Make a Statement

As I'm sure all of us who aren't living in underground mole cities know, Proposition 8 was not repealed, though efforts were made (and are still being made) to do so. The act creates a constitutional ban on gay marriage in the state of California, a state once thought by many to be as bleeding-heart liberal as Massachusetts and the like. No matter your beliefs about homosexuality, it is hard to see such an act of law in and of itself as non-discriminatory. Even if you feel that sodomy is wrong, gay romantic relationships are wrong, gay marriage is wrong, etc., I think most of us can agree that if violates the kind of freedom that this country was supposedly built on to tell a subset of people that they cannot have equal rights because of a quality they are (probably) born into. We have gradually begun to accept that people of color and women should be given increasingly equal opportunities under the law, and I feel that gay people should not be treated any differently. The road to becoming a civilized species that can treat all of its members equally is a long one that we've barely started down, but that is no reason to stand by while an act that sets back any progress down that road by about a billion steps.

The NOH8 campaign is a simple but important one. On their front page, the people behind the campaign ask us to "stand up and make our silence heard" by taking a simple picture to show our support of the gay community in their fight to attain the right to marry.



The guide to taking your own suggests a white v-neck, face paint, a white wall, and some duct tape; I however, had no duct tape and my favorite picture of the zillion shots I took happened to have a painting in the background. For the "face paint," I used liquid eyeliner and red lipstick. The heart earrings are from H&M, and I thought they made a cute touch (plus, the boy bought them for me today). The NOH8 site has lots of submissions that bend the "rules", though-- it's really the intent that counts. I haven't submitted any of my shots yet to the site, but I plan to once I actually decide on which one.

I encourage you all to go to the website and check out the cause, as well as to take the time to have your own little NOH8 photo shoot and post it to your blog and/or submit it to the site if you feel so inclined.

When you deny rights to one group of people, where does it stop? What makes some more deserving than others? I surely don't want to push my beliefs on any of you, but we should all consider at the very least the wider implications of discriminatory legislation.