The null vote
Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:44PM It is time to vote for the next President, a few local government positions, some propositions etc.
The ballot becons and with pen in hand the two voting adults in the house are discussing things, much to the amusement of the non voting adult and the kids!
What is there to discuss?
Yeah sure, the wife saw the last debate and converted to Obama.. She was actually swayed momentarily by the hockey mom earlier with the tongue clicking and cuteness, but somehow the whole stance on education and choice from the "old dude" turned her.
Asked her why Obama appealed to her and the answer was
This guy says "we can do it" and the old guy says "I will do it for you".. Somehow that was perceived as not associating with the voter! Good, good, one more vote is good..
Now, that said, what is there to discuss?
Proposition 8, of course. Last week there was a huge rally at the local public park with a few thousand red T-Shirts with placards saying "Marriage is one man one woman", Vote yes on 8 , Honk if you agree etc..
People drove by honking or giving their finger to the crowd which was 99% asian (mostly Chinese, vietnamese looking folk) who make up a majority in cupertino and my guess is that they are all very religious church going folks. There were even some local groups sporting church paraphranelia.
In any case, a middle aged white man approached us and said "you are registered voters , yes?" and we said "yes" and he went on to ask us about India, which part, etc. etc. and said "please vote yes on 8 or we lose our values".. they will start teaching our kids in kindergarten that it is okay for a guy to marry a guy!
"our values"?!? But we hardly met!
Now lets look at reality here and try to answer some of these questions..
a. What percent of the population is gay?
b. Do the gay population have a choice in being gay?
c. Is this really about kids being taught in kindergarten that "guys can marry guys"?
d. Would that really change a straight child from turning gay or if not not taught, change a gay child from becoming gay?
e. Are there straight and gay children?
f. At what age does a child know a preference? (if you read Desmond Morris's "the naked ape" which I think is a fantastic anthropology book for novices, you will find that most humans go through a hate-love-hate phase.. initially boys find girls yukkie, then they bond a lot with boys, then they suddenly find girls attractive)
g. What percentage of the teaching population is gay?
i. How many teachers will actually bother to mention to the students (especially in kindergarten) about sex?
j. How many will further venture to the topic of same sex?
k. What are the chances of any of the books explicitly dedicating a paragraph or a chapter to same sex marriage?
l. How much do our students listen to their teachers?
m. What has any of this got to do with marriage?
n. Is marriage "one man one woman" or does it get expanded to "one man one woman at a time"? or "one woman one man at a time"?
o. Wasn't the whole idea to give equal rights like (emergency room visitation, legal custody, will and testament stuff, family health insurance, transfer of assets on death etc.) to gay couples?
p. What if the dude who came and told me about "our values" has a teenage kid who he does not know is gay, yet?
q. Doesn't cupertino have the higest local population with at least a M.S.degree or higher in every household?
r. How come that population is not able to rationalize the reasoning behind prop 8?
s. How come the dude was able to scare my wife to believe that somehow our kids would be turned gay by their kindergarden teacher and her dreams of having grandkids were trashed momentarily?
t. If cupertino has this fate, what chance does this proposition stand elsewhere?
u. Why is this more important than my 401k?
v. What of the poor gay couple who have lost all their 401k?
w. Why is the default "yes" on this proposition a vote against civil rights?
x. Why should anyone who thinks that same sex couples should have rights be branded as gay, or less macho, or be branded as "value less"?
y. Didn't they have rallies like this a hundred years ago saying "vote yes" for women not to have voting rights?
z. Didn't they have similar rallies fifty years ago saying "vote yes" so blacks cannot vote?
aa. Is California ready for that level of tolerance?
ab. Does this have anything to with a blue vs. red state or it is a different demographic that drives this?
ac. Should I stop now?
My brain is doing 400 GHz again. Need to go stick in the refridgerator..
Last time it was a null vote in this house for Hillary vs. Obama.
This time it might be a null vote on prop 8!
I leave you with lots of questions, no good answers.
Tomorrow is another day.
.
election, gay rights, marriage, politicians, politics, prop 8
Reader Comments (7)
Hi Sundar,
I thought you should watch this :)
http://www.behindwoods.com/features/tamil-movie-trailers-2/abhiyum-naanum-trailer.html
Seeing the ads in TV for Prop 8, I was wondering what the hell it is and why it is necessary for a common man to say "yes/no" on this. Thanks to your post, I get it as a vote for/against gay rights. But again, why is it so important that it deems a ballot when it is going to impact hardly 1% of the adult population(or is it significantly high?). Beats me. Does the guy you met know that he is in fact advertising(by name of fighting) the concept of same sex to the public.
Talking of values, where was this guy when stuff between man and woman, that are supposed to be behind closed doors, are carried out in the open? Why dont he protest against it? Why dont he protest against the culture of prom-nights in high school where getting hooked up is a sign of success for such young children? Values, my foot.
American values - an oxymoron.
How could you scare me so much. My kid will start Kinder next year and i am scared already.
I don't have good discipline to home school her either.
Glad you know your A,B,Cs and coined new aa, ab, ac etc
V
Thank God tomorrow is another day! But you know what, its fast comming
:)
Long live values ! err...our values !
Oh yeah too many questions BUT i have only one answer -- Move to Canada -- Gay/lesbian marriages are legal here ....hehehehe :)
sundar:
"same sex marriage" is an oxymoron, no?
- s.b.
Thanks to you, now my brain is also doing a 400 GHz!