Anti Gay Ignorance

Longtime anti-gay activist David Wilson is wasting his time and money handing out fliers opposing Annise Parker as a potential mayoral candidate for Houston. Wilson once led a very successful effort to deny benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian city employees. The 35,000 fliers he has handed out show a photo of Parker being sworn in as controller while her partner, Kathy Hubbard looks on. The headline reads, "Is this the image Houston wants to portray?," on the reserve side it says, "Just because Annise Parker is a lesbian doesn't make her qualified to be mayor of Houston." Regardless if Parker is a lesbian or not, that should not determine weather she is qualified to hold a political office.
Wilson said that he tried to word his flier as a compassionate Christian. In my opinion, I do not think that Christians need to insert their constant two cents into politics and what is right and wrong. Shouldn't religion and state be separate? I am constantly hearing Christians preach this, but yet that is not what I am seeing. My mother is one of these "Christians" that will not shut up about gays and family values. As a homosexual, it really makes me upset that my own mother is the same way if not worse than Wilson. Wilson is also concerned that if Parker is elected mayor that it would inspire others to enter politics that are possibly gay or lesbian. At this point in life, who cares? Are we not adults? I do not think that someone's sexual orientation has to do with his or her qualifications on a job. In a political office, we need more people that are open-minded not only for gays, but for everyone. I think David Wilson should stop wasting his money and time on something that will eventually not even be a second thought for most Americans.

My Response To Tax Dollars Being Used On Abortion

I n my classmate's blog entry "Should Our Tax Dollars be Going To Women To Have Abortions?", she talks on the subject of using tax dollars to fund abortion. I do not think that tax dollars should be used to fund abortion. I think that abortion is a woman's choice, but I do not feel like that my hard earned money should be spent on someone's possible mistake of not using some sort of contraceptive and got pregnant. I think that abortions should only be performed for only a few reasons such as a woman getting raped or if there was some sort of health at risk with either the baby or mother. I do not think that a 16-year-old girl should be able to go through the hard emotional process of killing her child because her and her boyfriend thought they were mature enough to have sex. However, I can not tell someone what they can and can not do with their body just like someone can not tell me how to use my body. I think that if a woman or a young girl decides that having an abortion for whatever their justifying reason maybe that they should fund that themselves. I do not think that raising taxes or shifting money should go to pay for something like this. I agree with Whitney that it is their responsibility to pay for a procedure like that, not mine. There are other options for woman out there to choose than abortion. I think for some many people that is the easy way out. I also believe that if people have funding to pay for this that it might make it okay for just anyone to be able to get this done and it is not.

Death Penalty in Texas

There has been so much focus surrounding the death penalty here in Texas and it has been a subject that I have been following. I believe in the death penalty to a certain extent, but I think we have abused it quite a bit over time. Texas is a very proud state and I think people here want others to make sure they know they will not get away with anything because they could possibly face the death penalty. I think if you do a horrible, unspeakable crime that you should be put to death, "an eye for an eye" type of thing. However, I think we need to change the structure and the process of people that are put on death row. I do not think that people need to be on death row for ten plus years. That is ridiculous. People should not have to sit around that long knowing that they are going to be put to death. They need to shorten the process of appeals and only allow so much time to process it.

I also believe that the prosecutor needs to prove that without a shadow of a doubt that the person that is being tried is guilty of the crime. There have been too many cases in the news lately that are showing that an innocent person has been executed here in Texas such as Willingham. When things like this show up in the news and media I think it makes Texans look really bad especially our governor who did not want to even look over the case and the new investigation done. There needs to be extreme investigations and research done before delivering a verdict in a case like this.

At the end of the day, I think that we need to change a system and process to better provide a solution to people that could possibly be placed on death row. Just imagine if you were the person that was sentenced to death row and you knew that you were innocent, but there was nothing you could do to find the system.