No On Eight

I've just finished looking at the calendar, and it appears as though we are just one short week away from a major election. Okay, maybe that's not the big news, but maybe this will grab your attention: There will be more than one issue on our ballots next Tuesday. I know that if you have been reading this blog for the past twenty months, you might have come to the conclusion that it's all about electing a new Commander In Chief. Just like the Ginsu Knife offer on television, there's more. Much more.
For example: Here in California, we are being asked to decide whether or not we should have a constitutional amendment that will ban gay marriage. First off, let me say that I have pretty much taken Dolly Parton's stand: "I'm all for gay marriage, why shouldn't they suffer like the rest of us?" This, along with Jon Stewart's awakening that he was fine with the whole gay marriage thing once he figured out that it wasn't a requirement.
That's my opinion, and thank you for listening to it, but the friendly-fear-filled-folks at the "Yes On Eight" camp want us to believe that a constitutional ban on gay marriage will protect our children. At issue is educating our children about marriage. If gay men and women were allowed to get married, then we would be forced to teach our children about gay men and women. And if we were teaching them about gay men and women, that would essentially be condoning being gay. Our schools would become recruiting stations and breeding grounds for a wave of militant gay youth.
Okay, now they've got my attention. Let me start by saying that even if I did spend any time in my classroom teaching children about gay marriage, it would take place in a classroom that includes discussion of Martin Luther King, the Holocaust, and Algebra. I won't lie to you. Sometimes my own feelings get mixed into the curriculum. I do love teaching how to balance equations. The other reality that is being carefully avoided is this: Would that any of us had the time to teach about marriage, or health, or much else beyond what will appear on this Spring's standardized test. But what about poor Robb and Robin Wirthlin? The Wirthlins related how their seven year old son, Joey, came home from second grade public school one day to tell them his teacher had read the class a book about a prince who married another prince and the two men went on to become, King and King. The book includes a scene of the two male princes kissing each other and the prince rejecting other female princesses who were either too short, had long arms and one who had dark colored skin.
First of all, bravo to any school teacher who actually brings in literature beyond the basal reader we inflict on most students. Secondly, don't get me started on all the horrible stories of sex and violence found in "The Good Book," or how potentially damaging and disturbing "Snow White" is for most seven-year-olds. It's not the marriage that creeps us out. It's the sex that bugs people, and we just haven't found a way to constitutionally ban that.
Florida also has a gay marriage initiative on its ballot. John Stemberger who is chairman of Yes2Marriage.org said that while homosexual-identified men and women “should be afforded every single dignity and respect and right … they do not have the right, and by God’s grace they will not have the right, to fundamentally redefine this basic, human institution that has served us since the beginning of time.” To which I can only scratch my head and wonder what happened to the separation between church and state, that basic human institution that has served us since the beginning of our great nation? Maybe they don't teach that in Florida anymore, since they're too busy reading "Heather Has Two Mommies."