Note to Obama

I realize that Obama himself is unlikely to actually read this, but I'm submitting it on the change.gov website and I'd like to think that maybe some intern or assistant somewhere might read it and, you know, take a note. Hopefully it does some small part to counteract all the letters they're getting from the "EQCA Action Center."

I worked very hard during the summer and fall of last year for a political campaign--something I had never done before because no person or issue had motivated me. And no, sorry, it was not the Obama/Biden campaign. While I was quite happy to see you win the election, my efforts focused on trying to defeat California's Proposition 8. I appreciated both Obama's and Biden's opposition to that proposition, and I am very disappointed that it passed, not just for the thousands of devoted same-sex couples statewide, but because I might like to get married myself one day.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Equality California, asking me to write to Obama and his team, and express my intense outrage at his decision to allow Rick Warren, a vocal opponent of gay rights, to speak at the Inauguration. However, this is one of those times when I had to disagree with EQCA's views. In this case, I believe you have shown more maturity than many of the gay-rights leaders in this country. Rather than label our opponents as hateful, ignorant bigots, you have clearly expressed your disagreement with them on certain issues, but then shown them that you respect their views and do not think they are bad people just because they have such beliefs.

I see the passage of Prop 8 as a huge step backward for my state, and it angers and saddens me to know that people like Rick Warren are largely responsible for it. Nonetheless, I hope my voice will stand out as part of a minority within the LGBT community -- as someone who understands and supports the decision to allow him to speak.

It would be wonderful to have a president who agreed with me on everything. Instead, I have one who has committed to look at both sides of every issue. Realistically, that's probably the best I can hope for, which is why I look forward to hearing Rick Warren's comments on the 20th, and to the next four years.

"The politics of division"

I just got an email from Equality California, one of the big gay-rights groups in California. I'm getting increasingly frustrated with them, and the other groups that fought against prop 8 this year. The latest scandal is that Barack Obama has asked Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, and this has gotten the gay community into one of their big hissy fits, because he was a vocal proponent of proposition 8.

The email is actually from Geoff Kors, the director of EQCA, who apparently was invited to attend Obama's inauguration...

It is extremely disappointing and hurtful that President-elect Obama has chosen California Rev. Rick Warren, who actively supported Prop 8 and the elimination of existing civil rights for LGBT Californians, to give the invocation at his inauguration.

Accordingly, I have decided to decline the invitation to attend the inauguration as I cannot be part of a celebration that highlights and gives voice to someone who advocated repealing rights from me and millions of other Californians.

I was looking forward to hearing a speech by the new President about his vision of a new America and an end to the politics of division where one group is pitted against another.

I can't say that I'm particularly happy with Obama's choice, but I would definitely call this an overreaction, which represents my biggest problem with the gay-rights movement right now. People seem to be absolutely unable to see that just because someone disagrees with us, doesn't mean they hate us. I'm sure the accusations against Warren have some truth to them, and I'm sure if I did some research, I could find several things he's said which are extremely offensive to the gay community, and are probably flat-out lies. But if we want to end "the politics of division," how do we do it? Refuse to attend an event where someone who disagrees with us is going to speak? Accuse our opponents of "actively working to divide Americans"?

Obama and Biden were both on our side on the issue of prop 8. Let's not forget how meaningful that is. I doubt any politician could afford to oppose prop 22, and that was only 8 years ago. Now Obama is trying to demonstrate that he understands where the other side was coming from. He's trying to make those opposed to same-sex marriage feel like Obama is not their enemy. As hard as it is to hear, the people who are against same-sex marriage are people too. They're not stupid, or hateful, they just have differing opinions. And by the way, they also represent some 52% of California voters. The only way they're going to go away is if we can convince them to change their minds. For many people, this may impossible. Rick Warren may be one such person. But for the director of one of the biggest gay rights groups in the state to make a refusal like this... to me, it just seems like a huge step in the wrong direction.

Here's my prediction. Warren's invocation will include something like, "Let us unite as Americans" or "Let us put aside our differences, as we welcome a new era in American politics" or something like that, urging Americans to come together. That clip will be posted on youtube, and GLBT people will post the link over and over on their blogs, facebooks, etc., with comments like "Oh, how ironic. He wants us to be united, after he used his church to divide us," followed by some kind of insulting, divisive comment about Warren, his church, or Christianity in general.

Science TV

I feel like I've talked about this before, but I wish there was more TV out there for science-minded people. I'm a physics major, which of course means I'm more knowledgeable about physics and the terminology it uses than most people. But I'm no more knowledgeable than anyone else about, say, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, or any number of other disciplines. It would be nice to see some TV shows about those things that were aimed at a "science-minded" audience.

I was watching Discovery Science channel the other day (which, when I first heard about it, I thought might be the kind of sciencey TV I was hoping for) and they were talking about how a microwave works. They said something like, "the transformer and the capacitor cause the electricity to become supercharged before sending it along to the magnetron." I guess because "supercharged" supposedly sounds cooler than "high voltage" (if that is in fact what they meant). It's just imprecise and uninformative.

Not to mention the point later on where they talked about electrons moving back and forth in a circuit at "nearly the speed of light." (It turns out this is one area where Wikipedia appears to be weak, but see here for at least some kind of explanation.)

Americans are dumb, and I don't think Discovery Science is helping as much as it could be.

How they see us

Arianna Huffington was on the Daily Show last night talking about blogging and how great it is and how she has this new book out which is all about blogging. And one of the things she said is that blogging should be all about the first thought that comes to your head, rather than the conclusion you come to after lots of pondering.

I don't know how much I agree with that, but here's a thought I had today.

We get a lot of mail that's not for us, or at least that we didn't ask for, because of all the previous residents that have lived in our apartment. So today we got an envelope. The first thing I noticed was: "Your opinion matters!" and the fact that the return address was somewhere in Pennsylvania. The next thing I noticed was who it was addressed to: "Current resident"

I think that pretty well sums up the way that companies look at us. They want to know a lot about us: what we eat, what we buy, how often we buy it, what kind of stores we like. Basically, our opinion matters. But of course, what doesn't matter is our name. We don't want to know WHO you are, we just want to reduce you to a bunch of useful marketing data.

I feel so needed.

Daily Trojan: "Pro-gay rights and pro-proposition 8"

In today's Daily Trojan, Kartik Sreepada, a student who voted yes on 8 tries to explain why. I recommend you read the whole thing, but I want to address some of the main points. First, though, I want to stress again that I fully respect the views of nearly everyone who voted yes on 8, because I know they did so for genuinely good reasons. I think they made the wrong choice, of course, but I do not want to label them as bigots or imply that they think of me as a second class citizen or any such thing. Anyway, here we go:

I recalled the succinct words of Vice President-elect Joe Biden during the vice presidential debate.

“Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage... That is basically the decision to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths,” he said.

First, by voting yes on 8, you redefined marriage. Admittedly, the existing definition had only been in place for a few months, but by voting yes, you are taking a stand on the issue and redefining marriage. I would also like to point out that Obama and Biden both supported NO on 8. (Biden: "If I lived in California, I'd clearly vote against prop 8. ... I think it's regressive, I think it's unfair."; Obama: When you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about."

I think there is a misunderstanding going on here. Civil marriage--marriage as recognized by the state of California--is not a religious institution. A couple may be both legally married and married in a religious ceremony, but the two do not have to go together. The CA Supreme Court decision in May made it very clear that the ruling only affected civil marriage. It had no effect on the marriages of any individual church, just as a change in any church's definition of marriage would have no effect on civil marriages. Of course the official definition of marriage as recognized by any particular church is up to the leadership of that church. There is no reason this should be the same as the definition the state offers, and of course it's not the same in many cases.

I truly do not understand how allowing same-sex couples to marry violates separation of church and state. The only explanation I can think of is that Sreepada seriously misunderstood the way our state handled same-sex marriages between June and November this year. Going on:

While the California Supreme Court’s acceptance of gay marriage appeared to grant complete equality to gays, it undemocratically undermined another pillar of our Constitution: the separation of church and state. The decision could have led to a dangerous rift between religious institutions and our government, possibly putting patriots at odds with the religiously faithful.

First of all, there seems to be a very common sentiment that any time a court overturns an existing law, it is undemocratic, simply because that law itself was created through democratic means (either a legislature, or a ballot measure). The foundation of our government is "by the people, for the people" but it is also a system of checks and balances. And a very important part of that is the ability for courts to rule that a law is unconstitutional. You may disagree with their decision, but striking down laws is part of their job--it's not unconstitutional for them to do it.

But to address the real point being made, I fail to see how the decision undermined the separation of church and state. I can only imagine that this view resulted from a misunderstanding of what allowing same-sex couples to marry (again, I'm talking about civil marriage, not marriage in the eyes of any specific religion) did and didn't do. It did indeed create a "rift" (to put it nicely) between several groups and individuals, as did prop 8 being on the ballot, as did its passage. I don't see how that makes it wrong or right. It just means this is a controversial issue.

After this, Sreepada tries to elaborate on how same-sex marriage undermines the separation of church and state. There is an argument about religious leaders being "forced to act against their faiths," which did not happen during the period when same-sex marriage was legal here, and would have continued not to happen, regardless of the outcome of prop 8. Then it is claimed that marriage is "not a legal concept." Certainly, religious marriage is probably older than civil marriage, but then the idea of trading goods for money has existed much longer than any California laws regulating businesses. Does that mean that a business is not a legal concept? No, it just means that it may have different meanings in different contexts. And one of those is a legal definition. Marriage is most certainly a legal concept.

In time, maybe the Supreme Court will declare the term “marriage” unconstitutional. When that moment comes, it will be a victory not just for equality, but the separation between church and state.

Perhaps this sheds some light on what was really meant. It's not that marriage isn't a legal concept, but rather that it shouldn't be one. That is, it is a religious concept which the government has become involved in, so its become a legal concept. Maybe it would be better left to the churches, and the government should just stay out of it. While the idea of eliminating civil marriage altogether is a bit radical, it would certainly be equal. All couples would have the same rights under the law.

Basically, this person seems simply misled or misinformed. If you think you understood him better than I did, please tell me.

Looking Forward

Okay, so we lost. We're all angry about it. If it's going to take you a while to stop being angry, I understand. In fact, you probably shouldn't plan on ever "getting over it." So write angry facebook notes, take to the streets, unfriend the people who voted yes, whatever you need to do.

But I'm going to try to do what I can to look forward. Right now there are already lawsuits being filed, and whether anything comes from those or not, it's not clear what the next step will be. Whether it will come through the courts, the legislature, or another proposition showing up on the ballot, we don't know. But regardless of what it is, proposition 8 has started a long conversation on same-sex marriage, and I think it's important that we allow this conversation to move in a new direction.

To the "yes on 8" voters:

Marriage has always been between a man and a woman in this state, up until this past June, and I understand that kind of change is difficult for you, in the same way that anything new or unfamiliar is always difficult. The Supreme Court of California recognized a new right that had never been legally considered a right before (at least not here). Of course there will be at least some part of you that objects to that kind of change. I realize that, despite what you heard from the protesters on the streets of West Hollywood on Wednesday night, your vote was not intended to be bigoted or hateful, or to treat anyone as a second-class citizen. Change is hard, and we will never get any closer to reaching any kind of agreement or understanding on this issue if we don't recognize that fact.

That said, many of you were tricked into voting yes. You bear much of the responsibility for that, and of course, so does the official "yes on 8" campaign. The campaign consistently misled and lied to voters, in an effort to move the conversation away from the real issue (same-sex marriage) and scare people into voting yes. No church has ever been denied their tax-exempt status for refusing to marry any particular couple. If topics like marriage are taught in California public schools, they have to give parents the right to opt out. Barack Obama stated very clearly that he was against prop 8. Nearly all the official material that came from the yes on 8 campaign was absolute lies or at least implied false statements. It is your responsibility as a voter to be smart enough not to fall for such things, and to call out your own campaign when you see it happening. If you want to use the electoral process to prove that a majority of Californians are on your side, then you need to actually get out there and convince people. As it stands now, all you've proven is that people are very susceptible to emotional advertising.

To the "no on 8" voters:

First of all, next time, get angry before the election. And then channel your anger into volunteering or donating, or at least making sure all your friends will vote our way. And if they say they're not going to, then talk to them about it (see below). In any case, get angry and take action before the election. I'll only say it one more time. Get involved BEFORE the election.

When I was volunteering for the No On 8 campaign over the summer, trying to recruit new volunteers to join us, I would explain briefly how the campaign needed so many thousands of volunteers in order to win. Often, they would then assure me that such a proposition would never pass, not here in California. I don't think anything more needs to be said about those people.

I want to stress again that I understand how frustrated and disappointed everyone is right now. However, slogans like "Stop the hate, no on 8," referring to your opponents as bigots, saying they've treated you as a second class citizen, insulting an entire religious group: None of that helps us very much. Changing the minds of millions of people is not easy, but insulting them is a sure way not to do it. I think we did a great job in this campaign of making sure our messages were always positive and truthful. Next time around, we need to do exactly the same thing, and work even harder to combat the lies that we now know the other side will probably tell.

To people on both sides of this issue:

Even though this fight is over, the conversation that will lead us to the next fight has to continue. So keep talking about this issue, not just with your friends on your side, but with anyone you know who voted the other way. This can be a somewhat painful experience, but we all have to live in this state together, so let's at least try to understand each other a little bit. We will never all agree on everything, and there are people on both sides who will never be swayed. But if we don't start talking to each other soon, trying to understand where the "other side" is coming from, then the "yes" voters will always be "hateful homophobic bigots" and "no" voters will always be "in league with activist judges trying to redefine marriage for us all." This is California. We should be better than that. All of us.

Finally, an update

Since the last time I posted anything of substance:

* I turned 21. That went pretty much how it should have gone.
* Classes have started again. I have two Physics classes, both of which started off kinda slowish, one much more than the other, but are now starting to become legitimately challenging and fun.
* I'm an SI Leader for Physics 152. I don't think I'm doing so well with that, but it's hard to know. I think I'm slowly improving.
* I've been working hard on the no on 8 campaign, which now has a small but mighty corps of volunteers here at USC, with phonebanks two days a week.
* I did the USC Programming Contest again, but I didn't really prepare for it at all, like I did last year. Did very badly, but it was also a tougher contest than the last one. And we all got t-shirts!
* I've agreed to help Elizabeth with a journalism project that will require some programming. I'm not even sure how I want to do it. It's the kind of thing that would be web-based in real life but Javascript is meh and other web programming languages I don't know at all. So I'm going to see if I can build up a proof-of-concept in Python. I guess.

Next post will be something about prop 8 I think.

Flash

Fuck yes.

Actual informative post coming soon. Hopefully.