I am pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and pro-guns.

      I am pro-life, but only when it concerns myself. When it concerns another human being, I will relinquish that viewpoint in concern to myself and support whatever choice they may choose when it concerns their own body. I say this with the stipulation that the abortion is performed within the legal amount of time after conception or if the pregnancy becomes life threatening to the mother after the legal window closes. I have this political stance because I believe a child should come into this world and be cared for by people who truly want them. If a mother wants to get an abortion, she does not want the child. No child should ever be born into an environment in which it is not wanted. People retaliate to this saying that the parent should choose adoption. There are so many children in the foster system already. In the US, there are approximately 100,000 children of all ages waiting to be adopted. I feel it is only fair to give them a home to call their own.

      I am anti-gay marriage, but only when it concerns myself. I do not have any future plans to marry a woman, mostly because I like boys (a lot). Anyone else who wishes to marry someone who has the same naughty bits as them though, go for it. Love is love, everyone deserves the right to be happy. People say it is against the teachings of the Bible. Number one: No, butt sex is against the teachings of the Bible. Number two: So is divorce, eating shellfish, playing football, tattoos and working on Sunday, but most of America does those things any way. Besides, marriage is a contract with the government, why does religion have anything to do with it? For those people who harp on the fact that marriage is an institution meant for procreation, then, why are post-menopausal women and infertile people allowed to wed? Return to the previous paragraph, there are so many children in need of homes: adoption is a wonderful option (FOR ANYONE who can provide a stable loving home, including the gays). Also, I'm pretty sure that babies magically happen out of wedlock, for supporting evidence: turn on MTV.

       I am pro-guns, but only in the case that the people operating them have thorough training and background checks. It should not be easier to purchase and own a gun than to get mental healthcare assistance. I also believe that there is no need for a civilian to have an assault rifle or for them to have high capacity magazines, let's leave those to our military. There is also a time and a place for using and carrying guns. Places where guns are outright fun and great to have: while hunting and in public places such as schools. All these activists wanting to arm school teachers, do you really want teachers to have immediate access to a gun while dealing with your terrible children? You might want to rethink that.

       I like to think that if another person's choices are in no way harming others, then they should be free to continue making those choices. The world is a better place for everyone when people are not trying to oppress others because they do not wish to live the exact same way that they do. This is the United States that we are living in, we were founded on freedom and equality, let's practice it.

Panther Pride

      Springboro, OH: The town I grew up in has been in the news a lot lately in regards to the practices and policies being implemented by its Board of Education. National media outlets have highlighted it decision to bring the possibility of teaching creationism to the table. They continue to have the proposal on the table even after intervention of the ACLU for the infringement upon First Amendment rights. A school board member has stated that he wishes to allow teachers and staff to carry weapons on school grounds. The school board is also anti-levy and has been systematically attempting to take away the teachers union's collective bargaining power and faculty and staff benefits.

      As an alumni of the school, all of this deeply saddens me because the staff within Springboro Schools is a group of outstanding educators who put the children they teach first. These Board members are doing what seems to be everything in their power to make the district a place in which it is unattractive to work. During the recession, the teachers took temporary pay reductions and cuts in benefits, but the continued withholding of these benefits is ultimately what will become a detriment to the students because these quality educators will leave the district in search of better jobs.

      I believe in being an educated member of society, an attribute that I developed during my time as a student in this district. So after all the outcries I have been hearing from my hometown, I decided to take a look at the proposals that the Board of Education and Springboro Education Association are proposing as edits to the current contract. What I found supports the argument that these educators are not asking for anything lavish. In fact, the majority of their demands are for the benefit of their students. Furthermore, from my interpretation of the Board proposals, I found many instances in which the Board is protecting itself and eliminating benefits to not only the educators, but also their students.

Springboro Education Association Proposals

Board of Education Proposals

Here are the highlights from the demands that the SEA is making to the Board of Education:

• they are asking for things that benefit the children they are teaching
• reduced class size
• uniformly disbursed skill level of students
• uniformly disbursed IEPs
• the salary they are asking is actually less than the average cost of living for the area and not excessive
• Cost of Living: Dayton Area
• they are asking for fair evaluations and have an outline for them that is structured to promote student achievement 
• the entirety of their proposals appears to be not only for their protection but also for the protection of their students by attempting to provide them with a quality education
• only excessive request I found was the proposal for one delayed day a week

In contrast, here is what I attained from the Board proposals:

• the board proposals seem to be aimed at protecting their position within the system
• they added a portion in which the union cannot advocate for or against a candidate through the schools to their union members
• they want to eliminate the evaluation system
• want to retain the ability to bring in an employee from outside the school district over employing someone already qualified within it who knows the students
• taking away protections such as family and medical leave
• cutting back on class planning time in the day
• taking away class size caps
• making caps on health insurance coverage that do not take inflation and rising healthcare costs into account
• eliminated all professional development and tuition reimbursement
• there is a new article eliminating collective bargaining for the length of the contract whilst other portions give the board to change parts of the agreement based upon available funds

      When you analyze the sides in this collective bargaining battle, you begin to truly see where each side stands. The educators of this school are notorious for standing up for their students and going above and beyond to see them succeed. The school board is filled with people who have higher aspirations in life that have nothing to do with this school districts.They preach financial responsibility as one of them files for bankruptcy. They do not care about the students in this district; they care about a bottom line and it is transparent in their proposals.

      I personally still have a very large vested interest in the policies and quality of this school district. Not only am I an alumni, but I also still have a sibling at this high school. I want for him the same experience that I got while at Springboro High School. I want him to have the same teachers who greatly influenced who I am today and helped me reach excellent heights in my academic achievement. These people whose benefits the Board is trying to restrict are some of the most influential people in these children's lives. They are also people who care about the kids they are teaching and go to great lengths to see them succeed. The community should be standing behind them and not allowing the Board to ruin this school district by driving them away. This is why I will be changing my voting precinct back to Springboro for the next School Board election. I believe that this community should be putting their children first, because this is a city which people come back to generation after generation to put down roots. These kids are the future of society and they need the quality educators to make sure they are prepared to thrive within it.

Petition Against Springboro School Board

Can I get a Hail Mary? Or not, because that's fine too.

      In the spirit of Easter and this Lenten season, religion has been on the minds of most. I was baptized Catholic  as an infant. From what I'm told, this has saved my soul from damnation and made me a Catholic for life. The thing about that is, I don't think I want that stigma associated with me.

      My experience with the church has never been too positive: in my youth or today. I'm not sure if I've only been blessed enough to only meet the bigots and uncultured sector of the Catholic Church or if the majority of the constituency actually believes the hate that has been spewed at me and about me.

      I was forced to dress up and sit through a Catholic mass every Sunday from my infancy until I was around ten years old. I had to go hang out in Sunday School whilst the adults drank coffee and conversed afterwards. I took communion and believed the majority of what all these adults were telling me that is, until my parents' divorce. For some reason, my father was no longer welcome in the congregation and people weren't being too kind about him. A priest went as far as to tell me that I was a bastard child because of my parents' sins. That was the end of my involvement in the Church. I never went back and refused to become confirmed.

      Since then, I have managed to read the Bible and have formed my own interpretation of it. Something that I encourage everyone to do instead of blindly following a certain religion. I learned that the Bible is not the word of God, but the word of the disciples. The disciples were not God; they were not Jesus. They were common men like the rest of us. The Bible is no primary source. Much of it was written hundreds of years after the death of Christ, so the authors didn't even have a first hand account of his life. When you critically analyze the Bible, you quickly realize that you need to read between the lines and discredit parts that obviously go against Christ's essential teachings because it is riddled with the opinions of the common man. You also need to observe the fact that it is an ancient text; it is over two thousand years old. There is so much of it that does not hold a place in a modern society.

       My takeaways from the Bible were that Jesus died on the cross for me to absolve me of all my sins. He lived a life of kindness to his fellow man. His good works were not governed by hate, but by love. Jesus loved all man. He loved them no matter their flaws. 

      These takeaways are why I so ardently question and challenge the Catholic Church. I question it's refusal to allow women to be ordained. I question the church's reaction in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal. I question it's constituency in their treatment of homosexuals and unwed mothers. 

      I don't want to be associated with an organization that discriminates against others in the name of someone who preached nothing but love and understanding. I don't want to be associated with a group in which it's highest powered members ignored and denied the claims of children that they were being abused by the people from whom they were supposed to be learning of Jesus's love. When I look at these people who claim to be devout in the teachings of Christ, all I see is hypocrisy because that is all that I've ever encountered. 

      I wish that people would take the time to critically analyze their lives if they are going to preach that they are holier than thou. They should educate themselves on what message they are sending. They claim to be following the Bible, but they should critically look at the way they live their life and realize that it is nearly impossible to be following the Bible in any modern society. Instead, they are picking and choosing which parts of the Bible are convenient for them or that credit the hate that fills their hearts at the moment. 

      I believe that you do not need religion to live a morally sound life. Live your life in the ethic of reciprocity and you will generally do well in life. If you really need to drag religion into it, it's right there in the Bible, "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:31. 

      Hands down, playing by the Golden Rule will get you far. Denying other people the same things that you expect for yourself, is morally reprehensible. Govern by love, make decisions in empathy, and always question without evidence.

Growing Up Gay

   

      With all this crazy DoMA and Prop. 8 stuff going on in the Supreme Court recently, there has been a lot of debate about gay marriage. It's being discussed on the news, in social media, in my classes; it's everywhere. I, honestly, find it astounding that people are still of the opinion that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. They obviously grew up on some other planet than I did. In class today, a kid tried to argue that a marriage was only for the intent of making children. He said there was no point in two men or two women marrying because they cannot procreate. He went on to say that children raised by gay and lesbian couples were at a disadvantage to those raised by straight ones. I am not even to get into the flaws in his argument that marriages now are only for making babies. Instead, I'd like to address his claim that children raised by gay and lesbian couples are somehow disadvantaged in approximately the same way I addressed it in class.

      I have lived both sides of the spectrum. I have one heterosexual parent and had one that was homosexual. I have grown up in the same house as a transgender individual. I have been raised by a couple united in marriage. I have been raised by two people who were later divorced. I have been taken care of by two men and by a man and a woman. I can honestly say, no matter which side of the coin you analyze: I have and had two excellent parents. They brought me up to respect others and to respect myself. They taught me to take pride in myself and help any other person in need. I learned from them that no matter what you always stand up for what you believe and support the people you love. They instilled the humility to know my weaknesses and to ask for help. They molded me into the person that I am today. Someone who graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA. Someone who is actively involved at her university and performs around 100 hours of community service a semester. Someone who is happy, healthy, and makes the effort to succeed in anything that they put there mind to.

      It doesn't matter if the person that raised you is gay, straight, or transgender. It doesn't matter if you are raised by a single parent or a happily married couple. What matters are the morals they teach you and the strengths that they instill in you. A parent's job is to mold their offspring into a productive member of society and if they can accomplish that, they have succeeded. Anyone can be a parent if they are willing to put in the time and energy required to care for another human being.