I never intended to use this column as an arena for political commentary, preferring instead to leave the ranting and raving for bombastic professors, bantering A.S. councilmembers and the annoying Greenpeace gadflies on Library Walk (unless the university decides to ban them from campus, under new guidelines set by the alarmingly paternalistic UC Board of Regents in a policy that effectively bans nonaffiliate free speech, although that is a topic for a different day).
My loyal readers may remember my past spiels on party manners, Facebook etiquette, pre-med assholes, Las Vegas and the ins-and-outs of being the only male among hundreds and hundreds of drunk lesbians.
But after turning on my television the other day to discover a horrendously disgusting political advertisement about Proposition 8, I had to relent. In case you’ve been living in the closet, Proposition 8, if passed, will eliminate the right of same-sex couples in California to legally wed by amending the state constitution to specifically outline marriage as the union of “one man and one woman.”
Backed by reactionary activists across the state who campaigned vigorously to obtain enough signatures to place the initiative on this November’s ballot — following the California Supreme Court’s landmark decision earlier this year to grant gay couples the same marriage privileges as their straight counterparts — Proposition 8 is a frightening attack on civil rights, not to mention a stupid and unnecessary waste of funding and political resources during a time of extraordinarily immense economic uncertainty, a climate crisis and two hugely unpopular foreign wars.
Money that could be spent on worthwhile causes (say, your children’s college funds or, if you have to get political, environmental and renewable energy initiatives, because the polar icecaps are disintegrating whether or not two men decide to kiss and put rings on each other’s fingers), is being funneled by groups such as the American Family Organization and Focus on the Family to support bogus and shocking ads meant to provoke the public into fearing gay marriage as an attack on family values.
The latest commercial is a disturbingly low blow: A kindergartener comes home from school, excitedly telling her mommy that she learned she can marry a princess when she grows up, followed by a close-up of mommy’s horrified reaction. The ad proceeds to claim that if Proposition 8 doesn’t pass, public schools will essentially indoctrinate children with gayness. Or something like that.
Forget that the state education code doesn’t dictate teaching kids about marriage until they get older (and even then in the most basic of manners, such as examining the difference between dating and marriage) or that parents can choose to have their children skip lessons on sexual or other personal matters; forget that gay marriage has absolutely nothing to do with teaching children about proper life values.
All these radicals want to do is advance their personal homophobic agendas onto everyone else. And that’s sad. Hopefully, Californians won’t be fooled by these grossly distorted advertisements and, come Election Day, vote to uphold equality under the law, whether they agree with being gay or not (again, a topic for a different day).
Besides, the widely circulated “Yes on 8” posters show kids reaching for adults’ crotches. To me, that creepy poster design is more disturbing than two committed adults of the same sex getting married.
