demonstrative

It's interesting, all this debate on same sex marriage and same sex adoption. Well actually, it's not really interesting at all, the issues themselves are so obviously non-issues that the reasons they are controversial become fascinating. It has always seemed to me to be a very weird human trait, that groups who have known oppression are the loudest in the fight to oppress others. We have sports stars like Tiger Woods sporting Nike clothing and slave labour, in NZ, various Maori organisations, still fighting for equal status in society, simultaneously demanding that gay people get none, and women, possibly the largest group of people to understand what it's like to be considered inferior, defining other groups along racial or economic lines and doing exactly the same to them.

It's not human nature by any means, it's a view on the world that has somehow been taken by all of us and perceived to be reality. We want to be part of the elite, but others who also join the elite threaten us, if they join, we must somehow lose out. By the elite, in this case, I just mean, an ordinary, respected member of a community, belonging to the 'mass' without being an outsider, abnormal.

The biggest argument against gay marriage is that it 'ruins the sanctity of marriage' - I'm unsure why our 50% divorce rate didn't manage that single handedly. By sanctity, I assume, and am told, we are talking the religious base of marriage, it's awfully funny how religious we become all of a sudden, in fact, I'm sure most of our recent marriage defenders haven't been to church once in their life. We are ruining the sanctity of the elite, if any old person who loves another person, can marry them, what do we 'normal' heterosexuals have anymore? Marriage simply wont mean anything! Maybe we still use marriage to hide a lot of other problems and fear that if people start getting married purely for love, then our lives become a sham. You can tell it's not human nature by the sheer stupidness of it, yet still, we insist on isolating members of our society, issuing them a 'civil union' and telling them to move on, yes we will recognise you, but you still can't join us.

Same sex adoption, on the surface appears to have slightly more murky waters - Babies need their mothers! Really? Is this not the same thinking that kept women in the home, and now we get women annoucing their place is in the home, and that is why two males cannot bring up a child. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. Notice the focus on two males? it seems lesbians are still widely believe to be there or the benefit of males and virtually left out of all arguments concerning 'serious' gay issues.

As far as I'm aware, if we continue to bring up children the way we do now, the world will be the same as it is now. We saw it last night on our election coverage, people who are fighting for their cause are miles ahead of the rest of us, in terms of forward thinking, clear mindedness and alternative paths ahead. Maybe it is us who must get over our ideas that children need to be protected, and protection is hiding them away from the world, until they emerge as an adult without any skills or ideas of how things work. Children are far more adaptive than we think, they are not born with closed minds, however they are created extremely quickly by our parenting. Give a child two loving parents, a little idea of the world, and you'd be surprised what you can create. Give children a clue, and you may well remove the innocence that allows marketers to target them, companies to prey on them and the ability for us to stagnate ourselves on age old issues instead of focusing on things that matter.

I was running along the beach the other day, struggling to motivate myself to make it to the next log, let alone the entire way home again, when something amazing happened. The actual event, you may think, was not actually that incredible at all, just a quick smile and a joke from a stranger walking the other way. But how many times do you actually do that instead of looking down, or to your right, or staring straight ahead in an effort to avoid all contact? I know it sounds crazy that such a tiny act could transform my day, but it did.

I actually distinctly remember two other encounters in my life that have come at such perfectly timed moments that they have turned my entire day and even week around. Once was when I went to the library after a shocking two weeks of 'breaking up' with my best friend, to find that the last librarian I had talked to had secretly wiped my overdue fine. And I know that $5 isn't much, but it was the fact that this stranger had done something nice to me for no reason at all. The next time was a trip down to Wellington for my mums birthday, after yet another stressful week (my life isn't really full of them, its just that this subject really brings them into focus), and the taxi driver refused my money as a birthday gift to my mum, who he had never met in his life.

I suppose its just nice to know that there people out there, who you may never pass again, or even speak to, but out of a random and needless act of kindness, they change your entire outlook on life. I know its unfashionable these days to sound wide eyed with wonder and naievity, but sometimes you just have to take delight in the simplicity of creating a better world.