Did you catch Face the Nation Sunday Morning? There was a segment with David Boies, the attorney for the plaintiff and Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council. I couldn't remember exactly where I had heard about the Family Research Council but I did a bit of research and remembered. I will let you do your own research but let's just say, their organization was in the news recently when one of their founding members (whom they have since distanced themselves from in a BIG way) was caught apparently practicing what he most clearly does not preach.
As I was listening to these two men debate the recent Prop 8 ruling in California, it occurred to me that we are spending so much time doing this in our state when we have such HUGE problems in so many areas. Especially when I know that eventually we will get there, there being equality for ALL people, regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation. We will get there. I was just hoping for sooner rather than later. I don't really want to get into the merits of each side, although. . . . Okay, just one small point. When Boies was pointing out that it is one to thing to pontificate on the television talk show circuit about "surveys", and "research" and "studies" done on the negative and harmful effect of gay marriage on children but when you get into a court of law, you need to prove that there are such studies and surveys and research done by accredited institutions. And there were none. None. Tony Perkins countered with that because this was a "new" area there had not been enough time to do credible studies or research on this issue. But he had loads of statistics that indicate the harm caused to children by being raised in single family homes or homes that were broken by divorce. Wait a minute!!! Is he quoting statistics of the harm done to children by the effects of heterosexual relationships that have splintered to prove his point that gay marriage would be harmful to children? What??? Actually he was. His point being the the breakdown of marriage started with the "no-fault" divorce laws. Wow!! Well, why don't we work on that? Instead of denying rights to a particular group who have never had the right to marry before, why don't we work on the making it more difficult for the people who get married to get divorced or make it more difficult to get married in the first place. Hmmmm. Wonder what kind of effect that would have on children? Wonder what effect that would have on prominent conservatives who have divorced, some - many, many times? What do you think Newt Gingrich? John McCain? Do you think it should be more difficult to get divorced, Rush Limbaugh, Mr. "I am on my 4th wife"? Boies also pointed out that there are studies on the effect of gay marriage on children. The studies are just not in the United States (understandably since most states preclude them) but from many countries in Europe where gay marriage has been allowed. And guess what they show? Nothing. Really. That there is really no difference to a child if a marriage breaks two gay parents or two heterosexual parents. It is hard either way. No surprise.
But I digress again, as usual. My main point was to be that the citizens of California need to really, really look around. Is this the biggest crisis facing our state? Really? Because I have found a few other things that I think we need to look at. In no particular order:
1. California is either 23rd or 44th in the nation in per pupil spending. The Census Bureau recently released ranking based on the 2007/2008 school year which found that California is 23rd in the nation. For some reason it takes over 2 years for the government to evaluate the data they receive. The NEA, which is the largest public school union in the US, found for the same time period California ranked 26th. However, the NEA just recently released its data for 2008/2009 year (apparently doesn't take them 2 years to process) which found that California plummeted to 44th place. Since historically the NEA and Census Bureau rankings have usually tracked within a few places of each other, we can expect that even in the Census Bureau ranking, California will be somewhere near 4oth place. If you have kids in public schools, you know that this is true. Parents are spending more and more out of their own pockets for school supplies, books, transportation. Costs that used to be part of the school's budgets are now routinely being passed on to the parents.
2. California is #2 on the states with the highest cost of living. (Hawaii is #1).
3. California is #3 on both highest cost of housing and highest cost of food.
4. California is #1 on highest teachers salaries. I know some people will say that is the reason that we rank so low in per pupil spending but I am not so sure. Don't we have to pay our teachers enough to eat, pay rent and pay the gas bill (see items 2 & 3)? I think it is too simplistic to say there is one root cause for all of this but at the same time, I suspect the teachers' union has done more harm then good in recent years. I know at one of the districts in our area, the teachers union and the district have come to an impasse over the district's request that the teachers pay a portion of their health care costs. Currently teachers don't pay for their health benefits at all. It doesn't seem to much to ask in this economy. I don't know anyone who doesn't pay something for their health care.
5. California has the 3rd highest unemployment rate at 12.3%. We are behind Michigan (#2, 13.2%) and Nevada (#1, 14.2%)
6. California ranks 4th in the nation in the number of foreclosures. 1 out of every 194 homes in our state is somewhere in the process of foreclosure. Wow!!
7. 21% of California residents have no health insurance, the 4th highest rate in the country.
8. We are ranked 37th out of 51 in high school graduation percentage. Only 68% of our students graduate. Arkansas, West Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky all outrank us. Kick our butt.
Shame.
So let me ask you Californians, is preventing gay marriage really more important than any of the things on this list?
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