Be Excellent: Equality for All

I believe heavily in truth, love, kindness, and most of all strength, honor, no violence and no hate. I believe it’s those values that free people from the tyranny of the majority throughout history. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr, “Be excellent.” This excellence I think has continually been passed-down to generations and concentrates within a part of a generation that is struggling with in some cases outright oppression, hostility or inequality.

In light of yesterday’s recent events of the 9th Circuit Appeals Court ruling that Prop 8 is indeed unconstitutional on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, I wanted to post about some of the signage I’ve seen protesters carry, which I don’t really care about normally; yet at the same time some of them because of their very nature are very disconcerting to me.

“GAY = PERVERT”

“A moral wrong can’t be a civil right”

I hope you are just as troubled and disturbed by the above, regardless of your position. It’s one thing to say that I don’t deserve the same rights and to have the audacity to assert that the “majority” has the right to subvert the minority with the very rights they enjoy and the ones that no people or government can dictate to them; but it’s another to equate my very existence to that of some sexual deviant or predator.

I’m sure that supporters of this measure and especially of the above hate speech, forget that only 40 years ago, inter-racial marriage was a “moral wrong” and was illegal; I dare them now to assert those same views once held by those who long ago opposed that measure and see what happens. It was those “over-reaching courts” that ruled against Virginia and the remaining states who had discriminatory inter-racial marriage laws on the basis of equal protection. If only those “over-reaching courts” had ignored Brown v Board of Education or ruled against Brown — perhaps certain politicians seeking office currently would be much happier. I’m sure our current president might be different due to that one decision as would our entire country.

A view once held,  not only considered God’s will but a moral one was that the only people who have rights were white men with no chance in hell of ever changing such a thing. So if they were using God, their morals and religion as justification for only white men having the only voting power and rights, then did God’s will suddenly change right before Women’s Suffrage, Emancipation Proclamation, Desegregation, Civil Rights Legislation, etc? I would hope that those who disagree with me, especially the ones who are not white men, recall from history some very timeless points — had nothing been done regarding their rights, they would still be silent, submissive and subservient to the very one who felt it was just fine to dictate their rights, freedom and happiness to them.

And to think, I’m the one that shouldn’t have children because of the irreparable harm or devastating influence I may have on them. I was always taught and believed that we are supposed to respect every life, practice tolerance and teach love, not hate to our children. Perhaps the world steered me wrong.