Decided to re-open this blog. Using it to communicate with my Spanish speaking friends in Peru...blogs will be in Espanol for a while - Thank you ;-)

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Liberty and Justice for some...







“On almost every continent, governments are moving to stop discrimination against same-sex relationships,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Yet in the United States, some legislators are trying to etch this prejudice in stone.”




Routine. Day after day, hour after hour I feel like I have been trapped in a hamster wheel. A very entertaining and distracting wheel, indeed. I don't really feel like thinking, or doing the IM thing. Can't be bothered if making this wheel turn seems so interesting. It isn't really like there is a whole lot to do after coming back from work. Glenn calls me a bedbug: I get home, take off the work clothes and plop my ass on bed. Maybe I should find something interesting to do. But I don't feel like it. Besides the bed is soft, and the bedroom is the warmest room in the house. I don't really want to have any drama in my life, even though that would make my life a bit more interesting to retell. Yep, not a lot of things get me fired up these days, it is more comfy to sit in bed and play Neopets Flash games with my kids.

There is a turning point in your life when you stop doing crazy things. You remember certain things you rather keep to yourself. Like when you were in the back of a police car for disturbing the peace back in Peru. Or when you marched with a bunch of other college students, interrupting traffic and running the risk of being hit by a bus. I think it was a solidarity march with the miner's union, although I think it was a good excuse for skipping a failing class. Yea, the wild days. It was always a protest in Peru. We did like to complain a lot and let everyone know about it. Sometimes things got ugly, cops on horses were quite intimidating. And the water gun, ugh. Didn't sit in the cop car too long. My godfather ( Rip) was a colonel in the Peruvian Air Force and his name carried some weight. The slap on the face and the couple of kicks I got from the cops did not wipe the grin of my face as I was let go. Crazy days indeed. My grandpa had been a political prisoner during one of the numerous dictatorships Peru used to have. He never talked about it, but my mom always told me the stories. I knew they were not fake because while working at my grandpa's print shop I always noticed political propaganda lying around. He used to print it for free, he never charged for any of it. His political party was illegal for many decades, and he enjoyed the fact that his party won the election during the mid-1980's before he passed away. The current government is also that same party, guess they re doing something right. I wonder if the Us Customs would've let me in if they knew I was this nuts...

Everyone has written about the elections lately. I can't be happier. I followed B. Obama since the primaries. I like to follow politics. Tell you the truth, I liked Dennis Kucinich more, he is just a firecracker. But I knew he was not going to win cuz he is too liberal sometimes. But little Dennis is my hero, he is the one who insisted on impeaching Bush and our heartless vicepresident, even after Pelosi said there was not going to be any impeachments. I think the benefit of the majority superseded the needs of the minorities in this election. Propositions 8 and 2, in California and Florida passed, probably because the black vote decidedly voted for Obama but was definitely against same sex marriage. I think this is a matter of education. The black voters followed their preachers, who obviously would be against anything unholy. Interference of Church in State affairs? Yep, aren't they a meddlesome bunch?


There is no need to blame or feel angry against anybody. It is much better to find a solution. I think protesting works. I do feel like we should voice our opinion, let's make ourselves heard. Can't help but feel like second class citizens. though. We didn't make enough to educate the black vote so they could understand we are being discriminated like they were being discriminated a couple of decades ago.

I attended a town hall meeting, not so long ago, in which the representative of the NAACP was in the panel of speakers. I remember she said, our fight is their fight and that they would be behind us 100%. Glenn can back me up on this, cuz he was there too. I feel like we are not alone in this. We can't do the fighting by ourselves and be taken seriously. Alliances are good. We have waited and we can wait a few more months, I understand there are priorities, like the economy. But we must keep this issue in the front of the news. Protests are good and the Day of Remembrance this month is a good time to be seen and heard. Find out when they're gonna have services in your area, try to attend, that's the least you can do.
It sucks to have a right being taken away from you by popular vote. Why is a right that everyone else has, included in a ballot for the majority to vote on? How did it get there in the first place? I don't know all the political intricacies but I suppose there is a clear disregard for a constitution that claims it contains inalienable rights for every citizen. Everyone is talking about how America has again become the greatest democracy in the world. How come other democracies like Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium have allowed same sex marriages for years now? Same sex partner benefits are also recognized in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa( the country, not the continent Palin followers...) and Spain. America has now to catch up.
So, if you have been caught in a rut for a while, remember you can't complain about your rights being taken away without doing nothing about it. Get off your couch, stop playing that video game, don't worry about dumb jocks and their affairs with grabbing a football and attend your local Day of Remembrance services. You know what we are remembering, right? If that is not enough motivation, I do not know what will :-)

*note: all the pictures are from the protests against the passing of Prop 8 in Cali. More than 5000 gathered to march, crazy people :-P

4 comments:

Renee said...

In a world of perfect idealism, people wouldn't need to be convinced of another person's basic humanity. People would be able to put aside their own petty feelings and just do what was right. There would be no need for protests, and we wouldn't have to fight for the things that most people take for granted.

But I dispelled with such simplistic notions of right and wrong a long time ago. Regardless of what our Constitution says, it's still just words on paper. Rights don't exist at the human level, they exist at the governmental level...people have them only insofar as the people in power want them to have them. And in a country where the majority rules, if the majority doesn't want a minority to be able to marry or to use their bathrooms or whatever, that's just the way it's going to be. Unless we convince them otherwise.

Thanks goes to Prof. Paul Tudico, whose two semesters of Philosophy of Human Rights helped me realize all of the above. best classes I ever took.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. But re. SSM, of course, it has been the people, via initiative and/or state constitution amendment, who have sought, for whatever reason/s, to limit same-sex marriage, at times in the very face of their government (ie, judicial rulings.) Not a judgment upon the rightness or wrongness of same-sex marriage (I happen to approve) but a more accurate/less simplistic statement of the manner in which same-sex marriage has been proscribed.

genevieve said...

Excellent post,Laura. I kept up with the props in California, Arizona, and Florida. Even donated some funds. After the defeat I e-mailed them encouraging them to stay the course. I mentioned that allies were gained, me included. They sent a-email back, thanking me.

The state of Vermont is proceding in preparing documents to have Bush and co. charged with war crimes. This is the only state that he has not visited.

People must not fight among each other because this is what our enemies want; divide and conquer. We must be working and educating.

Anonymous said...

Genevieve- isn't that just what Vermont is doing, fighting amongst each other/ourselves, which is what our enemies (al Qeada, and Islamic extremists in general) want?