Prop 8: Beyond Defending Marriage

You all have probably heard the name "Proposition Eight" and know that it has something to do with gay marriage in California. I feel the need to shout from the roof-tops that the definition of marriage is only the tip of the iceberg among the implications Proposition 8 will have if it does not pass. The events in California regarding defining marriage will have a huge impact on the entire nation's freedoms of religion and speech. And court cases in other areas tell us what will happen in our future. For example:

(1) In 2000, 61% of California voters voted to have marriage defined as a union between a man and a woman in Proposition 22. On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court violated the wishes of the majority by striking down Proposition 22. They completely ignored 61% of Californians!

(2) In Canada where same-sex marriage is legal, ministers who preach against same-sex marriage can be sued for hate-speech and risk government fines. The situation in Canada foreshadows what very likely might happen in America once same-sex marriage is defined legally. This is a huge blow to both freedom of speech and religion. What if our government begins to try to limit what we can say in General Conference?

(3) In Boston, the Catholic Charities recently closed down its adoption program because the state of Massachusetts insisted that every adoption agency must allow same-sex couples to adopt. Thereafter, an affiliated agency in San Francisco did the same. Will LDS Family Services be forced to close its doors?

(4) A Methodist group in New Jersey lost part of its tax-exempt status because it refused to allow two lesbian couples to use its facility for a civil union ceremony.

(5) In Albuquerque, a wedding photographer was ordered by the state's Human Rights Commission to pay $6,637 to the attorney for a gay couple because she declined to photograph the couple's commitment ceremony. She had explained to them that because of her religious beliefs she photographed only traditional marriages.

(6) Doctors in America can no longer refuse to perform artificial insemination of lesbians even if other doctors are willing to perform the procedure.

(7) In Massachusetts, a 2nd grade class was read a children's story of a King and a King who married each other and were told they could marry either a prince or a princess, and these children's parents were told by the courts they had no right to be informed beforehand if same-sex marriage was going to be taught so they could take their child out of school for that part of the curriculum.

Our rights as citizens of America are being threatened. Freedoms of religion and freedom of speech were the rights our country was founded on, and now our own people are attacking these rights. It may be that soon in the future, you will not be legally allowed to act according to your conscience to choose whether or not to support same-sex marriages. But will this be the end to the limitations on our freedoms in the future? Once a law to be passed, courts almost always support those laws that were made previously by the Supreme Courts, such as California's.

Wars have been fought for our freedoms that are currently being threatened. If I recall, there was a little tea party that started a big war because the people's voices weren't being heard. And the courts in California just did something eerily similar. I feel like the question of defining marriage has the potential to snowball.

Protect our rights. Vote for Proposition 8 if you live in California. Educate yourself and spread the word to everyone, because everyone knows a Californian they could talk to about this to get another vote. Donate to the cause at protectmarriage.com. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

A Personality Color Code

For my business writing class we were required to read The People Code which was previously published as The Color Code. The author, Dr. Taylor Hartman, claims that every person on the planet has one of four core motives in life, and by understanding how our core motive can influence our lives, we can understand ourselves and and all types of inter-personal relationships better. The four core motives are power, intimacy, peace, and fun (in an incredibly over-simplified explanation), and each motive corresponds to a color: red, blue, white, and yellow respectively.

I took the test to find out which color I am, and what do you know? I am an completely even split between red and blue. Great. According to the book my even, multiple dominant colors indicate that I have the most inner turmoil of any of the color combinations. Having inner turmoil is like my middle-name, so maybe there is something to this theory! Or maybe I just have a split personality and don't know it :)

The book is interesting mainly because after detailed descriptions of each type of motive force, the ease with which colors are combined, pitfalls in communication between person's of different colors, etc. are addressed. If you read this book, you will forever view inter-personal relationships differently. The information this theory provides can be quite helpful, because I think it is relatively accurate.

But the point is, after reading the book, I can more easily identify other's personality color, and as such, I have developed an intense desire to know if my postulations are correct. So if you've ever taken the test or heard about this theory enough to know what your color is, leave a comment for me. I am dying to know! Also, there is a free online test at http://www.colorcode.com/personality_test/. Copy and paste into your browser, take the quiz, and tell me your results!

Just call me Piet

This weekend I became an artist- I painted a painting for my bathroom.
It all started because I had this shower curtain that was white and black, and both yellow and blue towels and I felt that I needed something to tie it all together.
I started by coloring a few of the white circles on the shower curtain yellow, but that took too long. Markers are small! So I thought bigger. And that led me to a painting I loved from ArtH 202 a year ago. An altered version of it was going to be just what I needed! So, I bought canvas, paint and those cheap sponge brushes and designed my work in the neo-plasticism style of Piet Mondrian's Tableau 2.
And then I took the paint to the shower curtain (much faster). :) I had a lot of fun, and didn't even get the paint too many places that it isn't supposed to be! But I am still waiting for the blue to come off my toe :)

Honorable mention for this blog goes to the football team. There has yet to be a point scored against BYU during their past two games! Woohoo! They are so awesome!

As a very random side note, I would also like to mention that I apologize for the obnoxiously gigantic picture of myself that has been at the top of my blog for such a long time now. "How conceited is this girl?" you are wondering. The truth of the matter is I couldn't figure out how to make it so much smaller the way I wanted, and so I got frustrated and gave up and have been ignoring it ever since. Please try to do the same until I find the time and patience to fix the problem. Cheers!

I suddenly love football

Dear readers,
I am writing to inform you that I went to the BYU vs. UCLA football game today, and I loved it! As someone who previously has had a very hard time sitting through an entire game, this comes as a small surprise. My throat hurts from screaming, and my hands were sore from clapping. I would just like to say that admiring the skill with which people beat each other up in a civilized way is thrilling. I mean, at the beginning of the game there was this amazing tackle, and another time one guy vaulted himself over the man that was running at him. It was crazy! The point is that this is the first time I have owned an all-sports pass, and I am loving it! I had excellent, twelfth-row seats today and I heard that they aren't rotating the seating this year! (And btw, I was so glad when the guy in front of me finally took off his huge gardening hat. It was totally blocking the view.) An added perk is that we are in the corner next to the portal through which the players run onto the field! Mmmm yeah :) Ha ha ha! Life rocks.

Major #4 or #5, I've lost track.

Yes, its true. I've done it again! I changed my major. I understand that these changes are so frequent its getting a bit ridiculous, but the change was necessary. I left the elementary education program and am now a business management pre-major. I have some classes I have to take before I can apply, but hopefully I will be in the program by spring term, so that way I will not be as behind in my efforts to graduate on time.
After starting off here at the Y as a Physiology and Developmental Biology major I've switched to education, to accounting, to the Elementary Ed and Early Childhood Education program and now to business. Its been a lot of work!! And just so you know, I'm not making any guarantees that this one is going to stick. Maybe I have commitment issues :-) But seriously, I am almost nervous to post this, because I realize how flighty all of these changes make me seem. But all I can say is that it is what it is :)
So good thing I enjoy going to school, because I'm going to be around for a bit longer, especially if I take a break and leave on a mission this summer. But who knows if I will ever be able to make a decision and stick to it on that one! Ha ha ha :) So, come 2011, look for me on campus, because I might still be here!

Movie Stars Love Lake Powell

So life is blissful under the Southern Utah sun :) I got to go to lake powell the weekend after I got home from d.c. and the weekend before I got knee surgery. I'm completely in love with wakeboarding and boating in general.

The other thing of note lately is that the movie that I was an extra in, approximately 6 years ago finally came to theaters! Its called "The Flyboys". My role in it is one of those things where if you blink you miss it, but I think that you can see me in a couple of the scenes when they are at school. It's a pretty good kids movie though even if you don't see me (I didn't even see myself, but other people claim they have). There are some excellent stunts, good acting for the most part, and the main characters reaffirm my desire to have mostly sons :) I love boys! So anyway, I'm officially famous now. Oh, and if anyone reading this knows Laurel Snow Horchem, she plays the snotty sister in the film, and she did a really good job, it was fun to see her up there:)

A super weird and funny coincidence is that one of my best friends, Keith, is an extra in a movie that is in theaters currently as well. His movie his called "The Errand of Angels" which is about sister missionaries. Its also a pretty good movie that I recommend seeing. Its like a step down in goodness from "The Best Two Years", but I still enjoyed it, probably because seeing Keith in it was like the happy surprise of my life! It was filmed in Austria where he is serving his mission so I haven't seen him in a year and a half, but there he was up on that huge screen, and I almost screamed. Truly. The amount of screen time he gets is significant. The camera loved him :)

The Big D.C.

So I went to Washington D.C. for a week to visit my sister Andrea who lives out there with her husband Adam. He is going to George Washington University for law school, and Andrea just got her paralegal degree from there and is now working for a law firm. Needless to say, they are both crazy cool people who are very accomplished.
I had the privilege of having my wonderful friend Audrey come with me on the trip, and I am so glad that she did. I had so much more fun because she was with me! My sister had to work during the weekdays, and so Audrey and I kept ourselves very entertained by running around D.C. to all of the monuments, memorials, and Smithsonian museums that we possibly could. It was excellent. Audrey was in her history-nerd happy-place, and I had a blast observing her joy. And I loved going to see everything as well. Both me and Auds loved the mall the best, and the outdoor memorials and monuments surrounding it. We saw all of them at least once, and then went back to see our favorites at night. We went to the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Engraving and Printing, the Holocaust Museum, the Library of Congress, the Capitol (we got a tour through our senator's office), the Supreme Court, the National Archives, Arlington National Cemetary, and other places I am sure that I am just forgetting at the moment. I also made Audrey go through the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden of Contemporary and Modern Art, which was totally awesome and amazing, and I loved :) It reminded me of how much I totally love art! Which is a lot.
This whole trip brought back so many memories of my trip through Europe it was crazy. It made me miss Europe and that whole experience so much! And the architecture of all of our national buildings didn't help. They were all designed by European architects, and are therefore all totally reminiscent of Roman, Greek, and especially French architecture. Like for example, the Library of Congress looks so much like the Paris Opera house on the outside, it is crazy. And the whole layout of Washington D.C. was done by some french dude who modelled it after Paris after the Hausmannization. The mall is completely reminiscent of the Champs-Elysees... Anyway, you can imagine me talking about the European influences on architecture and Audrey spouting off facts about U.S. Presidents and various historical events, and it is easy to see that we weren't the typical tourists. We saw about three times more of D.C. than Andrea has seen of it, and she has lived there for a year :) I am so proud. Audreys feet were literally bleeding by the end of the trip because of all the walking we did. It was hard-core. Go big or go home, and we really didn't want to come home :)
P.s. the first picture is of a group of college students protesting abortion on the steps of congress (congress is currently not is session and we were wondering if they knew that). props to them, and i love this country's freedom of speech. it was cool to see it in action in our nation's capital.
p.p.s. the bottom two pictures are of the library of congress and the paris opera house. they are ridiculously similar! there is just a lack of unique creative thought that makes our national buildings "American" rather than just copies of European grandeur. this reminds us of how young our nation was when these things were being built. craziness!