Proposition 8 Supporters are not all bigots (rated, teaching, homosexual)

[antredd]

Originally Posted by throwbacks

I will support same sex marriage because it doesn't hurt me not to. And because I have lots of gay friends that I would love to see as happy as I am in my marriage to my husband.
And the whole "do you want your kids to come home and tell you they learned that they can marry a boy if they want to?" Really? Is that all the "Yes on 8" compaigners can come up with?
Last time I checked, they didn't talk about marriage in schools. Isn't marriage mostly a religious thing? Didn't they ban teaching religion in schools a long time ago? Either way, I don't ever remember being taught anything about marriage when I was in school. Why are they starting to teach it now, regardless of who's getting married? If I'm wrong here, please correct me. I don't have kids yet, so I'm not sure.
Either way, I have a "save-the-date" to my first gay marriage ceremony hanging on my fridge! I can't wait!

I am an elementary school teacher, and yes marriage isn't taught in elementary school, but it is taught indirectly through reading passages that are written about characters from traditional families and when students ask their teachers are they married.

If you take any K-12 reading text book, 100% of them are written about characters from traditional or straight couples. What's so ironic about those reading passages is that many of my students, which I would say a good 60% of my class and a sign of the times, are not from traditional married parents.

With that said, here is the potential problem or controversy that can happen if someone decides that elementary, middle, and high school reading text books need to include characters that represent gay or lesbian couples. Just Like African, Asian, Mexican etc Americans argued that the text books of previous decades didn't include characters from other ethnic backgrounds, gay or lesbians could argue that the schools aren't teaching tolerance or alternative life styles by not including stories about gay or lesbian partnered characters.

What concerns me is for it to be forced on elementary school teachers to have to explain and or teach about a gay or lesbian couple depicted in a reading selection to elementary aged students, especially to children who's parents don't even want their children reading or learning about gay or lesbian couples at that age or even in middle or high school.

Teaching tolerance is a good thing. I just think we need to leave the schools out and leave it to the parents to teach their child on whether or not (in their opinion) gay marriage is right or wrong.

Schools are supposed to be in the business of the three Rs-Arithmetic, Writing, and Reading. These days schools, especially the role of the teacher, is one of policing, pastoring, and parenting children who have no guidance from home what so ever. We have shifted from the three Rs to the three Ps----how sad.

[throwbacks]

Antredd... totally agree! Parents need to step in and take back their role!

Thanks for some clarity from a teacher's side.

[bradly]

[Fleet]

Vote Yes! Protect traditional marriage!

[phoenix_talons]

That's right. Only straight couples are permitted to f**k up a marriage!

[happ]

Originally Posted by Fleet

Vote Yes! Protect traditional marriage!

Please tell us about your "traditional" marriage, Fleet. What kinky things do you do that are still OK in a traditional marriage? Please advise us exactly about how to have a "traditional" marriage because I'm sure with all your self-righteousness that you are almost God

[mommabear2]

Originally Posted by antredd

I am an elementary school teacher, and yes marriage isn't taught in elementary school, but it is taught indirectly through reading passages that are written about characters from traditional families and when students ask their teachers are they married.

If you take any K-12 reading text book, 100% of them are written about characters from traditional or straight couples. What's so ironic about those reading passages is that many of my students, which I would say a good 60% of my class and a sign of the times, are not from traditional married parents.

With that said, here is the potential problem or controversy that can happen if someone decides that elementary, middle, and high school reading text books need to include characters that represent gay or lesbian couples. Just Like African, Asian, Mexican etc Americans argued that the text books of previous decades didn't include characters from other ethnic backgrounds, gay or lesbians could argue that the schools aren't teaching tolerance or alternative life styles by not including stories about gay or lesbian partnered characters.

What concerns me is for it to be forced on elementary school teachers to have to explain and or teach about a gay or lesbian couple depicted in a reading selection to elementary aged students, especially to children who's parents don't even want their children reading or learning about gay or lesbian couples at that age or even in middle or high school.

Teaching tolerance is a good thing. I just think we need to leave the schools out and leave it to the parents to teach their child on whether or not (in their opinion) gay marriage is right or wrong.

Schools are supposed to be in the business of the three Rs-Arithmetic, Writing, and Reading. These days schools, especially the role of the teacher, is one of policing, pastoring, and parenting children who have no guidance from home what so ever. We have shifted from the three Rs to the three Ps----how sad.

Great post. We don't need to saddle our teachers with anymore "parental responsibilities" - let the teachers teach the basic, non-partisan, non-controversial subjects... math, writing, science, etc. which is a feat in itself. We should never put children in the middle of our adult quarrels - they should be left out of it.

Personally, if schools tried to teach my kids about gay marriage, then we should have creationism back on the list of things taught alongside it... you know, tit for tat. (I'm just kiddin' btw).

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by antredd

I am an elementary school teacher, and yes marriage isn't taught in elementary school, but it is taught indirectly through reading passages that are written about characters from traditional families and when students ask their teachers are they married.

If you take any K-12 reading text book, 100% of them are written about characters from traditional or straight couples. What's so ironic about those reading passages is that many of my students, which I would say a good 60% of my class and a sign of the times, are not from traditional married parents.

With that said, here is the potential problem or controversy that can happen if someone decides that elementary, middle, and high school reading text books need to include characters that represent gay or lesbian couples. Just Like African, Asian, Mexican etc Americans argued that the text books of previous decades didn't include characters from other ethnic backgrounds, gay or lesbians could argue that the schools aren't teaching tolerance or alternative life styles by not including stories about gay or lesbian partnered characters.

And Prop 8 impacts this how?

The entire text of Proposition 8 reads:

SECTION 2. Section 7.5 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

That's it. I don't see anything about education. Gays and lesbians could just as easily have done this before the CA court overturned the gay marriage ban. They could do it just as easily even if Prop 8 is passed. This is a total red herring. Furthermore, has this happened in the months since the ban was overturned? After all, gay marriage is legal right now. The answer is: of course not. These things simply haven't happened, and to suggest they will just because the people vote to keep things the way they are is ridiculous.

[Taboo2]

Originally Posted by Fleet

Vote Yes! Protect traditional marriage!

That is so ARCHAIC.

Traditional Marriage is about as valid as Traditional Families.

Who is to say that a child living with Abusive Biological mom and dad are better off then child living with loving caring grandma? That is not a traditional family but it is the BETTER CHOICE.

Same with marriage. Man (who is secretly gay but hiding it) married to a woman he isn't in love with is much much worse than Man happily in love with and married to another Man.

What do you want people to do? Pretend they are something they are not like they used to in the 60s and 70s?

I don't like people making others feel ashamed of who they are and this is EXACTLY what the YES on H8TE losers are doing to millions of americans.

[exarkansan]

The person who started this thread suggested that tolerance should go both ways, that those who urge tolerance towards gay marriage should consider showing tolerance towards sensitive religious sentiments. Well, it is naive beyond belief to imagine that everything under the sun - including religious belief, which is nothing more than exalted superstition, and gay marriage - is mutually compatible, that all one needs is a bit of old-fashioned compromise and understanding on both sides.

The religious fanatics - and in Europe, which is less inclined to buy into religious superstition than the US, this group usually consists of Muslims! - are vehemently opposed to gay anything, including gay in the old-fashioned sense (the book/ movie, In the Name of the Rose, questioned whether Jesus ever laughed, well, I can assure you, Muhammad never ever cracked a joke!). For example, Muslims claim to be tolerant of other religions, but where Muslims dominate, they enforce codes which in effect deny other religious sentiment, especially regarding the interaction between men and women, even to the point of requiring women-only buses, so that a Christian or Buddhist couple could no longer travel to work together, but would have to take separate buses. The lowest/ most primitive common denominator applies!

The real issue behind Prop 8 is whether the dominant society of hetero types can deny a basic civic right to gay types. We are not speaking of the right of gays to have a church-blessed wedding, although I am sure that there are plenty of pretty nasty (in your face) gays who would like to do just that, not in order to have a nice church marriage, but in order to destroy the church. Militants abound everywhere. But that is no reason to deny a sub-group in society its basic human rights.

Wehotex hit the nail on the head in pointing this out, which all of you others should have realized without his/her help. If I were gay, I would refuse pay taxes until the state/ country recognized my civic rights.* The above discussion regarding the cost-benefit analysis of permitting gays their basic human rights is too perverse to take seriously - only a deeply ignorant schmaltz (think of the word Woody Alleen would use!) would even bring the idea up (do we consider cost-benefit when we go to war on matters of principle? - if anything makes this country great, it is its adherence - at least its former adherence! - to principles of equality, freedom, etc., not its adherence to good bookkeeping practices!!!).

* I think that gays should make a whopping claim for damages for past-and-present injustices, much the same way that American Indians have been awarded huge sums for injustices carried out against them in former times. Blacks want to bring such a claim against white US society for the slavery they suffered, but present-day whites disclaim any responsibility for the ignorance of their forebears. The same defense crumbles in the face of the discrimination of gays.