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A Legislative Update
listen:
  There’s a lot going on at the State House this time of year, from the smoking ban to civil unions to the budget. We’ll get the lowdown on the legislature from our panel of local reporters. Laura’s guests are Kevin Landrigan, State House Reporter for the Telegraph of Nashua, Josh Rogers, State House Reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio and Tom Fahey, State House Bureau Chief for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. We'll also hear from Republican State Representative Nancy Elliott from Merrimack, who will be giving the floor speech in opposition to the parental notification repeal bill.
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Great show -- very interesting to hear what's coming up.
Based on a couple of the calls that were received during the show, I thought I'd add my three cents (adjusted for inflation).
To the legislator who said that *no* parents supported removing the parental notification rule, well, there are at least two of us who do. My husband and I both feel strongly that while it's great when kids and parents communicate well, in cases where a minor isn't comfortable or able to ask her parents' permission for an abortion, she needs to be able to use her own judgment. Only she and those close to her can fully judge what is best for her, and sometimes, that means *not* talking to her parents about it. It's sad, but it happens all too frequently, and placing obstacles in the way of a young woman who wants what is best for her future helps no one.
To the caller who claims that allowing homosexuals to marry in some way threatens the family... well, that "argument" simply baffles me. Is he worried that heterosexual couples will stop getting married because gay couples suddenly have that right? That a committed, hetero dad will divorce his wife, just because the gay couple down the street is granted the rights of his marriage? Allowing gay marriage strengthens families -- right now, gay parents have to fight tooth and nail for the same legal rights that hetero parents take completely for granted. Gay parents have to work extra hard to have children, and they, like hetero parents, just want what is best for their families. Giving them the rights of marriage and all that encompasses -- rights that should be guaranteed in *any* committed relationship -- is best for all families.
I think it's sad that people believe that allowing a committed couple to marry is in any way harmful to other people's marriages. Heterosexual divorce threatens families, not gay marriage; it seems that the righteous indignation of people like the caller would be far better served by trying to toughen existing divorce laws, at least based on their twisted "logic".
Jan Andrea:
I did not hear the comment of "the caller who claims that allowing homosexuals to marry in some way threatens the family..." whose comments you say baffle you, so I don't know if that caller's reasons for opposing gay "marriage" are the same as mine.
You talk entirely in terms of the practical matters of civil rights. My opposition to gay "marriage" (I need to continue putting that word in quotes) goes past all practical considerations to the deepest principle on which life itself is founded.
I say let committed gay couples have all the civil rights of a married couple, yes, but it still does not qualify as a marriage! A marriage, by timeless understanding and acceptance, is the union of complementary opposites capable, at least in theory, of producing offspring. Call it the yin-yang if you like. It is the fundamental principle of all creation, embedded in all things including the human psyche. To attempt to place a homosexual relationship on a par with marriage seeks to attack and corrupt that most foundational principle, a recipe for insanity and fundamental dehumanization.
Just because humans abuse the marriage relationship in every conceivable way is no excuse for trying to unseat the principle! The principle of the union of complementary opposites needs to have a title that cannot be shared by a relationship that doesn't fundamentally qualify, and that title happens to be Marriage.
So let gay couples have the full range of civil rights, but call their relationship by another name, because it isn't marriage.
Composed: March 6,2007 at 12:33 PM
Edited: March 27, 2007 at 11:33 AM
Subject: Rhetorical Questions, Rants & Raves
As a recent transplant from the San Francisco Bay Area--a former KQED member, who keeps "in touch" with Forum (Michael Krasney)--a twenty-year, absolute personal favorite--via Internet streaming, I am pleased to find myself very much engaged with NHPR 's excellent programming.
I have been listening this morning and want to throw my hat in the opinion ring with a few rhetorical questions, suggestions, gripes:
1. I bristle every time I hear somebody make reference to the "traditional family" or "traditional marriage". There seems to be a pervasive assumption that these traditions are ancient, natural and, therefore, sacred. Wrong; these are social, man-made institutions, based in survival (money), and society could stand to be reminded (taught) some of the history surrounding the development of these traditions. There might then exist a possibility of logically defining what these terms mean in our modern context and upon that basis, arrive at some logical understanding of why, short of socialism, civil unions make more sense, equitably speaking, than sanctified marriage. I suggest beginning with a review of books by E.J. Graff, a Boston freelance writer and a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center, and all titles by Stephanie Coontz, who teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.
2. If the FDA announced tomorrow that there was a preventative vaccine for testicular cancer and/or prostrate cancer, optimally administered to boys aged 11-17, does anybody seriously believe that there would be the same uproar and rejection of that as there currently is for the HPV vaccine for girls? Lest I suggest sexism, what about a preventative vaccine for breast cancer? Would we get the same idiotic response? After all, breast cancer doesn't discriminate. Sex doesn't cause cancer! (I think Darwin was on to something...)
3. Go New Hampshire! Second-hand tobacco smoke is nasty for a myriad of reasons. I grew up in a smoking household. My father quit smoking, cold-turkey (excise tax be damned!), but about 25 years too late: He died from lung cancer last year. Smoking also affects and can impair circulation. My mother, who had her lower leg amputated as a direct result of serious circulatory impairment shortly after my father died, refuses to even try quitting smoking. Fortunately, my siblings and I never started. Serious health concerns aside, what really gripes me are the so-called smoking/non-smoking sections in restaurants: Smokers always get the better seating. Seat them outside, seat them upstairs, where smoke naturally rises--away from me, but don't seat them next to me on the other side of a lattice "barrier". What a joke. Alas, tobacco has always been a very lucrative commodity. Money is a hard habit to break. (Little blue pills, anyone?)
4. It's not about sex!!!
5. Pro-choice v. pro-life. Well, okay, while this issue isn't about sex per se, let's repress it anyway. It's clearly the source of all evil, highly over-rated, difficult to resist, and difficult to do with poor circulation, but where would life be without it? Hmmm...wait a minute. Maybe I'm a pro-lifer after all! But, hey, on second thought... I'm definitely pro-something... I know! Pro-choice sex! What a contraception!
Well, thank you NHPR, for great programming and, perhaps, for reading my rant and rave.