WARNING: Because of the emotional nature of this blog, I ended up using some pretty colorful language. If you think you might be offended, please skip past this blog. If not, read on and please excuse my sailor-talk. Words are just not strong enough for my feelings about this subject.
I've discovered something about myself and how I think of other people in these past couple years. First of all I've become much more liberal (hard to believe, I know) and a lot of my beliefs have become much more solidified. The one thing that gets me into a rage like no other these days is homophobia. My friend just received an email from his aunt with this link in it. This is the same aunt (actually that whole side of his family) who uninvited him to last Christmas at their place because they discovered he was bringing his boyfriend who was visiting. Not only did they un-invite him to Christmas but now she has the gall to send him a link to NoGayMarriage.com?!?!?! How insensitive can you get? My friend throws it off with a laugh, but it's hard for me to take it so lightly. In fact, it makes me want to cry and scream and tear out my hair by the sheer stupidity of thinking this way. Many of the arguments against gay marriage made on this website don't have anything to do with homosexuality at all!!! Take this one for example:
Argument #2
The introduction of legalized gay marriages will lead inexorably to polygamy and other alternatives to one-man, one-woman unions.
In Utah, polygamist Tom Green, who claims five wives, is citing Lawrence v. Texas as the legal authority for his appeal. This past January, a Salt Lake City civil rights attorney filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of another couple wanting to engage in legal polygamy. Their justification? Lawrence v. Texas.
The ACLU of Utah has actually suggested that the state will "have to step up to prove that a polygamous relationship is detrimental to society"-as opposed to the polygamists having to prove that plural marriage is not harmful to the culture. Do you see how the game is played? Despite 5,000 years of history, the burden now rests on you and me to prove that polygamy is unhealthy. The ACLU went on to say that the nuclear family "may not be necessarily the best model." Indeed, Justice Antonin Scalia warned of this likelihood in his statement for the minority in the Lawrence case.10 It took less than six months for his prediction to become reality.
Uh... last time I checked polygamy and homosexuality were two totally separate issues that have nothing to do with each other. What the hell does having multiple wives have to do with being in a committed and loving relationship with the person you choose, be it of the same or opposite sex? Besides, Mormons were the only ones who practiced polygamy and even today that's not true anymore. Most Mormons disassociate themselves with those sects of "Mormonism" who do practice polygamy and there are extremely few who do.
People who think this way make me want to puke. It's sad really and maybe I should take the pacifist side of this and feel sorry for them, but I don't. How can you hate someone so much just because of who they love? The friend I speak of is one of the most wonderful people I've ever met in my entire life and I love him very, very much. It's incomprehensible to me that his own FAMILY would insult and hurt him so much. That's NOT what family does and it's a disgrace. His aunt is a bigoted, ignorant cunt. Period. If she can't love him and accept him for the incredible and beautiful person he is then she is truly missing out and can rot in her own hell for all I care. Maybe I should be compassionate. Fighting fire with fire is never a good idea and doesn't make anything better. But when someone hurts and insults someone I love, watch the fuck out. It throws me into such a fiery rage I can barely control myself. Especially because they're doing it in the name of Christianity! The base of which is love and compassion and understanding -- at least it USED to be.... What people have done to religion these days is really fucking sad. Hating in the name of religion is an oxymoron. One that gets used way too often.
*deep breath.....in..... out.....*
Ok. I'm a little better now. I'm sorry I can't be as articulate as I would like to be about this but it's one of my non-negotiable topics. To me it's no different than hating someone because they're black or hispanic or asian or blue or purple. It's the same thing. And to tell you the truth, it almost makes me NOT want to get married for the sole principal that if my best friend can't get married then, fuck it, neither will I until that changes. Hopefully, he'll move to Canada and they can get married there and live happily without all the bullshit homophobia that is a large part of America and still controls the laws. It's another reason I would love to move to Canada and even become a Canadian citizen. I mean for fuck's sake, Spain just passed the gay-marriage law!!!!! Spain! A traditionally roman-catholic country! Our NOT passing this law is an embarrassment. We preach human rights and equal opportunity and open-mindedness... how much more hypocritical can we get?
Anyway, those are my thoughts and again I apologize for the crude language. It's hard to express rage and anger without swearing.... especially since I've been in Japan and my ability to pull out sophisticated English is nearing zero.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Singapore and Borneo -- Part 3 ... again...
So I wrote about the final leg of our journey and was uploading some cool photos when my computer decided she'd had quite enough and rebelled against me. As a result, I lost my entire blog post and am now having to re-write it. I'm not nearly as enthused about writing it a second time so it might just have to be short and sweet.
(On another completely unrelated note, something very interesting happened to me last night on the train. Adam and I were in line to get on and I noticed one woman kept glancing at me. This is normal so I didn't think much about it. She then sat right across from us on the train and kept staring at me. Needless to say, it started making me feel very self-conscious. After double-checking with Adam that I did NOT have a booger or anything else unpleasant on my face, I assumed she was just a little nuts. Well, she then proceeded to take a pad of paper and a pen from her hideous Prada bag and started to sketch something. Only as she was sketching she kept looking up at my face! She was drawing me!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, I was struck-dumb and didn't know what to do. I was feeling very exposed and uncomfortable and starting to feel angry that she didn't even ask if she could draw me. Adam said, "make a goofy face or stick out your tongue or something. I'll stick my finger up your nose or in your ear if that helps". To which I replied, "No thanks!" I didn't end up making a face or saying anything, but maybe I should have.... Oh well. Interestingly enough, this doesn't surprise me nearly as much as it would have 2 years ago.)
Ok, now back to the trip. We left KK and headed for Kuala Lumpur (from now on KL). The hostel we stayed in was really nice -- same one we'd stayed at previously and it had toilet paper! Woohoo! (Never realized how much of a perk that actually is, hehe.) Anyway, we didn't have a whole lot of time in KL so we spent the first day taking Kendra, Josy and Marc to the Petronas Towers (formerly the tallest buildings in the world and recently surpassed by the Taipei 101 Tower).
After that, we went to a bar and met up with Yin Yee and her boyfriend, John. We spent a little time catching up and exchanging gossip about Vashon and our mutual friends, which was really nice. 
Then she and John took us around the corner for dinner at one of their favorite hawker stands. It was Chinese food and soooooooooo good! We ended up ordering a lot of spicy food that was even spicy for them, but man was it tasty! Such a relief from the blandness that is Japanese cuisine. We then proceeded to shop for pirated DVDs, only to find out that the price had gone up from about $1/DVD to about $3-$4/DVD.... not such a big deal and we came away with quite a few!
The next day we decided to go to the Batu Caves a little outside the city. The caves are in a big limestone hill and house several Hindu shrines. (For better and more accurate info go to this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves) In order to get into these caves we had to hike up 272 steps which were conveniently numbered! (No, I didn't count them all the way up!) We took time to take pictures and watch the macaque monkeys along the way. Most of them were very cute and stayed out of our way, but they have been known to steal and snatch at purses and bags (!!!). One monkey had a little baby clutched to her and he was sooooo cute in a very wrinkly and homely sort of way. Anyway, we perused the cave a little and took our pictures with a giant boa constrictor this guy had. He offered to let you hold it for a picture for 10 ringgit (so like $3). I think it was worth it since I love snakes.
This one, however, was a bit "affectionate" and was trying to hug me a little too tightly... I got a bit nervous and was told Kendra to hurry up with the picture before the snake got any other ideas! I didn't notice until now, but the snake was getting friendlier than I thought with his tail there....! 
Then we took a tour into the "Dark Caves" which were, as the name suggests, very dark! We had headlamps to help us see and it was pretty cool. I must say that the caves Adam and I went to in the middle of nowhere Texas were much cooler.... but these were fun as well. After that we headed back into KL and since it was our last night there, opted for eating in an Irish pub since we were craving western food!
So that's about it! We had a wonderful time and had some crazy experiences for sure. Josy was the one with the camera so I'll be posting more pictures when I get them from her -- I only have a few. I'll also work on downloading the software for transferring the video to the computer so I can email it or post it somewhere for you all to see. Hopefully, I get that done soon!
(On another completely unrelated note, something very interesting happened to me last night on the train. Adam and I were in line to get on and I noticed one woman kept glancing at me. This is normal so I didn't think much about it. She then sat right across from us on the train and kept staring at me. Needless to say, it started making me feel very self-conscious. After double-checking with Adam that I did NOT have a booger or anything else unpleasant on my face, I assumed she was just a little nuts. Well, she then proceeded to take a pad of paper and a pen from her hideous Prada bag and started to sketch something. Only as she was sketching she kept looking up at my face! She was drawing me!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, I was struck-dumb and didn't know what to do. I was feeling very exposed and uncomfortable and starting to feel angry that she didn't even ask if she could draw me. Adam said, "make a goofy face or stick out your tongue or something. I'll stick my finger up your nose or in your ear if that helps". To which I replied, "No thanks!" I didn't end up making a face or saying anything, but maybe I should have.... Oh well. Interestingly enough, this doesn't surprise me nearly as much as it would have 2 years ago.)
Ok, now back to the trip. We left KK and headed for Kuala Lumpur (from now on KL). The hostel we stayed in was really nice -- same one we'd stayed at previously and it had toilet paper! Woohoo! (Never realized how much of a perk that actually is, hehe.) Anyway, we didn't have a whole lot of time in KL so we spent the first day taking Kendra, Josy and Marc to the Petronas Towers (formerly the tallest buildings in the world and recently surpassed by the Taipei 101 Tower).
After that, we went to a bar and met up with Yin Yee and her boyfriend, John. We spent a little time catching up and exchanging gossip about Vashon and our mutual friends, which was really nice. 
Then she and John took us around the corner for dinner at one of their favorite hawker stands. It was Chinese food and soooooooooo good! We ended up ordering a lot of spicy food that was even spicy for them, but man was it tasty! Such a relief from the blandness that is Japanese cuisine. We then proceeded to shop for pirated DVDs, only to find out that the price had gone up from about $1/DVD to about $3-$4/DVD.... not such a big deal and we came away with quite a few!The next day we decided to go to the Batu Caves a little outside the city. The caves are in a big limestone hill and house several Hindu shrines. (For better and more accurate info go to this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves) In order to get into these caves we had to hike up 272 steps which were conveniently numbered! (No, I didn't count them all the way up!) We took time to take pictures and watch the macaque monkeys along the way. Most of them were very cute and stayed out of our way, but they have been known to steal and snatch at purses and bags (!!!). One monkey had a little baby clutched to her and he was sooooo cute in a very wrinkly and homely sort of way. Anyway, we perused the cave a little and took our pictures with a giant boa constrictor this guy had. He offered to let you hold it for a picture for 10 ringgit (so like $3). I think it was worth it since I love snakes.
This one, however, was a bit "affectionate" and was trying to hug me a little too tightly... I got a bit nervous and was told Kendra to hurry up with the picture before the snake got any other ideas! I didn't notice until now, but the snake was getting friendlier than I thought with his tail there....! 
Then we took a tour into the "Dark Caves" which were, as the name suggests, very dark! We had headlamps to help us see and it was pretty cool. I must say that the caves Adam and I went to in the middle of nowhere Texas were much cooler.... but these were fun as well. After that we headed back into KL and since it was our last night there, opted for eating in an Irish pub since we were craving western food! So that's about it! We had a wonderful time and had some crazy experiences for sure. Josy was the one with the camera so I'll be posting more pictures when I get them from her -- I only have a few. I'll also work on downloading the software for transferring the video to the computer so I can email it or post it somewhere for you all to see. Hopefully, I get that done soon!
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