Must Focus on the Nanowrimo

There are so many political issues to talk about (Larry King Live's comedy panel, Sarah Palin continuing to be an idiot, right-wing conservatives still trying to take away civil rights! oh my...), but I must turn my mental focus on Nanowrimo just for a bit.

I realized today, as I was browsing the Nanowrimo forums, that I have NO ONE in my supporting cast. So far all I know is that I have my characters (1) Aurora, a headstrong teen runaway who was heir to a grand empire, but decided to skip out when her incestual uncle who killed her father wanted to marry her and (2) Avery, a snarky but handsome captain of a pirate ship who is all about the money and the treasure (duh). My other characters will undoubtedly be the ship's crew and some inhabitants of the islands where the two main characters go searching for their treasure. But so far I don't have any ideas, so it may be off to the character generators for me.

Another thing I need to think about is the matter of when I will be able to find TIME to work on this project. This Friday night at midnight will probably not be when I start because A: it is Halloween and B: I will probably be too inebriated to remember to start the damn thing. But hey, we'll see. Anyway - my best chance for solid writing is going to be on Sundays since those are my "ME" days where I have the house to myself. I should also have sporadic time at work to work on it too - but I work in a cubicle with almost no privacy and for some reason I need privacy to write fiction. Tuesdays and Thursdays (except for Thanksgiving) should be good to me since my boyfriend has school those evenings, which means almost 2 hours of free time to work on the novel. Oh and I suppose November 10th and 11th will be good writing days as well since most everyone will be out of the office on the 10th and I have the 11th (Veteran's Day off). So, I think all those big chunks of time will help me immensely in getting this thing written!

I just hope when November 1st rolls around, I don't end up like teh kitteh seen here:

Mormons and Marriage: A little overzealous, no?

Seeing as how I grew up in the Mormon church, I still have contact with many of the people I knew there through Facebook and I'm seeing it pop up everywhere - people joining no on Prop 8 groups; plastering no on Prop 8 banners in place of their profile photos. Every house I pass by that has a Yes on Prop 8 banner in front of it is assumed to be under the influence of Mormon culture. These are the people I am writing this blog to: please - don't hate people because they aren't like you; don't vote on a discriminatory measure because you think you are doing something good for your church. It will hurt no one for same-sex marriage to be upheld in California (it's been legal for almost 6 months now - has the apocalypse come? NO!), but if this proposition is passed, then discrimination, hate, and oppression will prevail; and isn't that counter to what the Mormon church teaches about treating others kindly and God giving us all free agency to choose?

I went to my parents' house the other day and my mom had a stack of leaflets about why people should vote yes of Prop 8. When I inquired as to where they had picked up all this stuff (because I thought it was church policy to not tell people how they should vote on a political issue - especially on church property). My dad told me that they handed all the propoganda out on the street just outside of the church property. How dispicable of it was of whomever decided to hand these out to the ward members - pushing politics at church is just something that rubs me the wrong way. And so now, I think, the notion among Mormon people is that they are required to blindly vote yes on this proposition because it somehow will be detrimential to their own view on traditional family.I've browsed many of the websites, both for and against this proposition (especially the ones with LDS viewpoints) and I know without a doubt that even if I were still active in the church, I would still choose to vote against Proposition 8. This is not about protecting the institution of marriage - NOTHING about marriage will change if same-sex couples continue to marry in California. This proposition is only about excluding people to a civil right and I can't stand up for a cause like that. I believe, and always have believed, that all people should be afforded equal rights: first it was women, then it was blacks, and now it is time for the GLBT community.

I would encourage those who are planning to vote Yes on Prop 8 to read some of the reasons why others are voting no (including those LDS members of your own church). And then ask yourself if you want to be an oppressor of civil rights. I found these websites to be straight forward and respectful of the issues at hand:

http://mormonsformarriage.com/

http://www.lds4gaymarriage.org/

The Sticky Subject of Marriage (for all)

The upcoming election has been, decidedly, on the forefront of my mind these past couple weeks. And aside from this historical presidential election, we have a hotly contested initiative here in California that is garnering quite a bit of attention with both support and opposition. Proposition 8, if passed, would eliminate the right of same sex couples to marry (currently it IS legal for same-sex couples to marry in California). The supporters of this proposition say that gay marriage is an attack on the traditional family and that they don't want their elementary school children being taught that marriage between heterosexual couples is the same as marriage between homosexual couples. Opponents of the proposition see it as an attack on civil rights and a block in the struggle towards equality for all people - no matter what their orientation may be. It's a polarizing issue that affects people on a deeply emotional level and the outcome on November 4th will be painful for either side that loses.

So anyway, I am voting against proposition 8 because I am all about giving equal rights to people. For those that support the ban on gay marriage - their lives and families will go on as normal if this proposition doesn't pass. They will still be able to choose to get married in churches and have traditional weddings - it changes nothing about the sanctity of marriage for them. On the other hand, for same-sex couples who want to get married, if this ban does pass, it will mean they will not have the privilege to "be married" to the person they love. Sure, domestic partnerships grant almost the same rights in California to heterosexual married couples - but it just isn't the same to say "I now pronounce you domestic partners" as it would be to pronounce them wife and wife or husband and husband.

Unrelated to the outcome of the proposition, the Federal government still would not recognize these same-sex marriages for purposes of immigration or tax-filing status - meaning that there is still quite a ways to go before same-sex marriage would be anywhere near the same as heterosexual marriage. So why not make this move forward? It's a small step and California is only the third state to grant this right to same-sex couples. Churches need not be afraid - ministers are not forced to marry those with same-sex marriage licenses. If this is separatation of church and state, then leave it up to the conservative churches to ban same-sex marriages within their walls and leave it up to the courts and the law to allow marriage for any loving couple who wants to live till death do us part.