#47600 Proposition 8

[vorpal blade]

What same-sex marriage advocates are asking for is something new. They are not asking to participate in the ancient tradition of marriage, as it has always been understood to mean, they are asking for a change in the very definition of marriage so that what they are doing can also be called marriage. This is profoundly different from asking to have the same rights as others. They are not asking for equal rights, they are asking for a new definition of marriage.

I believe I said that earlier... except you expressed it better.

I apologize. I had been thinking about commenting on how I agreed with your excellent points. Yes, I do tend to repeat the same ideas others have expressed, without acknowledging their ideas.

[361]

What same-sex marriage advocates are asking for is something new. They are not asking to participate in the ancient tradition of marriage, as it has always been understood to mean, they are asking for a change in the very definition of marriage so that what they are doing can also be called marriage. This is profoundly different from asking to have the same rights as others. They are not asking for equal rights, they are asking for a new definition of marriage.

I believe I said that earlier... except you expressed it better.

I apologize. I had been thinking about commenting on how I agreed with your excellent points. Yes, I do tend to repeat the same ideas others have expressed, without acknowledging their ideas.

You'll make a fine programmer someday vorpal!

[Nanti-SARRMM]

There are protests against proposition 8 planned outside the Oakland Temple this week actually...

[vorpal blade]

I was thinking about how subtly teachers can indoctrinate their students. It makes one wonder how one might have been manipulated, and never recognized it for what it is.

Recently I have been reading an essay called “History versus Visions” by Thomas Sowell. I thought this was interesting:

“Against that background, it is possible to see what a gross distortion of history it is for schools to be asking American school children such questions as how they would feel if they were the indigenous American Indians being forced from their land by the westward movement of invaders from Europe. These children, with no historical background, and coming from a society which condemns conquest, cannot possibly re-create the attitudes and beliefs which prevailed among either the Indians or the Europeans of earlier centuries.

“While today's American children would of course think it wrong to take other people's lands by force, the American Indians had no such conception and took one another's lands by force long before they ever laid eyes on a white man. Indeed, Indians often joined with the European invaders to attack other Indians, in order to share in the spoils or to exact revenge for these other Indians' prior spoliation of them, including the taking of their lands and the enslavement of their people. When Cortes marched against the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, he led an army of 900 Spaniard and thousands of Indians.

“No doubt those Indians forced off their lands in the United States or Brazil were bitter at being on the losing end of so many battles, but that is wholly different from a belief that battles were not the way to settle such things. No one wants to be conquered or enslaved. But that is wholly different from not wanting to be a conqueror or enslaver, or thinking that either or both are morally wrong. This is not a question of moral relativism or situational ethics. We may today condemn all conquests at all periods of history but that is wholly different from imagining that such feelings were those of Indians in centuries past. Clearly, such “how would you feel” questions are put to American children—and adults—to advance a contemporary vision and a contemporary agenda, rather than to provide a realistic understanding of history. It is a betrayal of the trust of those who send their children to school to be educated, not manipulated.”

[habiba]

Ironically, I find Mr. Sowell lacking in historical vision. There is a vast difference between tribal conflict and foreign occupation. It's not simply a matter of land being taken. Who does the taking is key.

[vorpal blade]

Ironically, I find Mr. Sowell lacking in historical vision. There is a vast difference between tribal conflict and foreign occupation. It's not simply a matter of land being taken. Who does the taking is key.

I'm sorry, could you explain to me what the vast difference is? Why does it matter who takes your land?

Of course, my point is the way the schools can influence our children to accept a certain political agenda, while seeming to be objective and fair.

[habiba]

Certainly. It's kind of like a family. There are siblings who share toys. They fight and squabble among each other and toys change hands relatively frequently. Sometimes they despise each other, sometimes they get along. The siblings are in their house engaged in their normal (albeit contentious) play when some strangers walk in. They take all of the toys, beat the kids up, and systemically eradicate their way of life.

Tribal conflict is a very strong tradition that we Americans have a difficult time understanding. You can look at American and South American Indians and North African tribes as perfect examples. They were expected to fight one with another, but were bound together by common culture and method of living. Alliances and conflicts shifted continually and that was completely normal. Then in waltz colonialists who don't just take land, but try and eradicate the entire tribal system. Foreign occupants don't just take land, they try and take the way of life with it. Mr. Sowell talks about how Indians participated in the battles that took tribal lands. I think he misses an important factor in that at the time, they thought the white settlers were just a new addition to the system. They were used to making convenient alliances and did the same with the colonialists. What they didn't expect was that the newcomers were going to take everything from everybody and build an entire new civilization over the ruins of their people.

I agree with you that indoctrination happens. I'm not sure what kind of political agenda they would be trying to push with this issue. Anti-imperialism? The Golden Rule?

[Nanti-SARRMM]

The Golden Rule?

Do unto other before they do unto you?

[361]

Tribal conflict is a very strong tradition that we Americans have a difficult time understanding.

I think Americans can easily identify with tribal conflicts... As humans we separate ourselves into tribes ALL the time...

BYU or Utah?

Republican or Democrate?

When you first meet someone you exchange some basic info about interests and such to see if they will "click" with your tribe.

On average people have a group of about 30 people that they regularly interact with... Their "tribe"

You may know more, but not interact with them in an intimate way on a regular basis.

We participate in tribal matters all the time... Though we may not make the jump applying our experience to other areas and people.

[vorpal blade]

Certainly. It's kind of like a family. There are siblings who share toys. They fight and squabble among each other and toys change hands relatively frequently. Sometimes they despise each other, sometimes they get along. The siblings are in their house engaged in their normal (albeit contentious) play when some strangers walk in. They take all of the toys, beat the kids up, and systemically eradicate their way of life.

Tribal conflict is a very strong tradition that we Americans have a difficult time understanding. You can look at American and South American Indians and North African tribes as perfect examples. They were expected to fight one with another, but were bound together by common culture and method of living. Alliances and conflicts shifted continually and that was completely normal. Then in waltz colonialists who don't just take land, but try and eradicate the entire tribal system. Foreign occupants don't just take land, they try and take the way of life with it. Mr. Sowell talks about how Indians participated in the battles that took tribal lands. I think he misses an important factor in that at the time, they thought the white settlers were just a new addition to the system. They were used to making convenient alliances and did the same with the colonialists. What they didn't expect was that the newcomers were going to take everything from everybody and build an entire new civilization over the ruins of their people.

I agree with you that indoctrination happens. I'm not sure what kind of political agenda they would be trying to push with this issue. Anti-imperialism? The Golden Rule?

Thank you for your answer. I believe I see your point. In one case when you lose you are killed and your lands are taken over by conquerors who may have more or less the same culture. In the other case when you lose a very different culture emerges victorious. So, in that case it is more than just individual tribes who are wiped out, it is a particular culture.

You believe that the Indians were unaware that their way of life was threaten. I think the Indians were generally more aware of it than the white men living at the same time were aware of it. Attempts to kill all the white men and drive them from the land began pretty early, when the colonists were just trying to get along with the Indians. You also believe that the colonists were deliberately trying to eradicate the tribal system, which I don't think was usually their intent, but if it were it wouldn't be any different from the usual practice of one tribe eradicating the traditions of another tribe it had conquered.

I believe what Thomas Sowell was saying is that some people believe that Western Civilization is inherently more evil than that of other cultures. In order to make that point they gloss over bad behavior or sins of other cultures, and teach history as though those sins were peculiar to our society. In the case of the Native Americans the individual tribes thought is was permissible, even desirable, to wipe out other tribes, if they could. They would generally kill the men, take as "wives" the women, and "adopt" the little children until they could indoctrinate them into the way of life of their tribe. There is really nothing morally superior in what the Indians were doing compared to what the white men were doing, except the white men were ultimately successful, and there were greater cultural differences between white and Indian than between Indian tribes.

If it helps, I'll give some paragraphs before and after the paragraphs I already quoted:

"While European imperialism has been dominant in the past 500 years, in the preceding centuries Europe was itself subjected to foreign conquests. It was invaded from Asia by the Mongols, to whom the Russians paid tribute. It was invaded from the Middle East by the Ottoman Empire, whose armies reached the gates of Vienna in the sixteenth century. Europe was invaded from North Africa and the whole Iberian peninsula was subjugated for centuries by the Moors. There was nothing peculiarly European about either conquering or being conquered--or about changing form one of these roles to the other in the course of history. The year in which the last of the North African conquerors was driven out of Spain--1492--was the same year that marked the beginning of Europeans' creation of worldwide empires.

"Conquest, like slavery, existed on every inhabited continent and involved all the races of mankind as both conquerors and subjugated peoples. Slavery and conquest existed in the Western Hemisphere before the first white man set foot on the shores of the Americas. The Zulus were conquering other African peoples when the British arrived in Southern Africa and conquered them all. Europeans also displaced other conquerors in Asia and among the Polynesians. What was different about European imperialism was how widely scattered its empires were, which was possible only because of revolutions in naval technology and a pre-existing base of wealth available to finance overseas expansion. But, morally, what the Europeans did was the same as what non-Europeans had been doing for thousands of years. This is not a moral justification for either. But it is an argument against the selective localization of evil."

...

"Studying Western imperialism in isolation from other, non-Western, imperialism--such as that of Genghis Khan or the Ottoman Turks--makes all the injustices, oppressions, and horrors incident to imperialism itself seem like depravities peculiar to the West. The tendentiousness of such a view of history stands out particularly when efforts are made to depict the United States as especially guilty of sins common to the human race around the world. One such history, after mentioning the Americans' "wresting the island remnants of Spain's empire in the Pacific and Caribbean" during the Spanish-American war, declared that "Russians were not comparably aggressive overseas." This was said, not by a street-corner demagogue but by an academic scholar at a prestigious university."

[Nanti-SARRMM]

I think Americans can easily identify with tribal conflicts... As humans we separate ourselves into tribes ALL the time...

BYU or Utah?

Republican or Democrate?

Ephraim, Manasseh, or the other ten!

[habiba]

That makes more sense in context. Thank you for adding those paragraphs. I think one thing that makes Western imperialism appear worse is that there's been a great deal of it in the last century, after two terrible world wars and after international laws were passed on human rights. Or perhaps it's because we're having to deal with the aftermath of Western imperialism in the Middle East and Africa.

Sorry...this is waaay off topic. Nothing to do whatsoever with Prop 8.

[Eponine]

In addition to the picketing at the temple (which is a little ironic, don't you think? The people who want to vote to abolish the family are picketing the family without even understanding that), people are stealing signs (which I didn't think was that big of a deal until I heard this...) and a member of my home ward--his car got spray painted because he has "yes on prop 8" bumper stickers. My ward had to cancel their halloween party because they were worried that their property would get trashed if they all got together on halloween. I think this is outrageous. They can't call us intolerant and then turn around and vandelize our things. This is obviously becoming more than "just the word," don't you think?

[vorpal blade]

That makes more sense in context. Thank you for adding those paragraphs. I think one thing that makes Western imperialism appear worse is that there's been a great deal of it in the last century, after two terrible world wars and after international laws were passed on human rights. Or perhaps it's because we're having to deal with the aftermath of Western imperialism in the Middle East and Africa.

Sorry...this is waaay off topic. Nothing to do whatsoever with Prop 8.

I'm glad I was able to put in more in context. I hadn't realized that the context was missing.

The reason I introduced Dr. Sowell's quote was to give an example of how children can be manipulated by introducing them to ideas they are not prepared to fully understand because they lack the context. Having the children show compassion for the American Indians is not a bad thing. But having the children apply their twenty first century values into the American Indians can lead to the conclusion that Western civilization is evil compared to the civilization of the American Indians. Educators could defend themselves by saying they are teaching "that you're supposed to be nice to everyone, no matter what their background is. That's Christlike love, sweetheart." The effect of the way it is done here, without an understanding of the American Indian culture, is to teach a one-sided view that the Western civilization was worse than that of the American Indians.

Similarly, when the schools teach "being nice to everyone, no matter what their background is" they can also be manipulative in glossing over the fact that homosexual behavior is wrong. Children are not prepared to understand what is morally wrong with homosexual behavior, or as parents we ought not to be forced to teach it at the kindergarten level. It is good to teach being nice to everyone, no matter what their background is, but the way you teach it can lead children to believe that in order to respect another person you have to condone what he does. You can easily teach children that criticizing a person's sinful behavior is judging a person and is not being nice to everyone. The guise is teaching tolerance for others, the effect is teaching tolerance or acceptance for evil behavior, and intolerance for those with moral convictions. I think that we have seen that opinion expressed in this thread, where my criticism of homosexual behavior has been seen as a lack of compassion, tolerance and love for homosexuals. I've been blasted pretty strongly for it.

So, I hope that my example of the way history is sometimes taught is still within the scope of this topic.

[vorpal blade]

In addition to the picketing at the temple (which is a little ironic, don't you think? The people who want to vote to abolish the family are picketing the family without even understanding that), people are stealing signs (which I didn't think was that big of a deal until I heard this...) and a member of my home ward--his car got spray painted because he has "yes on prop 8" bumper stickers. My ward had to cancel their halloween party because they were worried that their property would get trashed if they all got together on halloween. I think this is outrageous. They can't call us intolerant and then turn around and vandelize our things. This is obviously becoming more than "just the word," don't you think?

I live in a very religious, conservative community in California. As I've talked to people on the street (while waving a poster), or going door to door, I've found the great majority of people here are for Proposition 8. So, I'm sure the opponents to Prop. 8 feel restrained in our community. Yet here also about sixty yard signs were stolen, with "no" spray painted over them, and the defaced signs dumped at our busiest intersection. One person with a "yes on Prop. 8" sign in his yard had his American flag lit on fire, with apparently no regard for the safety of the family inside the house. My wife and I have been assaulted by obscene gestures while holding our posters. Sometimes we hear angry words about "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone....You are evil."

Yesterday I stood for more than two hours on that same busy intersection, but this time the opponents holding "no on Prop.8" signs greatly outnumbered the "yes on Prop.8" signs. I saw no obscene gestures nor angry words aimed at the opponents to Prop. 8.

I sometimes have people come up to me and argue the issue. We sometimes get around to the point, "So, what is the big deal? It is just a word." To one person who said that I asked, "Then why are our opponents so excited about it?" He replied that that was a very good question, and he'd have to go ask them about it.

Actually, I think I just repeated some of Nanti-SARRMM's arguments. As well as Eponine's comments. So, I agree with you.

[Eponine]

I should point out that I, also, lived in a very conservative community in CA--nothing like big-city LA or SF. I can't even imagine what kind of discrimination and inappropriate behavior the members are facing in those cities.

[Nanti-SARRMM]

This is obviously becoming more than "just the word," don't you think?

The basis of it is just a word, that is all that it is about, but it has been enlarged by those who support gay marriage to equate with equal rights and other reasoning to justify their position.

[vorpal blade]

One of my brothers lives in relatively conservative Orange County, California. Today he sent me this in an email. I've substituted [niece] for his daughter's name, and [in-law] for the niece's married name.

“I mentioned previously about the phone call I made to the field lead for a liberal congresswoman from this area.  He was trying to interfere with the Proposition 8 campaign and didn't hesitate to lie for this cause.  Of course, the opponents to Proposition 8 claim that theirs is a fight for truth.
 
“Yesterday, [niece] and I spent a few hours waving signs in favor of Proposition 8.  We had this 8 foot long, three foot wide banner that we unfurled and hoisted above our heads with a pole on each side that we held.  For the first two hours, we had a very good experience.  The great majority of the people driving by would smile at us, honk in our favor, and give us a positive thumbs up sign.  Of course, it helped that I had cute, smiling [niece] holding the other end of the banner.  A few weren't so positive.  Some used a different hand digit to express their views.  That was OK.  We just kept smiling and waved back.  There were probably 25 or so of us with signs favoring Proposition 8.  There were about 8 with signs opposed to Proposition 8.  I could hear the opposition on their cell phones calling for reinforcements.  At about 2:45 PM, two hours after we got there, the no on Proposition 8 forces started arriving by the carloads.  More and more came.  It seemed like there were soon about 60 of the no people.  They would yell and scream at cars, where we had smiled and waved.  They often had pink or green hair and outrageous clothes, where we were dressed nicely, although casually.  They would deliberately jump and down in front of our signs, while we tried to give each other space.  We moved from corner to corner to get away from them.  They followed.  I heard several of the no people talking with others of our yes group giving them grief for our position.  Oddly, no one talked with me.  We just stayed polite.  The contrast was stark.  The mood of the first two hours compared with our last half hour was vividly different.  We decided that wisdom dictated that we leave that corner.  Some of our group went a few blocks away.  The no crowd followed them.  When the yes group was gone, the no crowd left.  Interesting that the opposition to Proposition 8 claims that theirs is a path of tolerance.
 
“On a different street corner yesterday our ward was also holding up signs.  After a few hours a man came up dressed in a nun's outfit.  The man then proceeded to stand right next to anyone holding a Yes on Proposition 8 sign.  He said that he would continue to stand there until the Yes people left.  Yet the opposition to Proposition 8 crowd claims that they are the ones that respect other peoples' beliefs.
 
“A friend of ours has been maliciously attacked in print because he made a contribution to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign.  He responded in a humble, gentle manner.  The opponents say in their adds that the proponents of Proposition 8 are shameful.  Who is acting shamefully?
 
“Several of the Yes on Proposition 8 signs have been stolen or defaced statewide.  Our daughter [niece] lives with the [in-law] family.  About four of the people in their short street have Yes on Proposition 8 signs.  They have all been stolen three times.  I thought the opposition to Proposition 8 group were advocates of free speech.
 
“[Niece's] father-in-law, James [in-law], saw someone stealing a Yes on Proposition 8 sign on the Pacific Coast Highway. James said something like 'I hope you aren't stealing that sign' to the man.  He tried to get the man to leave the sign unsuccessfully, then asked the man to stay put while he made a citizens arrest. The man then proceeded to physically attack James throwing punches and kicks.  James was then thrown into the street (fortunately no cars were coming by at that time).  The opposition to Proposition 8 crowd love to chant "No on 8.  No on hate."  Who is showing hate?
 
“The campaign isn't over.  We have nine more days.  We do need to take a stand and defend it.  Our banner is unfurled.”

[Portia]

Being from UT, like many BYU students (I take it many choose to register to vote here, even if they aren't from here), I say let's set aside our concern for an out-of-state Proposition for a moment, and look at what they're trying to slide into the UT constitution! Amendment E makes me gag. I honestly see little other way of reading it than "here's the money to educate my sister in grade school. Let's give it to someone with as much integrity and assurance of succeeding as, oh, I don't know . . . Lehman Brothers!"

VOTE NO ON UTAH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT E. ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS TO WORRY ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S POLITICS MORE THAN YOUR OWN! :)

[Eponine]

I voted for prop 8. I even drove around with my dad and brother and handed out door hangers this weekend when I was in CA. I feel jipped, though, cause I don't get a sticker... I voted by mail...

Also, an interesting thought... my mom has been doing lots of research for her "yes on 8" website, and she said that she found research that said that the rate of fidelity in homosexual marriages is 0. I still need to see where she got that, but isn't that a sad idea if it's true? They want the word marriage just so they can betray it?