Thursday, December 11, 2008

Jon Stewart and Prop 8, sort of

There was a blog I used to hit daily but she started doing video posts, which turned out to be a pain because they take a lot longer to listen to than read, and the quality could be crappy sometimes. So I haven't visited her blog in a while. But I've noticed that nearly all my posts this week have included video. I'd like to think that it's not as frustrating because the video is supplemental; you don't have to watch the video to get the post itself.

Obviously, after a disclaimer like that, I've got another video. This was a discussion between Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee regarding gay marriage. To a degree there weren't many new points, Huckabee opines that "marriage still means one man one woman, life relationship", while Stewart points out how marriage has been redefined through the ages, e.g. polygamy.

The salient point of the interview comes when Huckabee pushes that "...marriage still means a male and a female relationship. And until the laws are overturned, it still means that." And Stewart counters, "...you know... segregation used to be the law until the courts intervened."

Huckabee: "There is a big difference between a person being black, and a person practicing a lifestyle and engaging in a marital relationship that-"

Stewart: "Okay. This is helpful. This gets to the crux of it...Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality. And the protections that we have, for religion- we protect religion- and talk about a lifestyle choice! That is absolutely a choice. Gay people don't choose to be gay.At what age did you choose not to be gay?"

That really is heart of the matter, isn't it? Many people still believe being gay is a lifestyle choice. And perhaps since one doesn't wear sexual orientation like skin color or gender, then it must be a choice, despite genetic research proving otherwise?

So the question is: what will it take for the general public to understand that gay people don't choose to be gay?

For those who don't want to watch the 7 minute video, here's a transcript at this blog.

2 comments:

Pound said...

no ww for the holidays! what's the point? :P if brownies make you happy you should be able to eat them for xmas.

huckabee's a moron.

Anonymous said...

You know Fran
I think things are slowly changing (I’m sure not fast enough for the people that need it).
Too many people now have gay friends or family and I think that number is only going to grow (actually they always did but people were too afraid to come out). But as more and more people feel comfortable at being who they are…more and more people will grow to except it. I can see a huge change in just my lifetime. People need to learn to hate things that are actually doing them harm. I always say to my conservative friends…”You lost your home equity, 401K, social security, the drinking water is going bad, the earth is getting hotter, we have no place to put our trash….But gays still can’t get married…are you happy now??? “-PB