Article 1 - The right to equality

I've wanted to write about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for a while now. I have a calendar from Amnesty International on my wall that has an article from the declaration on each month and I've found it quite inspiring. I'm finally writing about it because today is Human Rights Day and the 60-year anniversary of the Declaration being adopted by the UN General Assembly. If you've never read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights before, I strongly recommend it. It's incredible to consider the rights that 48 nations agreed every human deserves to have. It's certainly far from perfect but is part of a vital conversation that has existed for thousands of years.

There's a lot of activity on this day this year. For one thing, Amnesty International and the ACLU are relentlessly reminding Obama that he promised to shut down Guantánamo. They want him to do it on his first day. For another, gay rights supporters have named this day Day Without a Gay and have pledged to call in "gay" to work and instead spend the day volunteering for a good cause. I'm not doing it because a) I don't have a job and b) I already spend every day volunteering, but I wholly support the idea. I think it's fantastic.

For millions of people on this planet, these rights are merely an idea, nothing that they have ever actually enjoyed. It's the reason that I believe the election of Obama caused such a worldwide phenomenon. In the days after the election, I read stories and heard first or second hand from black Americans who either voted for the first time or voted for the first time believing our political process can work. People whose children, as young as five, watched the election results with gleeful anticipation as if expecting to see a miracle happen right before their eyes. Indeed, to many in this country and abroad, what happened on election night was a miracle.

We elected a man who inspired us, made us hopeful about our country and made us feel powerful in our own ability to affect change. To much of the world, that has viewed the United States as the expression of these universal rights, that we overcame our history of black slavery and struggle for civil rights to elect an African-American as president is proof that these things are not merely ideas. They are ideas that we put into action every day. I don't think we can underestimate the profound impact that an event like this will have on the world, especially on the younger generations. To people all over the world it signaled hope that they too could make a difference and that their own struggle for human rights is not in vain.

While I admired McCain for his elegant concession speech, speaking of Obama with respect that he rarely afforded him throughout the election, there was something about the way he mentioned the "special significance" his election held for African-Americans that made me flinch. Looking at the nearly all white audience, some with anger on their faces and some shouting and booing, it seemed to me that they might hear, "If you're pissed off, you can blame the blacks." It seemed to me that his election signaled a similar but opposite thought in some; that the dominance of whites is over, not just in the U.S. but all over the world.

There was much talk after the election about the Republican base is now limited to the south. Half of Republicans now in office are from the south and the highest increases in voter turnout were in the south. It was speculated that it was due to blacks who had never voted before, thanks in part to the huge effort by the Obama campaign to help people get to the polls. But in fact, there is reason to believe that the record numbers were also due to whites voting to keep a black man from becoming president. There has always been an enormous fear by those of the dominant group(s) about what happens when those that are not, get more rights. In the same way that it took women 80 years to get the vote and how hard women had to fight to gain the right to a college education, gays are now fighting the same fear over what happens if they should be allowed to marry.

I really like this music video that Amnesty International sent me about the Universal Declaration and have decided that I will spend today editing the video that I promised to make for Amnesty International. I encourage you to spend the day thinking about how you can promote human rights. Write a letter. Volunteer. Voice your opinion. Get involved.

On the eve of election day

I woke up crying for no apparent reason. I'm on the tail end of a three-week cold and have felt my blood pressure rise on more occasions than I'd like to admit over the past few months. This is the first year that I've done a mail-in ballot (in anticipation of being a poll worker, that I never got to be) and I will miss going to the polls. Even though there are rumors of long lines and other wackiness, I love walking into that polling booth and exercising my right to vote. This race for the presidency is certainly one of the most exciting I've seen in my lifetime and the country seems to be divided into four parts (in descending order of popularity): Those who think Obama will usher in a new era in participatory politics, those who think he'll bring about the end of the world, those who think all politicians are crooks and liars and those who think Sarah Palin is the neatest thing since sliced bread.

I promised myself months ago that I would campaign for Obama if he got the nomination but I didn't end up doing it. Mostly because my life got a little bit complicated and I just didn't feel quite up to it honestly. I did, however, write letters and talk to friends and convince my mother about Obama - who in turn has convinced other people. The stubborn loyalty to the smear tactic by the McCain/Palin campaign and their fervently hateful supporters, however, has really disturbed me. I know this kind of division has happened in previous elections but it affected me more deeply this time. Every time Obama chose the high road, it seemed to make his competitor sink to an even deeper level of deceit, turning people off by the thousands. Eckhart Tolle talks about the collective human evolution that we're in the middle of, a process in which the ego and the insanity that it produces becomes apparent to us and once we turn our attention to it, it dissolves. I see the McCain campaign as embodying the insanity of the ego rallying against Obama's Zen-like acceptance and enthusiasm. It's why I believe his leadership is crucial right now. Tolle says if we do not complete this evolution, we will be destroyed by our collective ego. I believe the general unease with Bush, even by those who cannot articulate the reason, reflects our desire to do just that.

A few bills on the California ballot also address the commitment to our own evolution, as a society and as individuals. Prop 2 calls for more humane treatment of the animals we eat for food. Enormous sums of money have been donated by companies that have violated existing laws on waste, food safety and animal welfare to run ads using the same McCain scare tactics about what will happen if people vote YES. Many intelligent and reasonable people, already committed to their family's health, have been unsure how to vote. Even though the bigger issue is our responsibility to not cause needless suffering in the world, people still want to be assured that the price of eggs isn't going to go up. They don't yet have the space in their heart to weigh a few pennies against the suffering of a chicken. Not yet. This is just one of a series of measures that have been passing all over the country in the last few years that demonstrate a growing concern for the welfare of animals - a concern that I believe to be part of our overall consciousness. Religious leaders are finally joining the discussion and reminding their followers (for lack of a better word) of their God given responsibility to all creatures great and small.

Another bill, Prop 8, wants to limit the right of marriage to straight people. The folks pushing it say they want to protect marriage. I started out on this one thinking it was just laughable. I mean it's obvious that people are losing interest in marriage just as they are losing interest in religion, but what do the gays have to do with it? I have many friends who are married but I also have quite a few who have had children without getting married or who are well past middle age and show no signs of ever getting married. So when gays started getting married it really didn't matter to me. Then I saw Prop 8 ad on TV that made me stop in my tracks. It was so bizarre and freaky that I couldn't believe it was on, I think during The Daily Show! When I moved to the suburbs, I encountered mobs of white teenagers with their milquetoast parents holding signs on street corners that called Prop 8 "free speech" while signs were posted in yards all over the neighborhood. It galvanized me to find out what exactly it was all about.

I went to their ridiculous website, I read articles, I studied the Wikipedia entry on marriage and learned that this is nothing more than a group of people who believe that their discomfort with someone else's behavior warrants a law being passed to prohibit it. I thought of a dozen things that irritate me like people sawing down mature trees to make room for more concrete, those car stereos that boom really loud and shake my car when I'm at a stop light, baggy pants that guys have to hold up to walk across the street, or really strong perfume on a woman that burns my nose when I'm in a store. They derisively refer to the "four activist judges" who overturned their last attempt to infringe on our civil rights as if we should live by mob rule and condemn judges who don't agree. Then, on a Catholic website, I read an article by a Deacon urging his constituents to vote for Prop 8 but nearly every comment was in opposition! Catholics wrote to say they were voting AGAINST Prop 8 and were offended that the church thinks they have a right to tell people how to vote. One woman posted a fantastic article about the (aforementioned "activist") Republican moderate judge who led the majority opinion in the case and the journey he took to make a decision that respects the people's will as expressed by the Constitution.

Ironically, I think this bill has forced people to take a stand on an issue they may have been ambivalent about. Teachers and school administrators were furious to learn that proponents were lying in their ads, saying that schools would be forced to teach about gay marriage. Proponents outraged parents when they stole footage from the San Francisco Chronicle of children attending a gay wedding and used it without permission in their ads. My mother, whose gay boss and his partner are raising two special needs children they adopted, was horrified when I explained the bill to her. She then had a conversation with a woman in the neighborhood with a NO on Prop 8 sign who told her that her young daughter has a friend with gay parents but has never once asked why the girl has two daddies. Kids aren't confused or concerned; nearly every child these days has a complicated parental situation and I say a child with two parents is lucky! That same week, the band of propagandists picketed in front of an elementary school prompting kids to ask their parents what it was all about. The proponents of Prop 8 aren't defending marriage, they're just teaching their kids to hate people who are different.

I say that the chorus of hate and intolerance that echos around the country is the sound of our collective ego dying as we increasingly respect the earth, each other and all the other creatures on the planet. I also see Obama as focusing our attention inward in so many ways. He focuses on how we can take better care of each other, not how we can exercise control over the rest of the globe. Similarly, consciousness happens when we focus our attention inward and stop trying to control everything and everyone around us. I bet that the people who are afraid of Obama are really afraid of what happens when we start looking inward. That fear has been intentionally stoked but it isn't working as much as it used to. There is less and less room in our collective consciousness for the negative rhetoric of the ego, desperate for control. I say it's part of our evolution, and like the better treatment of animals and the acceptance of a broader definition of marriage and family, there's no stopping it. So vote and bring it on!