Civil Unions vs. Gay Marriage

Thoughts on Life is divided into three sections: Poetry, Short Stories, and Non-Fiction.
In the third section (although it's not listed in the Table of Contents for some reason), there is a speech that I wrote last year for my English class. I would like to share it with you.


For more really good articles on the subject, check out here and here.

Civil Unions vs. Gay Marriage: Which is the Better Option?

     “Good morning, Hank. It’s Sunday, June 28, 2009, and I’m angry!” That is how Printz Award winning author of young adult literature and prominent video blogger John Green began his video entitled “Gay is Not an Insult." He then went on to explain that in order to insult someone, you must “paint them with character traits or identities that are bad," and therefore “gay” is not an insult because being gay is not a bad thing, and neither are the two other popular YouTube insults of "nerd" and "virgin" (“Gay”). However, some people disagree with this statement, saying that homosexuality is indeed bad, and that such people can't stay commited to a relationship. They believe the institution of marriage should be reserved for straight couples only, and therefore have created a "separate but equal" institution known as a civil union as a perfectly acceptable alternative for them to be joined in. This commonly held belief is incorrect, as civil unions are not equal to marriage, and gays deserve the right to marriage even if civil unions did give the same benefits.

     The point of whether or not homosexuality is a sin, when it comes to the issue of gay marriage versus civil unions, is completely moot. Even convicted felons are not denied the right of marriage, so the moral status of it has nothing to do with the legal matters of allowing it.

     Some people insist that gay couples can’t uphold the same standards of commitment and legitimacy to the marriage that straight couples can, and use that as an excuse to deny them their right to marriage. This mantra, in addition to being a falsehood, has no grounds in relevancy. These individuals do not take into account the statistically higher rates of illegitimacy present in certain racial populations: marriage is not denied to them either (Sullivan). In fact, lesbian couples have one of the highest commitment rates (Gannon) because of the naturally higher and stable levels of the hormone oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin promotes emotional love and strengthens such bonds between people, while also creating the desire to “nest” and settle down. Men, on the other hand, have very low and tempermental levels of this hormone compared to women and therefore are more likely to break the commitment of marriage (Grundy). This fact, degrading to the cause for equality as it is, is tossed out the window when it is considered that due to their long, draining, and dedicated fight to gain the right of marriage, when the sun dawns on a new day in the history of gay rights, those couples will treat their new option with a respect and seriousness far greater than that given to it by their straight counterparts who take it for granted.

     Now let us explore exactly why civil unions are not an acceptable alternative to marriage. According to Yale Law School, there are 1138 federal protections granted to married couples, but not to spouses joined in a civil union. In addition, employers are not required to give benefits such as insurance to such people, whereas married spouses automatically receive them (Ayres). This shunts unmarried couples joined in a civil union into an unfair and disadvantaged situation. They can legally be kept out of hospital rooms while their spouse is on his or her deathbed, and suffer many other kinds of pain due to this lack of protection. Public officials, such as judges, have the right to refuse to officiate a civil union between people of the same gender, while they are required to marry heterosexual couples if asked (Ayres). This is a gross injustice, as now not only has equality been removed from the marital system, but so has security. There is no garuntee any given official will consent to facilitate, since his personal views may interfere with his decision. Should gay judges be allowed to deny marriage to straight couples because of their views? Furthermore, lesbian and gay couples can only choose to be in a civil union, or settle for nothing at all, while straight couples can choose either (Lambda). This restraint on options begs for discrimination by implying inferiority where none exists.

     Our country’s Declaration of Independence declares that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, [and] that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (U.S. Declaration of Ind.). Being martially joined with the person you love certainly falls under “the pursuit of happiness”, as well as liberty. By creating an alternative to anything for a minority (in this case, gays and lesbians), the government violates this constitutional promise of equality.

     Other than strictly legal matters, there are social effects from being in a civil union that are rather undesirable. “Without the word ‘marriage’, other people ‘have to wonder what kind of a relationship it is, or how to refer to it, or how much to respect it’…Those couples lose the respect and dignity they deserve for their commitment to be responsible for each other” (Lambda). Respect is a commodity in the world, and it is one many people fail to give to those who deserve it. Why should gays lose what little they do receive over a meaningless squabble of terminology and religious versus legal definitions?

     Some may say that marriage isn’t at all important, so why bother fighting for equality within it? The answer is simple, and Lambda Legal puts it very nicely: “if access to marriage weren’t a big deal, there would be no effort to restrict it in the first place” (Lambda). Regardless of whether or not homosexuality is “sinful,” people falling under that banner are humans just like the rest of us and deserve equal rights, as promised by our country, ironically known as a “land of equal opportunity”.

     All of you may be thinking something to the tune of "I'm straight: this doesn't affect me. Why should I bother to help?" The same thought once traveled the synapses of my brain. It was then that I realized that that was exactly the sort of thing going through the Germans' brains as they watched Jews march past them to their deaths. It was then that I took my stand. It is estimated that around 10% of the global population is at some level (conscious or unconscious) of homo- or bisexuality, and 1% have some sort of intersex condition (Green “Sex”). This means that the outcome of this battle could have a significant impact on as many as three people in this room right now. Even if you're not one of those potential three, how would you like it if you weren't allowed to religiously or legally be joined to the person you loved? This isn't a personal matter; it's a matter of principle. If we compromise our belief in equality in just one instance, what's to stop us from doing it again and again?

     In conclusion, gays deserve the same rights as straights based on the equality supposedly ensured by U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. All arguments against this are proven worthless by either other groups sharing similar traits yet receiving the same rights as everyone else or by the separation of church and state. Civil unions do not provide a suitable alternative for marriage, due to both legal inequalities and social disadvantages. One day, homosexuality and gay marriage will be taken in stride just like a person’s possession of dyed hair or tattoos—that is, it will be recognized as not the majority, but perfectly normal. Until this day comes, I will continue fight alongside John and Hank Green and the Harry Potter Alliance, as I have been actively doing for the past few months, in favor of marriage for all. After learning about these disgusting acts of discrimination, I hope you will too. In the words of John Green, "Ultimately, gay will never work as an insult because gay is not bad. So you want to call me a gay nerd virgin? That's fine."

Works Cited

Ayres, Ian. “Separate, Unequal: How Civil Unions Fall Short of Marriage”. 2005. 17 Nov. 2009

Gannon, Heather Ann. “Same-Sex Marriage Should Be Allowed.” 2008. 28 Nov. 2009 .

“GAY is NOT an INSULT” (video recording). 29 June 2009. Indianapolis, IN. John Green. 28 Nov. 2009 .

Grundy, Benjamin. “Episode 209—Mysterious Universe.” Mysterious Universe. 31 Oct. 2009. 8 Nov. 2009 .

Lambda Legal. “Civil Unions are not Enough”. 18 Nov. 2009 .

“Sex, Sports, and Caster Semenya” (video recording). 13 Sept. 2009. Indianapolis, IN. John Green. 19 Nov. 2009 .

Sullivan, Andrew. “Marriage or Bust: Civil Unions are not Enough.” 15 Oct. 2008. 18 Nov. 2009 .

An Abundance of Quotes Part 4

"Holes in one's worldview are always good, sometimes you can look through and see the stars." - Kenny's comment on my last post.


"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H. L. Mencken


"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." - Edith Wharton


“Weltschmerz. It’s the depression you feel when the world as it is does not line up with the world as you think it should be… Because everyone thinks it should be possible to just keep falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned smile. And that should be possible. You should  be able to fall forever.” - Will Grayson, Will Grayson


The current campaign over at The Harry Potter Alliance is a seven-part thing tackling real-world horcruxes. The current one is on body image. Check it out.

The Internet: Expanding Our Horizons, Expanding Our World

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent." - John Donne


The following is the speech portion of my English project. While the Powerpoint has some things not within the text, I won't be posting that-- not for any specific reason.

The Internet: Expanding Our Horizons, Expanding Our World

“You are the first generation to be born on the internet. I don’t know how your mom did it, but she did,” said self-proclaimed “Professional Internet Moron” Hank Green in his “Message to the Class of 2009.” We’re a few years behind them, but he may as well be talking to us. The internet came into wide-spread use in the 1990s, and by 2007, according to Global Issues in Context Online, almost three quarters of North America and nearly half of Europe had and used internet access. In 2008, 22% of the global population was online—three times as much as in 2000 (“Internet”). This trend manifests in two ways: increased individual and group reach, and the integration of the world’s myriad of cultures.

 Not only is the world using the internet more than ever, but we seem to think that we need to use it. According to a poll by the BBC World Service in 2010, about 67% of Japan's population strongly feels that they could not survive without the internet. 56% of Mexico feels the same way, while only 24% of Americans need to be constantly "plugged in." These percentages do not include those who stated they only "somewhat disagreed" with the statement that they could not live without the internet. When those numbers are added in, the statistics change to 84% for Japan, 81% for Mexico, and 36% for the United States. Companies like Google provide us with dozens of tools that many people—including, I confess, myself—are coming to depend on for day to day life to progress smoothly, and more are announced each year.

It goes without saying that billions use and love the internet. However, it is the young people who know the true power of the internet. Towards the end of his message, Hank tells us that “Not only do (we) understand how it works, but we have a unique understanding of how the world works,” (Green, “Message”).

He means that we know the internet is connecting the people and countries of the world into one collective of shared information and cultural content (“Internet”). This phenomenon is known as globalization—the connecting of distant regions of the world into one global unit. Since the 1960s when the original internet-like technologies were created, some scholars have feared that such globalization will lead to an eradication of cultural diversity, insisting that “Earth's diversity of languages, accents, scripts, musical forms, and artistic styles developed before globalization, during the period when most people were in regular contact only with people in their own social group, (“Internet”) and therefore the unification of these social groups will result in a “uniform global taste.” Whether or not a "uniform global taste" is being created remains to be seen, however, as the internet is simply too new to tell. What is certain is that the internet is exposing people to opinions, images, and information from other countries, fostering greater understanding and knowledge between nations.

I am inclined to believe that diversity will not be lost. When Catholicism took over Ireland, they did not lose the old ways—only adapted them into the new regime. If a priest declared that a stillborn baby had not been baptized and therefore could neither go to heaven nor be buried on holy ground, the parents would leave the baby at the base of a fairy tree, entrusting it to their care instead. Even now, when most Irishmen will deny their belief in fairies, it is as good as illegal to cut down one of these trees (Wood). The current versions of our cultures will fade with globalization, of course, but that doesn’t mean our differences and national quirks will do the same.

If you are one of those who don’t agree with me, however, you need not worry. Countries such as Iran and China are working hard to censor both incoming internet feeds and outgoing uploads. Global Issues in Context Online reports that “"In June 2009, before and following their disputed presidential election, the Iranian government began censoring and blocking such Web sites as YouTube and Facebook and severely restricted foreign journalists from reporting on the protests and unrest that gripped the capital of Tehran." Furthermore, "China employs at least 30,000 full-time workers to censor the Internet and routinely imprisons people for trying to access forbidden Web sites or post dissenting views to the Web… In January 2010, Google announced that Chinese cyber-spies had attempted to hack into the computers at its Chinese office to gain access to the e-mail of Chinese human rights activists,” (“Internet”). Even the ease of communication for which the internet is so famous can become a tool for these governments; with more online freedom, people will share more, alerting organizations as to who needs to be blocked (Morozov).

Censorship is a grievous crime, and censorship of such an enormous source of information is even more so. Fortunately, "citizen reporters" continued to recount and comment on local events by blogging via proxy servers. The Iranian government could block individual servers, but were no match for the thousands of proxies being used anonymously (“Internet”). This past March, Google shut down its Chinese offices and began redirecting users to the Hong Kong site, which is not censored.

 Efforts are being made both for and against globalization via the internet, but political arguments aside, it is difficult to argue that the internet does not have a staggering positive impact upon the world. A fantastic example is the Project for Awesome. As the Project’s website describes it, “Every year, YouTube's Community takes over YouTube for a day, and instead of being stupid or funny or informative, we promote charities. Just one day a year – we'll get back to being silly tomorrow.” Even as I wrote this speech, hundreds of thousands of YouTube users—including myself— were participating in the 2010 event. At the time of writing, over 80,000 dollars were raised in less than 48 hours—and that’s only from the raffles (Green, “About”).

My Project for Awesome video described the charity behind another world-changing event that would not have been possible without the internet: the Harry Potter Alliance and its Helping Haiti Heal campaign. This campaign consisted of many fandoms of various books, shows, and movies joining together through sites such as LiveStream and Twitter to raise over $123,000 to send to Haiti after the earthquake in January. Five enormous jets filled with supplies were sent via this initiative (Slack).

The vast majority of the Harry Potter Alliance and those involved in the Project for Awesome are in high school or college—not adults with plenty of extra money. The internet is not only promoting fast communication and increased availability of information, but it is also providing young people like us with the tools to make a positive difference in the world with an impact that our parents’ generation could never have imagined.

While novels are fiction, the concepts within them are often very real. In Cory Doctorow’s novel For the Win, union workers across the planet fight their bosses both in real life and within cyberspace on blogs, webcasts, and the massively multiplayer online role-playing games that are becoming increasingly more popular within our own world (Doctorow).

That’s not all, though; globalization is affecting the arts as well as youth empowerment, human welfare, and politics. Chris Anderson’s article in Wired magazine, “Film School,” reveals trends in dance: a six year old boy in Hawaii can perform moves difficult for adult professionals simply by emulating videos he has seen online, and groups of Californian teenagers invent their own sub-genres by building off of the videos of others (Anderson). The internet allows people to collaborate and expand to a degree far greater than they could have done on their own or within their immediate surroundings. Our cultures aren’t killing each other off—they’re growing exponentially and taking a trip around the world in far less than 80 days.

Globalization will only increase from here on out; the internet has grown too much and been too useful to take it away. Our duty as its users is to find safe yet productive ways in which to use it. Iran and China block users who are advocating social change—because it’s working (Morozov). YouTube is about more than cat videos and fart jokes (Anderson), as is evident in the Project for Awesome, and the Harry Potter Alliance showed that Twitter is about more than telling your dozen followers what you ate for breakfast. The arts aren’t less good—there’s simply a lot more art available for viewing. We ran out of space to explore here on Earth, and we don’t have the money to explore outer space, so we invented a new space of our own: cyberspace.

Works Cited

Anderson, Chris. “Film School.” Wired Jan. 2011: 23-24. Print.

“Can You Cope Without The Internet?: 2010.” Global Issues in Context. Gale, 2010. Web. 13 Dec. 2010.

Coleman, Kevin. "Unconstrained Cyberspace Domain." DefenseTech. Military 
     Advantage, 12 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Dec. 2010.

Doctorow, Cory. For the Win. Ed. Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. New York: Tor, 2010. Print.

Green, Hank. “About the P4A.” Project For Awesome. WordPress, 29 Nov. 2010. Web. 16 Dec. 2010. .

Green, Hank, and John Green. “A Message to the Class of 2009.” Vlogbrothers. YouTube, n.d. Web. 26 May 2009.

“Internet and Globalization.” Global Issues In Context Online Collection. Gale, 2010. Web. 10 Dec. 2010.

Morozov, Eugeny. “The Dark Side of the Net.” Wired Jan. 2011: 23-24. Print.

Slack, Andrew, and Paul DeGeorge. “Helping Haiti Heal.” The Harry Potter Alliance. The Harry Potter Alliance, Dec. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2010. .

Wood, Don. Personal interview. 11 Dec. 2010.

Wood, Kathryn. Personal interview. Mar. 2010.

The Deathly Hallows Campaign

Remember that thing I write about sometimes called the Harry Potter Alliance?
Well, they've started a new campaign called the Deathly Hallows Campaign in which we are fighting 7 real world horcruxes over the span of 9 months.
The first horcrux? Starving Wages. Click on this link here to sign the petition to get Warner Bros. to change their policy so that ALL Harry Potter chocolate is Fair Trade chocolate (the people who worked to get it to you were given decent wages.)


I put quotes on here quite often. Half the posts are here just because I had a quote I wanted to share and figured I may as well talk about something else as well. This quote below is not from John Green, nor is it from Hank Green, nor did I find it in my quote of the day feed.
This quote is from Martin Luther King Jr., read by HPA head Andrew Slack on the Livestream kick-off show.


"It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality."


While you're signing that petition, go ahead and tell them you're a Ravenclaw. It takes less than a minute and will make a difference.
After all, this is the charity that sent 5 HUGE PLANES that were FULL of supplies to Haiti. We get stuff done, and the weapon we have is love (huzzah for cheesy catchphrases).


Thanks.

Freaking Awesome

The events recounted in this post are entirely true to the best of the author's and her source's knowledge.


A few days ago my math teacher, Mr. Zappia, told us a story. It took over half an hour to tell. This is the short version.


A few years ago, he had a mini-stroke. Ever since, he has had a migrane every single day.


A few weeks after that happened, he got in a car accident. 


The back of his car was considerably closer to his head. The passenger's side of the car was considerably closer to his body. His seat was at a 45-degree angle (that's Pi/4 radians, which I have put here for his benefit in the off-chance that he finds this) to where it should be. Somehow, he was alive and entirely uninjured except for being in shock.


Hospital bills are expensive. New cars are expensive.


The car accident happened over spring break. A day or two after school was back in session, he got an email from a former student attending college in Arizona saying "Heard what was going on. Let me know if you need any help." He thought That's very nice of (him/her)." He typed back "That's very nice of you." 
Later that day, he received a call from a different former student attending college in Ohio, saying much the same thing.
During lunch, he was eating in his classroom with a few of his current students. He told them about this and remarked on how odd it was that they'd both gotten in touch with him on the same day.
The students started edging toward the door.


"You know something," he said.


"No we don't.


"Yes you do. What is it?"


"We don't want to tell you."


"(laughs) I'm not giving you a choice."


They walked back towards his desk, and one of them asked "Have you ever read Harry Potter?"


This, understandably, confused Mr. Zappia. "Um, yes. Are you changing the subject?"


" You know how Harry Potter had an army?"


"Yeah?"


"Well," the student said, "You have an army too."


This group of students had made shirts with lightning bolts on the front reading "Zap's Army" with math symbols on the sleeves. They had started a group of Facebook to sell these shirts to a greater span of people. The cost was variable, so people could pay extra if they wanted. All of the extra was to go to Mr. Zappia to pay for his expenses.


"(in shock) I can't accept that."


"We know. That's why we didn't want to tell you."


He wrote a letter, emailed it to these guys, and they put it on the Facebook group saying that all of this was very nice, but he wasn't going to take the money.
In the end, they gave him $6300 and he gave it to Habitat For Humanity.


He had an army. With T-shirts. How awesome is that? 

The One With All The Embedding

Here are the songs I recorded at the ROFLCOPTOUR concert last Tuesday, in chronological order. There were a lot of other ones, of course, but I had limited battery power and memory space.

(about John Green's book Paper Towns- my favorite of his. The book is a lot more serious than the song, although still very, very funny. I highly recommend it to everyone, as it's one of my favorite books of all time.)

I hope you enjoy the videos, even though there were a lot of people in the way.

The Harry Potter Alliance Needs A Bit Of Help

I've blogged about the HPA before, right? The Harry Potter Alliance? Dumbledore's Army of the Muggle world?


I'm going to ask the five of you (well, six) to do something for me/them.


Please go vote for them here. 


If they win this, they'll win a ton of money that they'll use to keep up all of their campaigns (like the ones for LGBT rights, giving books to people in need, Helping Haiti Heal, Wizard Rock the Vote [getting people to register for voting and convincing them to actually go], and lots of other stuff.)


I love this charity. I love what they do, where they came from, and the people in it.


And now it is dinner time, and I'm going to see Much Ado About Nothing in the park this afternoon, so I've got to go.

Net Neutrality

I try to keep the rest of my online life out of this blog, unless there's something directly related, or if I'm just bored and feel like writing about something.

However, I think this is extremely important, and should be shared with as many people as possible. Plus, the video's hilarious.



If the embed didn't work, go watch the video here and then come back.

John and Hank, of course, are the vlogbrothers. Maureen is a YA author who I like very much. Wil Wheaton is an actor from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Luke and Kristina comprise my favorite band, and the Mythbuster guy is, well, a Mythbuster.

If you click on the link to http://www.savetheinternet.com/ (which you should), there is a button in the upper left-hand corner that says "Act Now." Click on it. Fill out your information (it's important). The site will send an email to your senators and representative for your district.

I've watched the video three times now.

Accio Books

This year I'm participating in the Harry Potter Alliance's Accio Books drive. Most (if not all, I'm not really sure) of the books raised will be going to people in/from Haiti.
The HPA, for those who don't know, is a non-profit organization comprised of HP fans. We're the "Dumbledore's Army of the real world."
Past campaigns are:

• Raising money for people in Darfur and Burma
• Accio Books 2009 (4,000 of which went to Rwanda)
• Phone campaign through Mass Equality to promote marriage equality in Maine
• "Lighting a Candle For Rwanda" videos, shown at a celebration in Rwanda
• Work with anti-genocide group STAND
• Wizard Rock the Vote (helping first-time voters to register)
• Podcast on Darfur
• Teaching student leaders

North Carolina's Chapter: http://danorthcarolina.ning.com/
HPA Main site: http://www.thehpalliance.org/

These people are pretty awesome. There's a Livestream @ 4:00 today to kick-off Accio Books.

http://www.livestream.com/sayaha

Okay, unrelated plugging over.

I finished Boys Without Names yesterday. Emily wants to read it next, so I'll give it to her in band on Monday. Next I will be reading Before I Fall. It's pretty long, but I hope I'll be finished by next meeting so someone else can have it.