Here's a question:

Since when do people get to vote on whether other people, or groups of them, should or shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else?

The question is really backwards, because what has happened in the history of this country is that sometimes people have gotten to vote on giving other people rights (not taking them away), like women getting the right to vote, or in another well-known case, when states used their laws to deny basic rights to certain groups of people, the federal governement has attacked them with weapons (the Civil War), defended them with armed guards (think school desegregation), or simply said "This is the way it is from now on" (enforcing voting rights in the south.) So how does it happen that the people of California (or anywhere else) get to decide if gay people can marry?

There are marriage laws, judges interpret the laws. They saw the laws have got to apply the same to everyone, then case closed, no? We actually vote now on whether some people should be treated, as a class, differently than some other people? When the hell did the put that in the Constitution? (I never said I wouldn't rant about other stuff, just about the election.)

I've said it before: gay marriage doesn't hurt a single person. (I'm not talking about pedophilia, which is perpetrated mostly by men who consider themselves straight.) Not a single married person, not a single child, not anyone. People who think that if children see gay people happy it will entice them into that "glamorous" life, I'm sorry, have got their heads up their asses, or else, for some reason, they are people to whom gay life seems glamorous. It's not glamorous, it's just life. Taking out the trash and helping kids with homework is no more intrinsically interesting for gay people than it is for anyone else, and no one is going to be enticed into being gay if s/he isn't going to be anyway. This is not like changing political parties where you study the issues and make a conscious decision. Switching sides in the homosexuality debate is all about the ick factor, as in "Ick! I'm not doing that!" and it works both ways, whether you're a gay kid someone's trying to "turn straight" or a straight kid succumbing to the fabulous attraction of a gay life, including all the legal penalties and potential hate crimes. I'm reading these stories about people thinking that maybe, maybe they can finally have the legal commitment with their partners that they deserve to, but now wait, everyone else gets to chime on on who you can sleep with. It's disrespectful and degrading, for all concerned.


WATCHING L/O:SVU :: ENTRY #1775

So I Guess You Heard

Dumbledore is gay. How do you like that. Like it makes any difference in the character at all, which it doesn't, which is why I was so impressed with the way J.K. Rowling just kind of tossed it out there, like it was no big deal.

The thing is, homosexuality, or any number of other things that are often viewed as hot button issues, only are if you make them so. Otherwise, it's as significant as hair color, which is to say, not. Not that it isn't significant to the people it affects directly, but there's no reason it needs to be for anyone else.

I've mentioned this before, I think, and I'm not throwing this out there as an example of Hey, I was a terrific parent and here's the proof. It's just the way we handled something in our family and that it happened to work well for us. I didn't shield my children from any awareness of the gay, nor did I make a deal of it. If they heard the word and asked me what it meant, I gave them an age appropriate answer. (For example: it means a man who loves another man instead of a woman, or a woman who loves another woman.) I wouldn't give a small child a more detailed explanation any more than I would give them a detailed explanation of heterosexual sexuality. When a six year old asks why family friends Susie and Bob are getting married, you don't say Because they want to have sex with each other. You say it's because they love each other. That's what they need to know at that age.

Anyway, I knew I would have to explain it to them somehow at some point because my OldFriend is gay, and they saw her a lot when they were little. So, when R was seven or eight, she asked me once why OldFriend didn't have a husband, and I said, Oh, she's gay, so she likes women instead of men. And that was all she needed to know, and she was happy with it.

It's only a big deal if people turn it into one. You only have to explain it if they've never heard of it before.

So, Dumbledore. To tell the truth, I always thought JKR was using Lupin's outcast/werewolf status as a metaphor for the gay, which maybe she was to some extent, but the whole fanfic world who fervently hoped that Lupin and Sirius Black were an item was crushed when Lupin and Tonks got together. (Oh, spoiler alert. Sorry. Hey, that book came out years ago.) But I like that there is some character in there who is randomly gay, like people in the real world.

And ... on to other things.

We had that in-service today, and my sessions went very well, but I was exhausted by the time I was done, giving the same lesson six times at top speed since we only had a half hour for each one. And yes, my feet are killing me because the supports I tried today were extremely suckful and I had to take them off mid-day. (I have something else to try for tomorrow.) But here's the cute thing I have to show you:



One of the other teachers who was presenting, a former graphic artist, made up the evaluation sheet for the end of the day, and put a little caricature of each of us presenters at the bottom, and this, of course, is moi. Don't be surprised if it replaces my Disney 1960 photo after my trip; I think this is the cutest little cartoon of me ever. (And yes, I've seen other cartoon/characters/whatevers of me, so I have what to compare it to.)

And now I think I'll give my oldest nephew a call to make sure he isn't anywhere near the fires in San Diego. The Hubs has a cousin who lives there, too, but his job is such that he's probably helping with the evacuations, so we're sure he's okay. And my nephew -- let's go with JJ for him -- lives practically right on the beach, and I haven't heard of any fires there. But it would be nice to hear his voice anyway.

WATCHING LAW AND ORDER :: ENTRY #1611

Scattered

[copied from dland]

Boxx commented that she'd like to see Cesar Chavez and Malcolm X added to the poster collection. I gave them both thought, actually. I chose not to include Malcolm X at this time because I do have a Martin Luther King on the wall already, as well as -- I don't know if I mentioned this the other day -- an amazing photograph, large and framed, that's on loan to us. It was taken by a news photographer in Birmingham during the civil rights march there, and shows a group of people being blasted by a water cannon. It's an incredibly powerful picture, and better than anything else evocative of that era that I could find. As for Chavez, yes, I'm aware that there's a serious lack of Hispanic and Asian representation here. I expect to add that in to next year's order. While Chavez is certainly iconic, I don't know if he's quite what I want right now, although I may end up with him. I'm still working on those selections. (If Bill Richardson is elected, though, I promise to get a picture of him in there somewhere.)

I'm done with posters now.

In more exciting news, it's damn cold out there today, record-setting, in fact. This morning, it was about 9 degrees (that's about -13C) with a wind chill of -11 (-24C). This afternoon, it warmed up all the way to 21 (-6C)/5 (-15C). What makes this so strange is that two weeks ago tomorrow we had another record-setting temperature for January: 71 (21C). Not at all surprisingly, there was no heat here and there in the school building today, including the library. Apparently, there are just chunks of the building that didn't get connected or reconnected to the heating system when the construction was done. In the counseling office, which was formerly my library, I believe they removed the heating units (which didn't work anyway) and neglected to put in new ones. Ah yes, the beauty of the lowest bidder.

What else can I tell you? I did not make it to the gym today for a variety of reasons, but I will be going tomorrow, and three days in one week is probably the record for me. I'm going to do my at-home little workout thingies as soon as I post. Then I have four more episodes of Project Runway Season One on disc to watch, some of which I won't get to until tomorrow or Sunday.

Oh, here's a story from last night, which will be somewhat rambling, I fear. I've mentioned my OldFriend, whom I speak to often but rarely see, since she lives in New York City (in a charming area known as the West Village, which is part of Greenwich Village) and doesn't travel well, even to New Jersey, and I am city-phobic and so only get in there to see her every couple of years. (It's a distance of roughly 22 miles by car, btw, so not a big deal distance-wise.)

Okay, transition. R often calls me when she gets off the train around 6:20 and is walking the few blocks home. She called around then last night, but said that she was in the city, meeting an old friend of her own for dinner in the Village, and was early, so she called to talk while she was walking around and hanging out. I asked where she was and she was right around the corner from OldFriend's apartment, so I directed here there. Not to drop in, but just to know where it was, since she was killing time anyway and this way she would know. She moved on, and I was directing her to the antique store where OldFriend works, but which I assumed would be closed at that time. Suddenly, R said "I see it. Oh, the lights are on! I'm going in; I'll call you back."

Remember now, that given our various problems, neither of my kids has seen OldFriend -- and more to the point, she hasn't seen them -- in at least ten years.

R called back about 15 minutes later. She had gone in and seen her, approached her and said "OldFriend?" Unused to being addressed by strangers by name, I would think, OldFriend tentatively looked at her and said "Yes?" At which point R pulled her hat off and OldFriend shrieked "R!" and they had a lovely visit for the 10-15 minutes that R had before she took off to meet her dinner pal.

I liked that very much, as did OldFriend, who called me later as soon as she got home. She was always fond of my kids, and vice versa; we did see her more when they were little. I do remember once after we dropped her off at the bus-stop to go home after a visit, the girls and I were driving home and the obvious finally dawned on one of them -- must have been R, I'm guessing around 8 years old -- and she asked if OldFriend had a husband. I explained that she did not. Why? she asked. I answered in whatever language that OldFriend had not found someone to settle down and share her life with, but if she did, it would be with a woman and not with a man. There was no further why, just an understanding of the answer, that this was part of OldFriend. I had always known that when it came up, it would be that easy, and it was. I think if you present things to kids in a very matter of fact way, they just accept them as normal and move on. They already knew OldFriend and loved her, so what difference did it make?

Okay, gonna go get buff now.


WATCHING REBA :: ENTRY #1360