I have lots of things I want to post but this started as a comment on a friend’s post and got sort of long so it gets bumped to the front of the line.

I am sad to see that Prop 8 made it. I am happy that it only passed by a small margin. That is a vast improvement over the last 15 years. We have a hard time seeing that when we are surrounded in the Bay Area by people that mostly don’t even blink about gays.

Religion was a big motivator in the fight for Prop 8 and it just boggles my mind. My approach to the entire Christian vs Gay thing is God created mankind with free will. Mankind had to be able to make his own choices, God has angels for blind worship.

Ergo, it is important that each person makes up their own mind. No one that claims to be a christian should be able to enforce how someone else lives. They can say how they think someone else should live but according to the very premise of their faith, they should not force someone to choose their way. God wants people to choose to be with him and choose acts that follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Prop 8 goes against the very grain of their religion.

We do have laws but they should be about things that affect others. Gays getting married doesn’t do a thing for Male/Female couples.

Not that the upper levels of Christianity think that is the opposite against the foundations of their religion. To them it is about power.

Also I don’t think Prop 8 is so much about hate as it is about fear. The top levels probably do look like it is about hate, and the extremists too. These are also the ones most true Christians are embarrassed by. But I think most of the 51%, it is about fear and control of something unknown. It is about a lack of understanding and following the loudest voice.
 

While I am upset that Prop 8 passed, I am not devastated. One of the these I use to justify Bush getting a second term is that things had to get this bad for the country to vote someone like Obama into Office. Prop 8 passing is a huge media frenzy. It gives the lack of rights that gays have an actual point of reference. 15 years ago, people around me didn’t think that gays were discriminated against (I was in Colorado and knew so few gay people so I had no reference to know the validity of this general assumption). Now I think it is pretty well known across the entire country. I think this is a very solid platform in which to address change.

Personally, I think everyone should be required to have a Civil Union which would be like a Justice of the Peace marriage and if they want a Church wedding, they could do that as well. The Civil Union would take care of all the government/legal stuff. The Church wedding (or whatever) would be the ceremony that matters to people. I read that is how weddings are handled in Russia so I don’t think it is that different of an idea.

The evaluation went really really well. I am actually happy to have gotten all the crappy stuff that hit my buttons. As my Dad pointed out, it is very likely to get told that stuff as they fire you. I have an idea on how to find out this sort of thing before my evaluation. There is a lot of workable stuff here.

I was able to go into it in a logical way and still be able to tell my boss that it hit a lot of buttons. We talked for 1.5 hours. When we were done, she said she was amazed at how self-aware I was. That I can see the reaction I have to something, know that isn’t the correct reaction and then work around it. That comment made me glow.

The one comment in the evaluation which was a mistake I made and have since corrected got cleared up. It made me feel like all my mistakes are going to be listed and nothing said about how I have done about learning from those mistakes. Makes you really not want to risk anything new. I mentioned it to her and she posed that she guessed she was really mad about that. It was neat to be able to work out with her that this one thing hit her button and made it into my evaluation and I was able to give her some of what she needed to take care of that being mad feeling.

I have some things to work on and I am fine with that. There was some great stuff in the evaluation as well.

I have taken a number of hits from last Friday through this Monday so I am taking it easy. Next week I will start addressing the uncomfortable things I need to in the office and hopefully make it an even better place to be.

FYI I haven’t been keeping up with LJ. I don’t think I have read anything since last Friday. I might get to it, I might not.