Not anti-gay...pro-family.

I recently came up with this term to describe my feelings in a short concise way. I figured that "no and 8s" have heard all the arguments out there already and have countered with their own bias and opinions. This one, I believe, has no counter-argument. A fellow teacher at my high school has started the ball rolling and we will be having a rally Thursday afternoon at Crown Valley Elementary School at 4 pm. The rally is called Teachers Vote Yes on Prop 8 and the Orange County Register is coming to take pictures and comments.

If you know any teachers in the surrounding area who you think would like to attend, please let them know. Here is an email I just sent to a bunch of teachers at my school (hopefully I don't get fired for doing so). But even if I do, I'm going down with a FIGHT!!!! (BTW, do any of you have a decent paying job that would like to hire an ex-teacher who got fired for doing what he believed in?)

Anyway, here is the letter:

Fellow colleagues, This is Jon Hendrickson, English teacher at the high school. I had heard through the grapevine that you were supportive of Prop 8 and wanted to protect our family structure and believed that marriage was intended to be between a man and a woman. If I am wrong, then I apologize in advance for this email.

I am not anti-gay, I am pro-family. I believe that children raised in a home with a loving father and mother are more likely to be well rounded and successful in today's amoral society. I believe we are dangerously close to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where "everyone belonged to everyone else" and where "mother" and "father" were considered taboo.

I do not want to accelerate our society into becoming this way so I am voting Yes on Prop 8. If you feel the same way I do, then I encourage you to come to the rally for Teachers for Yes on 8 tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm. We are meeting at Crown Valley Elementary School and the Register will be on hand to take pictures and comments.

I hope you can make it. The more teachers we have attending the better. There will be other supportive teachers from different districts who will be there as well. If you plan on attending (or even if you can't make it) and know others who think the same way you and I do then please forward this email on to them. Thank you for your support.


UPDATE: (I was calling people here in Laguna Beach last night to urge them to vote. I kept using my "pro family" approach. It worked until I called a lawyer......(guess how that went?)

We talked for 25 minutes. He kept calling me a "bigot." He yelled at me. I yelled at him. I was spewing facts that countered his arguments and he was trying to do the same. He kept saying that this proposition would have no effect on me and my children.

My counter: My church losing its tax exempt status affects me. Schools taking their classes to lesbian weddings affects me. Small businesses trying to uphold their own morals and then getting sued for it, affects me. My kids learning about this behavior before they are ready affects me. Using 1.2 million of teacher union fees to defeat this proposition affects me.

His next question, why do you care what people are doing in their own bedroom?

My counter: If it doesn't matter what people do in their own bedroom then why is necrophilia against the law especially if the spouse gives written consent before he or she dies? Would you care if a porno was being conducted next door to you? Also, what is the difference between polygamy and same-sex marriage? If Prop 8 doesn't pass, don't you think that polygamists have a real gripe. They also are a minority group who is supposedly "getting shafted."

He kept bringing up the blacks and how our country tried to keep them from their civil rights as well. I'm so sick of that argument. I think blacks should be offended everytime it is used.

Anyway, I know I am preaching to the choir but at this point, this is the only real issue that matters. The Presidential race is secondary right now to many here in California and probably to the brethren as well. I am fearful right now that Prop 8 will not pass. I think we are trailing at this point and like McCain, probably need a miracle.