by Lynnd
I watched this on another blog this morning because I missed it last night. Sometimes I watch but the last few days I have been so tired that I could not take any more bickering and arguing, and then this special comment punctured my weariness and had me riveted. It was a concise and caring argument about how far our country has come and yet the lingering effects of societal issues are still there today rearing its ugly head. There are some who play these differences like a fine violin to further their prejudices, to make them feel better.
I always wonder about the human race. Why do so many of us feel we have to make ourselves feel better by excluding others? We make them different and scary, we make the choice to not look beyond the surface and see that there are real people, individuals in that group we have lumped into a stereotype. When do we confront the fears and really look at ourselves and ask why am I doing this?
So I am asking everyone here to set aside preconceived notions and watch this. Listen to the words and the meaning of them, don’t be distracted by who is delivering it. There is a very good point even if you don’t like the messenger. What are we afraid of?
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
************************************
62 comments:
1 Well crap and shit I sent Carol the wrong link! LMAO!
Tina you tried to give me a heads up but I was too busy to pay attention.
So how come we are afraid of baseball cards? Dammit I want to know now!
Well, I'll jump in. I am not so good at reading between the lines. I don't know who that newsreader is. I've heard of some of the baseball players, but they were way before my time. I know of the orange festival in Italy, and of pig chases throughout the world. There's also Pamplona and the Day of the Dead. I don't like the idea of people or animals getting hurt but clearly, I'm missing something. Anyone want to help me out?
Well thanks for that, LynnD! Confuse the hell out of me, make me feel like a dolt. Good morning to you, and maybe you can tell us what's on your mind?
Here is the written transcript of what should have posted in several parts bear with me please there have been technical difficulties:
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on this Presidents' Day celebrating George Washington, and the Founding Fathers he represents and Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation he represents.
And I think, having now been one for 51 years, I am permitted to say I believe prejudice and discrimination still sit, defeated, dormant, or virulent, somewhere in the soul of each white man in this country.
Sixty three years after Jackie Robinson and 56 after Brown vs. Board of Education and 46 after the Civil Rights Act and a year-and-a-half after the presidential election this is not a popular thing to say.
This is also not a thing that should be true even as a vestige of our sad past. But it is. Discrimination is still all around us in so many ways, openly re-directed towards immigrants who are doing nothing more than following the path that brought my recent ancestors here and probably yours, too or focused on gays predicated on a mumbo-jumbo of biblical misinterpretations or leeching out still against black people in things like the Tea Party movement.
I think the progress we have made in the last 60 years in this country has been measurable and good. But I think discrimination has been tamed, not eradicated. For, our society still emphasIzes our differences as much as our similarities.
We may be 63 years from Jackie Robinson but we are not yet 63 days from a man going on national radio and telling us the president of the United States was elected only because of the color of his skin.
Discrimination, I've always thought, is a perversion of one of the most necessary instincts of survival. As a child, put your hand on a red hot stove and you'll quickly learn to discriminate against red hot stoves.
But if at that age you are also told you need to beware of black people and you will spend your life having to fight against wiring created in your brain for no reason than to reflect someone else's prejudice. And it need not even be that related to trauma. The other night in the hospital my father was telling me about seeing Satchel Paige pitch.
At Yankee Stadium this was. The time was about 1941 and the team was the New York Black Yankees. And my father shook his head in amazement. "It never occurred to me, it never occurred to anybody I knew, that he couldn't play for the other Yankees," he said. "We just assumed he didn't want to. That none of them wanted to."
These thoughts still linger in our lives, still actively passed to some of us by people who are not like my father, who never questioned their own upbringing or parents or school or world. That older, brutal, prejudiced-with-impugnity world which reappears every day like Brigadoon with virulence as in Don Imus's infamous remarks; sometimes with the utter arrogant tone-deafness of John Mayer's Playboy interview; sometimes with a kind of poorly informed benign phrase like Harry Reid's comment about "dialect;" sometimes with the lunkheadedness of surprise that nobody is screaming "Emm-effer, I want more iced tea" at a Harlem restaurant.
But it's still there. I'm not black, so I can't say for sure, but my guess is the reverse feeling still exists, too — the same doubt and nagging distrust, only with the arrow pointing the opposite way.
And I guess it's still there too among Hispanics and Asians and every other self-identifying group, because this country, since the Civil War, has not only become ever-increasingly great not merely for dismantling the formalized racism of our first 200 years on this continent, but because we have been dismantling a million years of not fully trusting the guys in the next cave because they are, somehow, different.
This all still lingers about us, all of us, whether we see it or not. And since it's no longer fashionable or acceptable, it oozes out around the edges and usually those who speak it don't even realize that as good as their intent might be, as improved as their attitudes might be from where they used to be, or where their parents used to be, or where America used to be — it's still racism.
Thus it has become fashionable —sometimes psychologically necessary — that when some of us express it we have to put it in code, or dress it up, or provide a rationalization to ourselves for it that this has nothing to do with race or prejudice, the man's a Socialist and he's bent on destroying the country and he was only elected by people who can't speak English.
Or was it: he was only elected by guilty whites. The rationalizations of the racists are too many and too contradictory for the rest of us to keep them straight.
The whole of the "anger at government" movement is predicated on this. Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real (as if we weren't to some extent doing it for them). And the president is black. But you can't come out and say that's why you are scared.
Say that, and in all but the lifeless fringes of our society, you are an outcast. And so this is where the euphemisms come in. Your taxes haven't gone up, the budget deficit is from the last administration's adventurer's war, Grandma is much more likely to be death-paneled by your insurance company, and a Socialist president would be one who tried to buy as many voters as possible with tax cuts.
But facts don't matter when you're looking for an excuse to say you hate this president (but not because he's black). Anything you can say out loud without your family and friends bursting into laughter at you, will do. And this is where the Tea Parties come in.
I know I've taken a lot of heat for emphasizing a particular phrase which originated at a Free Republic.com rally a year ago by a Tea Partier! And I know phrases like "Tea Klux Klan" are incendiary and I know I use them in part because I'm angry that at so late a date we still have to bat back that racial uneasiness which envelops us all.
And I know, if I could listen only to Lincoln on this of all days about the better angels of our nature, I'd know that what we're seeing at the Tea Parties is, at its base people who are afraid. Terribly, painfully, cripplingly, blindingly, afraid.
But let me ask all of you who attend these things: How many black faces do you see at these events? How many Hispanics? Asians? Gays? Where are these people? Surely there must be blacks who think they're being bled by taxation. Surely there must be Hispanics who think the government should've let the auto industry fail. Surely there must be people of all colors and creeds who believe in cultural literacy tests and speaking English.
Where are they? Where are they? Do you suppose they agree with you but they have just chosen to attend their own separate meetings? That they are not at your Tea Party because they have a Tea Party of their own to go to? Are you thinking like my father did about Satchel Paige and the black Yankees? That they want this? My father had an excuse for that. He was 12-years-old. It was 1941. Are you of the Tea Party 12-years-old? For you, is it 1941?
You're scared and you're in a world that has changed in a million ways and the most obvious one of them is something unforseeable just a decade ago — a black president. And yet you are also in a world, inherited, installed, by generations that knew only fear and brutality and prejudice and difference and suspicion. The generations have gone but the suspicion lingers on.
Not all of our heritage is honorable. Not all the decisions of the founding fathers were noble. Not very many of the founding fathers were evolved enough to believe that black people were actually people. The Founding Fathers thought they were and fought hard to make sure they would always remain slaves.
Fear is a terrible thing. So is prejudice. And racism. And progress towards the removal of any evil produces the inevitable backlash. The Civil War was not followed by desegregation but by Jim Crow, and the Klan.
The Civil Rights legislation of the '60s was not followed by peace but by George Wallace and anti-busing overt racism. Why should the election of a black president be without a backlash?
But recognize what this backlash is, and you can free yourself of this movement built of inherited fears, and of echoes of 1963 or 1873. Look at who is leading you and why and look past the blustery self-justifications and see the fear — the unspoken, inchoate fear of those who are different.
If you believe there is merit to your political argument, fine. But ask yourself when you next go to a Tea Party rally, or watch one on television, or listen to a politician or a commentator praise these things or merely treat them as if it was just a coincidence that they are virtually segregated.
Ask yourself: Where are the black faces? Who am I marching with? What are we afraid of? And if it really is only a president's policy and not his skin. Ask yourself one final question: Why are you surrounded by the largest crowd you'll ever again see in your life that consists of nothing but people who look exactly like you?
There. Well you wanted blogs and heres a doosy! However I will now have many posts to my credit, just from me screwing up! ROFLMAO
Lynn.. the vid is not right?
OMG.. Lynn.. I am not sure if I can read all that now.. you are so funny..
Lynn.. You got first on your own blog.. so you are def the prettiest of them all..
:O)
I remember J/Lin mentioning growing up in Florida with White Only drinking fountains. I know no such world. Prejudice wasn't something I learned about until later in life.
As far as politicians go, why do we give Obama a break? Clinton jizzed on a Jewish girls' dress, Reagan was demented for most of his 2nd term (probably why he was so good), Nixon was a crook, we had a dumb-ass Texan for a time, whose Daddy puked on a foreign diplomat, and almost got another Dick Cheney in that gun-toting bitch from Alaska where they don't know there are stores you can buy food in.
Anyone in the public eye is subjected to this sort of scrutiny. I don't think Obama's any worse than others, but I don't think he's any better either.
Carol I swear I watched the damn clip before I tried to get the embed file. Technology and I just don't mix.
I have a little story why this special comment woke me up and had me paying attention, but I will save it for a post later in the day. As my green face is all over this page.
Is this a first??
Good Morning.....I kept try SOMETHING in the video......that related to Lynns words.....
Glad to know it was a boo-boo....because I could not find the message....all I could think about was Keiths endowments....he has one of those builds and faces and cocky confidences that says "ur gonna need a bigger boat"....
I have prejudices....race...skin color....and sexual orientation aren't part of it.....
Is does include people who act stupidly......and I was not raised around the word "nigger" but I think it is funny....as is "honky"...and "spook".....as long as these words aren't used in a mean spirited way....it is hilarious when black people called each other nigga.....I'll bet Barack and Michelle do it....I have often thought of what she might say to him before a state dinner or such..."nigga do not embarrass me tonight!"...or "stand up straight nigga....shit! u tha president!"
Black people have their own "culture" for sure. I don't care how much education or money some may have...when you get down to the nitty gritty.....they are all the same.....you will get cut....my experience is that most are very racist.....and think white folks owe them something.
I watched a black pastor talk about Obama's election to the presidency...and he said people are excited because "a black man has been elected to this office".....he said...he ain't mo nigga!! He grew up in Hawaii!! No black man could be elected! They are too stupid....look at Africa..hundreds of years to develop and LOOK AT IT!!..black men can't even put in a decent sewer system unless a white man shows them how to do it!!
Am I on the right rack regarding your blog Lynn D....lol
I don't care what color people are or who they love....my only criteria for people is that they be good.....but if you are a knife or gun toting gang member with a chip on your shoulder out to see what you can get for free....stay away from me and my car......because I too have a knife...a gun and a toaster ....and I know how to use them...
DeeDee, you are going to be in TROUBLE!!
The right to free speech does not apply in many cases. You my dear, do not enjoy that right and will be held accountable. Best to just bend over and take it up the arse cuz it's going to happen whether you want it or not.
Oh, LynnD; Speaking of technology, have you tried those instructions I sent you? I am anxious for your feedback.
Ok here is the story. A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation with the woman who is the President of our Board of Directors for the food bank and the building we are in. We were getting ready to visit another legislator.
Out of the blue she pops up and says this "I wish Obama would just stay off of TV he is scaring the hell out of everybody"! Well I did a double take and looked at her and asked "How is he scaring the hell out of everybody?"
Well she hemmed and hawed and could give me no answer to that question. She did inform me that she was a dyed in the wool democrat and he scares her and everyone she knows. I looked at her and said "Funny but I am not afraid and you know me." I let her know that I found some comfort in a President who tries to keep the American people informed about what his administration is doing, even though I don't always agree with him.
Then I had a conversation with my Dad the same week and he too, is a proclaimed card carrying Democrat. He voiced his fear of our President to. I kept quizzing him why he felt this fear? Again no clear answers. So I asked my Dad "Is it because he is black?" Silence on the other end of the phone. I have heard this theme from two of my Aunts also.
What struck me about the comment by Keith Olberman was the reference to hardwiring of racisim and I really feel there is alot of truth to this.
I should clarify my Dad is 68 the woman is 70 and my aunts are in their 70's. Which as I reflected on this made me really realize that they were raised in the generation were racisim was in some way acceptable and the norm. They were raised to degrade and seperate themselves from people who were not white.
I don't know where or from whom I got my attitudes from. At an early age I can remember my Dad and I actually having words about a disgusting thing he had said about black people. I was ten at the time and I clearly remember telling him what he said was not only nasty but wrong. I remember the look of shock on his face as he realized that I understood what he meant and that I was openly calling him out.
To his credit he never made a comment like that one in front of me again.
I have watched the Teabag movement on TV and clips on the internet and I have to say that it really struck me when Keith asked where are the people who are different than you in this movement. I have not seen many or any Hispanics, African Americans or Asians or openly gay people in those crowds. What I have seen are white people and the signs they carry, some of which are blatently rascist and exclusionary.
My hope is in the future generations we can get passed this and really find that when we drop all of the misery of the past we are truly just people who may not always agree but will work together to help build our country again.
Off my soap box.
PS I think Tina switched the videos! Imjs
Deedee as usual I just don't know where to go with your posts. Should I smack you or just laugh?
Bon have not had a chance yet but might get to it later today. I have to scrub toilets and strip the bed first.
LYNN: I was raised to believe that you liked who you liked. That you didn't let anyone dictate to you who you were friends with. My folks would have been furious with me if I had ever said "I don't like him" and the excuse I gave had anything to do with someones ethnicity or religious beliefs.
Obama doesn't scare me..I'm looking to him for leadership..and I just hope he can fix this economic mess we find ourselves in.
Well guys, I said that I felt better just a little too soon. Bronchitis kicked in last night. I have an RX for antibiotics and will start those tonight. I think I'm gonna get myself out in the sun and soak up some Vitamin D. Have a great day everyone!
in all seriousness.....I am seeing what your Dad and Aunts are talking about......when you question people about whether or not it has to do with Barack Obama being black....they don't have to say a word...you can see it in their eyes.....and THAT scares me.....
I am not one to stick my head in the sand...but I try ... and its natural....to believe that people can't be that scary...that they really don't believe that they could in any way be superior to a man such as Barack Obama.....
Example....I was in the home of some rich republican pillars of the community types....we were discussing a lady that I thought I had meet that they go to church with....I had always assumed this lady was black...when that became apparent....our fine christian host laughed and informed me that...."we don't go to church with them".....meaning blacks......so don't fool yourselves.....DEEP racism is alive and well and it lives in the hearts of many.
Whats really galls me is the people who couldn't touch that mans intelligence with a mile long pole who feel that they are in a position to judge the president of the United States.....and lets face it.....John Q Public doesn't know what the hell he or she is talking about...usually....
I think that older people...myself included...who have been thru many presidencies....do have a "sense" about these things......but I trust Obama....and a failure on his part will be nothing more than republican fanatic bullshit putting the kabash on what is best for this country......
Can you imagine... figuratively...walking thru a shower of artillery fire everyday of your job but staying focused on the goal......lesser men would have crumbled by now......
And I'll do you one better....CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT THINGS WOULD BE LIKE WITH JOHN MCCAIN IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!?? AND SARAH PALIN!!??
Nigga please......
So far all I am getting out of today's blog and comments are discrimination..against Republicans. Sorry but that is how I feel. We had a tea party at our Capital, and there was a mixture of people, white & black. I wasn't there, but a few people I know were. They were only exercising their right to show how they feel. I don't point fingers and call them racists, or them Fn Repubs.
Of course there is racism,intolerance,prejudices, I dare say even our nesters have looked a a fat person and shook their head, or looking down at someone for their taste in cloths (pants on the ground)etc. I have had bouts with guilt/hate when I watch tv and see my people(Mex)showed in gangs and killing their own.
Does this make me a bad person? The Bushes were no hated by all. It happened, they are gone. So let's go on and do the best to better ourselves and teach our children tolerance, patience,empathy towards all, including Repubs :) ok you can hate me and knock me out of the nest.
I had such a wonderful meeting this morning... LynnD, I've got some great stuff for your computer. Better than anything I had before.
For those of you wondering about these secret communications between LynnD and me, we're working on a blog. One that will let you do maintenance on your computer without paying someone like me. Lynn has graciously allowed me to volunteer her as the tester.
Mary, I am trying very hard not to get emotional about this blog today. It does bring about some valid points. I do wonder though, when it became criminal to be caucasian? Guilty of racism based upon some accident of birth?
I am a Republican and I do not discriminate against politicians. I hate them all.
yeah....then ya got them mescans.....ya know what cha get when you breed a black and a Mexican.....someone who is too lazy to steal!!!! baa haaa!
Personally I am white...and I powder with a big ol' puff to make mahsef whiter.....
know what you call a black kid on a new bicycle......
THIEF!!
Are these jokes offensive? White people have so many jokes about themselves I wouldn't know where to begin........
We gotta laugh at ourselves.....
why do I have to push or say "one" to continue in English......
I really don't care.....I think Mexicans are some of the most gracious people I have known.....
as I have said...I like everybody thats nice......except maybe cannibals.....and having my head shrunken would be a waste of a lot of good plastic surgery......although I wouldn't be opposed in sitting down with them for a coconut libation.....
And I have been wondering this too....for you all that believe some folks go to heaven.....
I have had a wonderful nose job.....many many years ago....and I understand that when u go to heaven you are restored......well....
does that mean I would get my old nose back??
because I prefer this one....
I don't know whether to laugh or cry....so I'm choosing to laugh~
LynnD~ I did change your video....I just put up the right one! Now honey, if you had paid my email any attention at all, you wouldn't have had to write it all out~ Ijs~
Mary~ Yeah....that's what I want to do.....knock you out of the nest~ duh~
Personally, I don't like Obama because I don't agree with him on most things....there are also things the Republicans collectively believe that I don't agree with. I could give a rats beep about the color of Obama's skin, his sexual orientation, or how often he's constipated. I thought he was naive about "the war" and about the economy and made promises he couldn't possibly keep. I wanted McCain. And I have the right to that. I find that Democrats are extremely vocal and sometimes all i hear is that teacher on the Peanuts cartoon.....but hey....we are all entitled to disagree....as long as we agree to disagree. You can think I'm wrong all you want. That's the beauty of it (cuz I think you're wrong!) lol :)~
DeeDee~ I have to tell you...i was in a training class most of the day, but on one of my breaks, I checked the blog and the ONLY thing I read was your first post! You had my entire department laughing.....even the new ones....they all get you~
If I've tole you once....i've tole you a thousand times....YOU ARE GETTING THAT OLD UGLY NOSE BACK!!!! and your chin, lips, forehead, wrinkles......but on the flip side, you'll get your eye back too! :D
....and one more thing....of course we messicans are gracious....I've put up with you for 2 1/2 years, haven't i?
Well I got some house work done and thought I would check in.
Mary why in world would I be mad at you? I am not mad at or prejudiced against Republicans. I am mad at people who can't get beyond race. The big scary black President. I also find it sad that there are people in high positions who are determined to exploit that fear. Making people tools of their hate.
I was and have been for many years a moderate conservative. What I see today does not resemble any of that movement. I voted for Ronald Regan, but did not vote for George Bush. Even in my uneducated political state I just did not think he was the man for the job and I still don't.
As I am getting older I am becoming much more liberal and really seeing the need of a government that works for the people not against them. If that makes sense.
I have never seen the fervor and strange behavior in people that this Presidency has brought out. It is like it is ok to be as ugly as can be. It makes me so sad.
PS I do have prejudices, I do enjoy a good dumb blonde joke. Even though I know it's wrong. I really can't stand people who drive Hummers (Doesn't matter what color they are.)
Don't get me started on Deedee and her plastic surgery!
bonachichi..lol, and here, here!
Congrats on first and on the book LynnD..that was hopefully copy and paste and not typed out, otherwise you will have carpel tunnel for sure.
My daughter was close friends with a group of Mexicans. She decided to convert, you know, like in religion. All of a sudden she was "brown". Apparently, Mexicans are always late because they have something called "brown time". Brown driving is accomplished by being the biggest asshole on the road. Brown work means you try to get the white people to do it. Every sentence ended with, "You know?" in a Mexican accent.
I told her that her "self deprecating" humor was offensive not only to me, but to most people of Mexican descent; especially coming from someone who is clearly NOT "brown". She didn't invent this, it came from her little brown friends. Who is perpetuating racism there, and why am I the bad guy for pointing out that it's inappropriate?
I am b-a-c-k lol!
I hate that I can't stay on line. My son & I use wireless thumb drives and we are allotted 50000mb a month each. I rarely come close to using them up, well, I spent so much time trying to get my Valentines so I could get my Eiffel tower, and finish my horse barn on Farmville that I have used 4726 already and I have until midnight Sunday before I recharge.
I am happy to testify that I do not own a Hummer!
Tina, thanks for your vote to keep me in here lol! I hope I didn't offend anyone, except maybe Dee Dee, cuz I think she gets off on that stuff!
I am making a quick trip to fb to send some barn building supplies and trees to the needy lol!
DeeDee, it won't matter whether you become restored when you get to Heaven. You're not going there.
I have a confession to make. A few years back, I bought a Hummer H2. I couldn't drive the stupid thing because every time I entered a parking garage or something, I'd duck. Like that would save the car from a low clearance. Then we drove it off-road and parked on a hill. But we forgot to set the parking brake and it rolled into a tree. Those things are not as sturdy as they look.
OMG, it is so hard to have to go and click off the Nascar every time I come on to the night owls page. Is there anyway to shut that stuff off?
bonachichi...lol at rolling the Hummer into a tree. That is funny. I like them, I would love to have one. I think they look cool and they are really nice inside. I sat in one once.
Bebbi, love the avatar. You just keep looking better and better! Way to go!
Well Bebbi, Hummers are nice. I've been told that several times. About the car though, they're a little overkill. Yes, you feel tough driving one, but then you feel like an idiot when you have to stop every mile or two in order to refill the gas. I never understood the dual videos in the back. If you've got two kids in the car, the last thing you need is more distraction in the form of conflicting video entertainment.
Bonachichi: Thanks! I feel very good. Dueling videos..lol, that is incredible. One time they had one at my work that I could sit in. That is the closest I got to one and I agree about stopping at every other gas station. We have a van and it guzzles gas too. Needless to say, we don't drive it very often.
Well then just what are you saying Bonacci! Where am I going! Hawaii?
And Lynn D!! You know I think you are very smart and I agree with most that I have ever heard you say....so since I put you on a pedestal you should think about saying things about my "work"....and what it might do to my psyche because although I appear strong I am but a delicate flower....
OMG Mary!!...you didn't offend me! Were you trying to!!?? I just thought you had your feelings hurt because a chink was trying to push you out of the nest!!
And that reminds me....no one has mentioned the Asians....if I were a gook or a jap I would be offended.......and of course there are your WOPS and DAGO'S......
If we are going to just stick with poking the blacks...honky's and mescans thats fine. I just didn't want anyone to feel left out....and what about native Americans....drunk Indians??
btw Tina.....the GOP are raising all the hell with their tea-bagging (lol)and caterwauling..
And if you say those vile things about John McCain again there are going to be consequences missy!
Bebbi~ There is a way to shut off the nascar videos.....but since I like them and the roar of the engines is the closest I ever get to any kind of roar.....I'm gonna enjoy them until they end up on the next page~ :D
I really wish John McCain had won~ :D
Mary: In the context of Keith Oberman's comments today, and your post, here's two planks from the most recent Republican Party position statement. First is this one:
Ensuring Equal Treatment for All
Individual rights – and the responsibilities that go with them – are the foundation of a free society. From the time of Lincoln, equality of individuals has been a cornerstone of the Republican Party. Our commitment to equal opportunity extends from landmark school-choice legislation for the students of Washington D.C. to historic appointments at the highest levels of government. We consider discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral, and we will strongly enforce anti-discrimination statutes. We ask all to join us in rejecting the forces of hatred and bigotry and in denouncing all who practice or promote racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, or religious intolerance...
Now here's the second one:
Preserving Traditional Marriage
Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems. We support the courageous efforts of single-parent families to provide a stable home for their children. Children are our nation’s most precious resource. We also salute and support the efforts of foster and adoptive families.
Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex “marriages” licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.
As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.
OK. On the one hand, I applaud the clear and unmistakable position of the Republican Party against most forms of discrimination as expressed in the first plank.
On the other hand, I am sickened and appalled at the clear and unmistakable support of the Republican Party for discrimination against me and my husband contained in the second plank.
As long as the second plank continues to be included in the official position of the Republican Party, I will fight the Party in every way I know how. That's what you do when a group or institution declares war on your rights, and justifies that war with nothing more than lies and innuendo that exploit precisely that "fear of other" that Oberman talks about (such as the second plank's insinuation that children fare less well in a household headed by two people of he same sex than they do in a household headed by two people of the opposite sex).
I did not ask for this fight. I very much hope that some day, the Republican Party will drop the second plank and begin to live by the principles it purports to support in the first. Unless I do fight, though, that day might come too late to ever give my marriage equal status to yours, and more generally, to ever end my second-class status in this country.
Wow.. lots happening today.. I am to stressed out to think, so I am just going to say....
1. Glad Tina fixed the vid..
2. The nascar vids are driving me nuts, every time I pull up the blog I here engines..
3. Thank you to everyone who has send in blogs these last few days, it has been a blessing
4. I am a guinea and proud of it ;O)
5. I love Bebbi's avatar!
6. I like Dee's to, however my goodness those lips..
7. Lynn who cracked me up this morning..
8. I miss Shirley
9. I am sorry you don't feel well, sending you some Happy Blue
10. All opinions count, glad we are all able to speak our mind and not kill each other.. :O)
9 is for Zona.. lol forgot to put her name.. :O)
Whabby..
I have always been with you and all other same sex couples, I believe in your right to marry.. and I am in hopes that someday that will prevail..
Dee.. lol on ur nose job.. and yes I think when you to heaven your original from comes back.. which excites the shit our of me, cause then I will be skinny!
:O)
oh shit.. I am tired so I am making mistakes.. from to be form..
I know, Carol! And I very much appreciate it! :)
OMG what is wrong with me..
from should be form..
crap!
Whabby.. I am just worried about same sex marriages in animals.. now that freaks me out.. lol
Carol, why are you worried about same sex marriage in animals? Dogs hump each other all the time. No problem!
DeeDee, you and I will probably be having a nice wienie roast in the after-life. Don't worry, I'll bring beer.
Whab, I really have a lot of empathy for you. The government is dinking with your life choice. What is traditional marriage, anyway? I guess where a man and a woman get married and stay that way come Hell or high water?
My aunt told me about a little tiff her parents (my grandparents) had one night. The four children watched whilst their father broke each of their mother's toes. One at a time, with her screaming in pain. Then my uncle got a lead pipe and beat the shit out of his dad. Yeah. That's something we should work at preserving.
OMG, Bon! Yeah, that was a nuturing environment for the kids!
Bon I'm glad your uncle had a pipe handy.
LynnD There is definitely still prejudice in this country. I don't believe everyone who criticizes the President is prejudiced but there are certainly prejudiced people who want him to fail or will not admit to his successes just because of his race.
Bear I totally believe you should have equal status and equal rights.
DeeDee I got quite a laugh out of imagining our First Lady speaking as if she was from the "hood".
I wondered if my last comment posted before I lost my connection.It didn't. I can't even remember what I had written! I do remember saying something like I was not an owner of a Hummer lol!
Whabbear, wow, that was some soap box you were on! I hope you heard me clapping my Mexican,Republican, Christian ass off! Of course you know how I feel about your marriage and how I wish everyone could understand your passion to preserve it as they do their own.I will continue to defend your rights to my friends. I live in a very red neck area, where both parties show their ignorance when it come to this subject. Hell I have gay friends who won't outwardly support it. It's as if they are afraid to rock the boat. Love yah Whabby!
I am off to bed. Have a great week end everyone!
You too sweet lurkers, we miss you!
Hi Sleepyheads....been gone all day. My daughter had to have some a test done at the hospital and we were there much longer than we planned. They could not find her vein for a few hours to start an IV for the test so it took a long time and by the time we left at 5pm it was snowing...so, it's been a very long day.
LYNN: looks like it has been not only an interesting blog but lots of comments. I have read most of the them but just too tired to comment. It's nice to see so many responses on a blog!!
See ya' all tomorrow.
Post a Comment