empowered to punish a child for what is done off school grounds, off school hours, on the internet? We have put this kind of power in the hands of a state/federal institution? What might be the next step we take after this to curb a misbehaving prepubescent? Perhaps the next step is to make laws allowing the school to hand out detention to a 10-year old for not doing his chores? Schools are here to educate your kids, not raise them. Pandora’s box, ladies and gentlemen…let’s see what inside.
What happened to freedom of speech? You can say what you will for this argument, but don’t minors have freedom of speech, too? When in school, as I understand it, students forfeit most Constitutional rights. How many times have we seen stories of student papers being silenced, shut down, or forbidden from running a story by the administration? I understand the need to avoid offending anyone or potentially undermining administrative authority inside a school, but what’s the deal with infringing on Constitutional rights of Americans for some vulgarity written on a message board?
OK, they are kids. By definition they are mentally handicapped–given the slow development of the frontal cortex–but they still have rights. Freedom of speech should be taken from anyone able to operate a computer up to the age of 18 if they torment someone? I don’t know about all of this. OK, on school grounds you best watch your tongue and look over your shoulder if a teacher is in earshot before you lay in to some poor sap, but to punish for exercising free speech on the internet outside of school? This is a dangerous sword to be swinging around.
As an American citizen I can write or say almost anything I want; almost. I cannot threaten the life of the President of any government official, and without proof I can’t accuse anyone of illegal activity. I cannot say that Rush Limbaugh is embezzling money to fund an illegal kiddie porn ring, but I can say he’s a creepy, pervy pill-popper. One is libel, the other is my opinion. My opinion is covered by freedom of the press and speech; libel is illegal. To call someone an idiot, bitch, whore, slut, asshole, or ugly is simply opinion, and violates no law that I know of. Well, no law until 2005 legislation was passed in Colorado.
Alright, it’s a stretch, but I look at this decision the same as people seemed to eye the Patriot Act. In response to fear of terrorist attacks, sleeper cells, and domestic terrorists, we gave up just about every right we have. Under the Patriot Act the government can run roughshod over your life, legally break in to your house without a warrant, and legally detain you without council or charges or trial for as long as they see fit. You might say that if you’re doing nothing wrong then you’ve got nothing to hide. I agree, but the issue is that the power wielded can be brought to bear for any reason, on incomplete information, and can be an invasion of privacy and an egregious attack on the Constitutional law some many of the people in this country seem to enjoy and are willing to defend to the death. The Patriot Act still exists nonetheless.
Just as in the knee-jerk aftermath of 9/11, the heartbreaking losses and emotions have run us aground on “Anything is better than nothing” rock. Just as in September some 10 years ago, we are scrambling to find meaning, and to prevent it from ever happening again. Next thing you know, schools will be monitoring activities online. Scares the shit out of me, quite frankly, that this kind of thing is acceptable, this kind of punitive reach of a school, in the lives of young people. An inch can lead to a mile a lot faster than anticipated.
What scares me most about laws like this is what can be next. When you empower an institution to punish an offense, the next step is prevention. To prevent something, you need to know about it before it is happening. What is a school to do? Start monitoring the internet activities of “problem students?” The school does the punishing–expulsion, detention, transfers, etc.–so why not put the onus for prevention on them, too?
There’s the rub. It’s not this step, but the next one. The responsibility may not be on the school now for prevention, but it might one day be on them. Schools are nothing more than federally mandated education institution administering a certified curriculum to students ages 6 to 18 for a 12 year period to get a legally binding certificate of achievement. Now, I understand that we entrust the safety of children to them, but is this really in their purview? In the last two years we have dissolved the collective bargaining rights of some teachers unions, skewered them for their “lavish” salaries, and now after shitting on these people we expect them to not just care for the education and well-being of children, but to be responsible for protecting them, too? You ask too much, sir.
Responsibility implies liability. The public outcry at the next teen suicide attributed to cyberbullying will be for heads to roll…and we’re not talking parents. People love to point fingers. When a death note of a child says they couldn’t take the bullying anymore, all eyes will turn to schools not doing anything, and if they did something well within the law, it will not have been enough. We’ve seen this before in school shootings, and in any case where there is an intractable outcome, the instinct that comes to mind first is who can we blame. We like a scapegoat in this country, and damned if a “lavishly” paid fourth year teacher isn’t a fine thing to hang in public square.
It is not the responsibility of a school to look out for the well-being of a child outside their walls. It is not the fault of the administration if someone is teased or beaten up during summer break. It is not the responsibility of a school or district administration to have to devote so much time and effort to curbing something that passes with graduation. The next step after empowering them for punishment is prevention. Prevention leads to monitoring, and now we’re in a Aldous Huxley novel we’ll never get out of–Brave New World, kids? Hell, you’ll get to it. It was required reading when I was your age. This is not the first step down this slope of administration and educator intervention in the private lives of students and parents and won’t be the last. This is however the first shot over the bow of monitoring internet activity, one PIPA and SOPA couldn’t pull off. It may have taken the suicides of children, but schools have expanded their reach, for better or worse, and it represents a dangerous precedent, and one I am sure many other state and federal institutions are taking notes on. I am just looking forward to the first metaphorical public hanging of a sixth grade teacher as a result.
Share the Good News: It’s All Greek to Me, Though
Unabashed faith stands as the most fascinating occurrence I have ever seen in another person. Blind belief in the greater power pulling the marionette strings of destiny in this world inspires awe and wonder in me. Religion has inspired more good deeds balanced against great bloodshed than any form of government or other human idiosyncrasy than any other character flaw in humanity. Not to say belief in a character flaw, but that all those flaws outlined by religion are not the greatest debts humanity must pay for in the next life. It is to say that belief in this way of living prescribed by a greater power through the mouths of men is as dangerous a weapon as any designed to date, and I cannot count myself among the believers; but my hands are not clean either.
Religion has existed since man looked to the sky with enough intelligence to ask “why”? We have looked for some reason, some form of explanation for our existence, then questioned how best to exist. Animals have never concerned themselves with such mind-boggling questions, and they aren’t offing each other in record numbers, so there is that.
I have always wondered why religion ever came in to existence. Religion and faith are mutually exclusive in my eyes. “Religious” and “faithful” are not to be confused as the same thing. It has also perplexed me how complicated being in a religion can be. Christianity alone has so many off-shoots and schisms through the years, yet it is all the same book, the Holy Bible, that they subscribe to. Further confusing is the fact, bald-faced fact, that all Muslims, Jews, and Christians believe in the same God. There is no Jewish God, no Christian God, and no Muslim God. There is only God. Yet there is such hatred and misunderstanding between all of His followers. Where is one to turn to for guidance? Which flavor of faith can I get in the Baskin-Robbins of religion?
There are no easy answers in picking a religion. I marvel at the dedication exhibited by those that choose, though. People make a fixed, lifelong decision to stick with their maker on their chosen path. We get bogged down in how to worship, how to pay penance, what to think, what to resist, and what to say; but these are the details that define the differences in the major, monotheistic religions on Earth while we lose sight of the similarities found in the different paths to salvation.
My own struggles with belief in God comes from a general character flaw of disbelief. I am plagued by a general distrust for agendas, and religions have them in spades. Christianity and Catholicism have their hands in too many pies for me to feel that at the center of it all is the teachings of Christ. I think Jesus would balk at Washington lobbyists and the agenda of His people today. I like to think that Jesus would be appalled at how his message has been contorted over the last 2,000 years.
Jesus would be horrified to see how His message has created a polarized, world-changing role in our history. Forget the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, just look at the business His word has inspired, and I think you can see where my disconnect comes from.
Big ups for God in the house! This spun gold don't pay for itself! Pass the plate, bitches!
(AP/Andrew Medichini)
There are approx. 2 billion Christians of one stripe or another in the world. Using the Church of England as a loose model, it costs an estimated $1 billion pounds to fund the church. Extrapolating this number out for all Christians, there is an operating cost of about $1.9 trillion dollar annually for Christianity. This is big business. Everything from maintaining churches and cathedrals, to salaries, humanitarian efforts, and yes, even lobbyists and PR campaign costs are rolled in to this. That is my opinion, though. Oddly enough, it is pretty hard to find any kind of disclosure on the overall income of a religion through any internet search. Imagine that? A religion hiding the books. This causes me alarm regarding the selfless, humility of service to God in a large religion.
I also back pedal from the idea that any one religion got it right. To think that any one deviation leading to an organized portion of a church is the right one is not just wrong, I think that it is prideful. If God’s plan is beyond comprehension by man, then who are we to think we cracked the code defining how to live within the construct of that plan? I’m not saying Christians, Muslims, or Jews are wrong, but I will readily admit that I have no clue what an omniscient creator has in store, or that I understand the magnitude of the grand plan.
I am also weary of the actual text any religion uses as its guiding light. The Bible? Flawed as all get out. In the court of law in this land, empirical evidence such as DNA weighs greater than an eye-witness account; yet we believe so strongly, and without question, in a book canonized some 1,500 years ago making for the ultimate chain letter passed down through the longest standing game of “telephone” ever played. 
It has been translated, reprinted, and handled by the corruptible hands of men who bore the curse of free will. These were men in great positions, some swayed by the romantic desire to control a kingdom, indoctrinate a population, and legitimize their claim to a throne or station. I can’t believe for a moment that not one man in 2,000 years lost some pages, chose one text over another, or took some poetic license with something as powerful as the word of God. Man has never shown itself to be so altruistic as to pass up a chance to advance their cause.
Then there is the terrifying prospect put forward by those that think we are living in the end times. Whether it be the Book of Revelations, the end of the Mayan calendar, or the predictions of Nostradamus, there are so many people who think we are nearing the end of days…and they seem happy about it. The idea that there are those in faith that almost pray for the end to come, so that they may ascend to heaven, is terrifying. That kind of radical thinking has proven dangerous in the wrong hands in the past and today. Not all end of days preppers wear sandwich signs and tin foil hats; some are registered voters.
This also speaks to a part of religion that bothers me: Shame. The idea that we should live in fear of retribution in the next life for the transgressions in this life. The idea that the smallest sin can be our undoing and that forgiveness is the only way to cleansing our souls. I don’t like the idea that God is as petty as to punish us for impure thoughts or something as menial as tithing. I don’t think God gives a crap about my thoughts or His pocketbook. I think my actions would speak louder than my wandering mind.
Despite what I see as healthy distrust in humanity and the simple statistically long odds of being right in following any prescribed path to the promised land, people by the billions still believe down to the fiber of their being that they are doing the right thing, in the right church, or are on the true path in their struggle to live a just and principled life. Where myself and millions of others see a fool’s endeavor of ego, billions of people on this planet see in their path the only way to prosper in this life and the next. Whether it’s reincarnation, Heaven in any form they interpret, or those just hedging their bets against the Reckoning, people live their life by very specific tenants handed down from generations that only archaeologists have put their hands on.
I believe in Jesus’ philosophy. By any other measure, if He did not profess himself the Son of God, He would have stood as one of the great philosophers and life coaches in history (eat your heart out Tony Robbins). “Love thy neighbor,” “Do unto to others,” “Forgive,” “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” and so many other compassionate teachings would have stood the test of time as not a religious tenant, but just good manners. What started as one man professing a better way to live in a time of great injustice under a crushing, totalitarian government of the Roman empire, became a worldwide marching anthem. He was a rebel then. A man who spoke out, and with those words professed a better way to live. He was a Jew in a time where Jews were barely tolerated, and seeing this, He would not be silent. These weren’t radical ideas, but once He said, “I am the Son of God,” that’s when things got hairy for Him, and for us as time has proven out.
If the idea that we all have a direct connection to God holds true, then why must I believe in and live in any one path to God? Why is there a single man who is interpreting the vague parables of Jesus for me? Shouldn’t I be the one deciding what it means to me? Why is this guy qualified to interpret God’s relationship with me on my behalf? Why does my church need to have more audio equipment than a Motley Crue concert? Wouldn’t that money be better spent on humanitarian endeavors, or simply in the pockets of the congregation in these tough times to better provide for the children of God’s children? Why must my religion have its way, and only its way? Is that not hypocrisy to preach tolerance, but not to follow it? There should not be pots and kettles in the world, only men. Love all God’s children, but pray for those that are all going to hell because they believe differently than I. This is where the bile begins to rise in my throat.
Despite all of this, and myriad other reasons I can cite for my distrust of God’s children, I still believe that there is a God. I trust, apprehensively so, that there is something out there in the ethos of suspended disbelief that has its eyes peeled on my behalf. I don’t think God is my co-pilot, my pilot, or carrying me in the tough times. He’s a friend, if only in our minds. God is Harvey the Rabbit to humanity’s Elwood P. Dowd. Our Harvey comes in many forms. Not everyone can see him, but much like we humor a child who pulls up a chair for their imaginary friend, or wants a place set at the table for this formless pal, we have to deal with the fact that someone thinks he’s real. As long as they’re not hurting anyone (easier said than done), what’s the harm in letting the fantasy go on? I for one may not set a place at the table, pull up his chair, or make people talk to my version of Harvey, but I’ll humor the children who do, because ‘love thy neighbor’ is just good advice, no matter where it came from.
Like this:
KONY 2012: As Effective a Grassroots Campaign As Any
The internet has struck again and “slacktavists” everywhere are lapping it up. Here I am, a suburban white boy in southern California writing about horrifying acts in Uganda. Damned if this social media doesn’t work.
The KONY 2012 movement has hit critical mass, social media saturation. The interwebs–a series of tubes–was brought to bear on yet another injustice in the world firing everything it has at one guy whose name looks good on a bumper sticker during an election year.
Joseph Kony of Uganda and LRA infamy has finally gotten his 15 minutes. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and even the defunct and malfunctioning LinkedIn are abuzz with the activities of Kony and his Kony(hort)–it’ll catch on. After years of hard work and perseverance, he is finally getting some recognition. Blood diamonds, starvation, suffering, and more glitzy and glamorous revolutionaries and dictators have stood in his way of infamy, but no more. Joseph Kony has arrived, and damn if he doesn’t have the best advertising in the biz. Any press is good press, right?
Thanks to one minidoc passed around the internet like a prepubescent sex slave–too soon?–everyone from Berkley trust fund babies and armchair activists and Monday morning Christians are spreading the atrocities of the LRA and this Kony fellow in Uganda. Why, you can’t walk into a Starbucks without noticing the titillating buzz about the video.
I have not seen the video. I refuse to watch the video on the grounds that it will not change my stance on crimes against humanity; they are crimes after all, and I went to public school and possess a library card and have this here internet connection. I know what atrocity looks like. I’m an American and I like to think we’ve got more than one entry in the Sportscenter Atrocity NOT Top 10 Plays of All-time.
Gathered from the facts that have been regurgitated to me by those who have fallen victim to the grassroots onslaught of horrifying facts I have gathered three things: Joseph Kony has recruited soldier boys–not Soulja Boy, sold teenage girls as sex slaves, and killed a shit ton of people. Number two, the US did nothing about this in the past and the current campaign on the net is to raise his status to a point that the government can’t ignore it anymore due to civilian pressure. Three, that people are always on the lookout for yet another ideological flavor of the week.
I don’t have the facts to back it up, but I would bet that if I polled the first 100 people I could find on the street, they could not tell me where Uganda is on a map. I would go one further that they could not tell me anything about what the LRA is up to besides what has been given to them by this short video campaign on the internet. You can’t find the country on this here globe, yet you are about to shower me in lathery facts about the horrifying things happening there.
This is yet another cause in a long line of causes that become to trendy to ignore. Free Nelson Mandela. Peace in Israel. End Apartheid. Legalize Pot. Pepper spraying college kids. We are the 99 Percent. Dispatch Idi Amin. Stop the civil war in Somalia. Women’s Right to Choose. Real Men Don’t Buy Women. No H8. Find Nicole Brown’s Real Killer. This is just a smattering of movements and causes that come and go. It’s like everyone has a rail car and they just wanna be on the train.
Now we’ve got the guile up of the people. Soccer moms, aunts, uncles, and all your pseudo-ideological friends have posted this link on your wall. They are horrified, disgusted, revolted, and outraged…then they check Yahoo for the latest picture of a drunk starlet. This story will appear on the cover of TIME, if it hasn’t already, and it will sit next to the tabloids and play the straight man in the newsstand version of an Abbott and Costello routine.
“Who’s in Uganda?”
“No. Who’s in the Democratic Republic of Congo. What is in Uganda.”
“Well, then What is in South Sudan?”
“No. What is in Uganda. Who is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
“I don’t give a damn!”
“Ah, you mean our shortstop in Central African Republic.” You see where this is going?
Haven’t gotten your personal fill of anti-atrocity, pseudo-activism? Wait just one more week and you’ll be invited to the Facebook event, “KONY Cover The Night” in your town. Get all your closest friends together at your local independent coffee shop and once the sun sets you can vandalize your town with deliberately orchestrated advertisements disguised as a movement like a thrift store Banksy along with the rest of the neo-aware country. Then post the photos on Facebook to show you care more than the next schlub ignoring the issue and letting these heinous crimes go on unfettered.
In the next couple of weeks you’ll be able to get your KONY 2012 T-shirts and your Death to Kony “LiveStrong” knock-off bracelets. Go for the quadfecta and get the whole package: T-shirt, bracelet, hat, and tote bag. Don’t spend even one moment without showing your support for hunting down and raping this bastard while you text your girlfriends about what Sheila said to you Saturday night at the club. Order your Chai latte, but do it shoving this fad down someone else’s throat like a billboard for effective internet campaigning.
What Kony and the LRA have committed is no more heinous than what has gone on in the Motherland, the forgotten continent of Africa, for decades and even hundreds of years. You can’t throw a rock in Africa without hitting someone with an AK-47 and an agenda. Every asshole with a Napoleon complex is a part of a liberation front, a revolutionary coalition, or is championing the overthrow of one corrupt government for another. Kony is just the guy that, this week, has garnered the most attention because of a great campaign thought up by a dozen Mad Men in a smoke choked room with a whiteboard and enough Scotch to put down Charlie Sheen. Nothing more.
Martin Luther King Jr said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat against justice everywhere.” I suppose this should have been enough for the government to take action some eight years ago when the request for action was made. I guess we only quote MLK in February during Black History Month, but it’s March and the campaign is just now taking hold.
(left in a check presenter at work with the tip for a coworker) I was ready to vote for him in the GOP primaries as an EXTREME independent until I saw the minidoc.
I suppose the argument I have heard most often over this comes from two schools of thought: “It is not our problem,” and “It is our responsibility.” Both are flawed schools testing below state averages. Sure, this doesn’t affect us, but this is an international planet and we are morally obligated to help. Why this? Why now? Because the campaign is clever and will look good on a T-shirt; hell, it’s even got a logo. I am just wondering where the support comes from. Is it genuine? Hardly. You’ll know you’ve jumped the shark when Nancy Grace gets her claws in this one; she sticks to missing white girls, so if she latches on to this there’s no telling how fast it’ll will take over the Today Show and Fox & Friends by month’s end. Hell, you’ve got me writing this, so kudos to you. It is all fabricated and designed, though. Tug at someone’s heart strings and they will play you a lullaby, but in two months we will be on to the new thing once the movement runs out of steam. Don’t believe me? When’s the last time you checked in on the 99%?
Like this:
Gay Marriage: Frankly, Miss Scarlet, I Don’t Give a Damn
Today the ninth circuit court overturned the voter-backed Prop 8 law banning gay marriage in California. In the ruling of 2-1, they upheld the interpretation of a judge in a lower court who ruled it a violation of civil rights of gays and lesbians.
Prop 8 was voted on by the people of California in 2010 and has since been battled from the left and the right and has slowly been winding it’s way through the catacombs of the judicial branch of the government with it’s final decision almost unquestionably ending with an eventual trip to the Supreme Court one day.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in a statement on the ruling:
“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”A fine ruling I suppose, and it makes sense to me, but as I’ve watched this unfold over the years and seen the issue come and go from the forefront of the news cycle, I have always had a couple of qualms about this being an issue at all.
In deciding if gays can get married, it does not negate the lawful marriage of opposite-sex couples. It in no way impedes their rights to marry; nor does it make the union of marriage, both legal and spiritual, less than what it is and what it represents.
We are not, in this ruling, approving of gay marriage as a society. This is not a case of deciding whether it is sinful, immoral, or an abomination under God. This is not a ruling that says we all need to love our neighbor, cast the first stone, or judge lest we be judged; we’re just saying that if you want, you can legally get married to another human being. You can still be a homophobe, which is exactly what you are if you don’t approve of gay marriage. You can say you don’t care if someone is gay, but if you think gays should not be allowed to get married, that just comes from a place of hate. Let’s just call it what it is.
I have always had a bone to pick with the “sanctity of marriage” argument. People, pundits, politicians argue that the institution of marriage (between a man and a woman) is the foundation of society and to allowed same-sex marriage would destroy what the traditions and the institution stand for. Hmmm. Someone should tell Newt Gingrich this (Mr. GOP candidate for President, thrice married. Mrs. Gingrich would be the Third Lady of the United States).
Well, I have always held the position that if gay marriage should be illegal, then so should divorce. If gays can’t get married because of the sanctity of a tradition, then I say we make divorce just as illegal, to further defend the institution. If divorce should stay legal (and continue at a national average of about 52%) then I say we make adultery criminal instead. You can get divorced, but if you’re going to philander that’ll get you 3-5 in Lompoc.
My last assertion has always been my favorite: Who gives a shit? This doesn’t effect me and my eventual marriage and I certainly am not one to want to limit the rights of a particular portion of the population. If we want to change gun control rights, that applies to everyone, and then I’ll take a position. If we want to make abortion a criminal act, that is different, it’s only a law for a portion of society. Do you see the difference? We should not pass a law limiting the rights of only part of the population where only some are affected by it’s inception.
In the end I really think this is a non-issue. Let gays get married. I am all for equality, and never for limiting the rights of a minority of the population. Straight people, you get to keep beating your spouse, getting divorced, and getting trim on the side. Nothing changes for you. You get to keep raising straight and gay children at random. You get to continue to fuck kids up psychologically and emotionally as you have for hundreds of years. You get to split up your stuff or stay in a loveless marriage praying the other person dies before you; your choice as a heterosexual. You get to keep your 72 hour marriages and your annulments. You get to keep spitting in the face of the hallowed institution you champion in the most ironic manner. All I’m saying is that let the gay people in on the party. Gay or straight, the sanctity of marriage was sullied a long time before the Stonewall Riots…let gay people in on the institution-sullying party, or pass laws finally restoring and truly protecting the sanctity you cloakatively hold so dear. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, straight people.
All Photos by Wesley Bauman, ©2010
