Rachel’s Musings

During his acceptance speech in 1992, Bill Clinton said: “I want an America where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches. An America that includes every family.” (p. 65). A year later, as President, he said: “It is certainly true that this country would be better off if our babies were born into two-parent families.” He also brought us “welfare reform” that included marriage promotion as an anti-poverty platform.

I don’t know what it is about holidays but I find them a big turn-off. To me, they feel like fake traditions that have been over-commercialized and are full of obligations most people rather avoid. Maybe I am just a total holiday Scrooge. I just can’t get excited about Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas, which is completely meaningless to me as an atheist. The only thing it means to me is that there’ll be crowds everywhere and I’ll be exposed to Christmas music and decorations wherever I go.      Continue reading this post » » »

According to the Center for Women’s Global Leadership:

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence (25 November – 10 December) is an annual campaign that is symbolic of the global women’s movement and end-violence networks. Its starting day, 25 November, is observed each year to honour the Mirabal sisters, three political activists from the Dominican Republic who were assassinated on the same date in 1961. The end of the 16 Days is marked by 10 December, International Human Rights Day.

You can read more here. And you can say NO to violence against women at Unifem and we can unite to end violence against women.

(Hat tip to Feminist Philosophers).

Apparently, they haven’t heard of the 1,100 rights that only people who are married get. Or maybe they have and that’s why they want to move the dividing line of marital status a bit by including that part of the LGBT community that wants to get married.

I received an email from the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero. Well, it wasn’t a personal email. It was an email to ask ACLU supporters to point out to “Uncle Harry” what’s wrong with Prop 8 if he brings it up over the Thanksgiving dinner:

Here’s my biggest piece of advice for when Prop 8 and gay marriage come up over the Thanksgiving dinner table: Don’t shy away from the conversation. Do what I’m hoping thousands of ACLU supporters will do over the holidays. Talk to someone you’ve never talked to about same sex marriage and explain that it’s just not right to deny someone their freedom because of who they are or who they love.

I’d like to add that it’s not right to deny someone their freedom (and rights and privileges) because of the type of ring they’re wearing.

I really got mad, though, when I read that the ACLU is fighting to “secure equal rights for everyone.” They’re fighting to secure the right to marry for some people but they’re going to be leaving out those people in the LGBT community who don’t want to marry. Actually, they are leaving out everybody who doesn’t want to marry or doesn’t have the opportunity to marry. They are leaving out the unmarried, whether gay or straight or anything in between. They are ignoring those families that are bound together by love and respect without a marriage certificate, including close friends.

So, I replied to Mr. Romero:

According to the Governmental Accounting Office, there are over 1,100 rights given to people simply because they are married. These rights and privileges are denied to unmarried people. By fighting for the right of the LGBT community to marry, you are simply moving the dividing line between married and unmarried. You are not “securing equal rights for everyone.” Marital status discrimination will remain and those of us who do not marry for whatever reasons – including unmarried people in the LGBT community – are giving up rights and privileges. When will Uncle Harry learn that every individual is valuable and should have equal rights no matter what our relationship status is? Our rights should not be dependent on whether we are married. Human rights are bestowed upon us by virtue of being human, not by virtue of our marital status. It is time to move beyond the fight for marriage and start to fight to secure equal rights for everyone, where everyone really means everyone, not just those who want to get married.

I look forward to seeing the ACLU join the fight against marital status discrimination! Only then can you justly claim to fight to “secure equal rights for everyone” because nobody is left behind.

It seems so obvious to me that the fight for marriage leaves out a big chunk of families. Unfortunately, it is not obvious to those who proclaim that they’re fighting for rights for everyone. We need to remind them again and again that we are here. We want to see a country where everybody has the same rights, no matter what their relationship status. Such a vision includes the right to marry for everyone who wants to get married. But it doesn’t stop there. It values all families, no matter how they’re defined.

President Bush proclaimed November 23 through November 29, 2008 to be National Family Week. What’s a family, according to Bush? He doesn’t define it but it is clear that it has to include children (“families instill [important values and character] in their children and in our society”) and a married couple (since he points out that his administration “reduce[d] the marriage penalty”).

Such a narrow(-minded) definition leaves out a slew of other families – from families without children to people living together without marriage.

A more inclusive definition was presented by the American Home Economics Association in 1973:

[A family consists of] two or more people who share resources, share responsibility for decisions, share values and goals, and have commitments to one another over time. The family is that climate that one “comes home to” and it is this network of sharing and commitments that most accurately describes the family unit, regardless of blood, legal ties, adoption or marriage.

(My emphasis added. As quoted in Nancy Polikoff’s Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, p. 33)

A family is essentially the group of people we like to be around, who we support and who support us. Interestingly, this definition not only includes more families but it also excludes families built on blood-ties that are abusive or otherwise not welcoming.

Why is it so important how we define family? As the Alternatives to Marriage Project points out, the way the government defines a family has a huge impact. It affects everything from whom we can see in case of an emergency to whom we can care for under family leave. For example, the Healthy Families Act of 2007, introduced by Senator Kennedy, includes the provision that sick leave can be used for “any other individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.” This covers anybody close to the employee, including friends or even neighbors we’re close to. Now, I can see how that can strengthen our communities!

Did you know that the 40-hour workweek is 70 years old?

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 made the eight-hour day and the 40-hour workweek the law of the land. Another 70 years have passed since passage of the FLSA but the standard workweek remains frozen at 40 hours despite immense improvements in productivity and profound demographic shifts in labor-force participation.
(From the TBYT November newsletter)

The vision was that this would be the beginning of a gradual reduction in hours so that citizen have the time educate themselves. What happened? Two names: Taft Hartley. The Act named after the two Republican Congressmen rolled back short work hours and higher wages. It was the beginning of the undermining of the strengths of the union movement. We all pay with long hours for that…

And another interesting quote (hat tip):

Americans put in more hours at work than any other nation, surpassing even the workaholic Japanese.

Check out Taking Back Your Time for more info.