Hedonia

GMO WTF

Look, California. I love ya, but sometimes you annoy me. While I am overall pleased with the outcome of yesterday's elections, there is one glaring disappointment. Prop 37 would have required labeling of foods that may have genetically modified organisms (GMOs). And it didn't pass.

Why? Because Big Food, most notably Monsanto, outspent the pro-37 forces more than fivefold, running ads with "doctors" expressing concern about misleading health information and claiming GMO labeling would increase grocery bills by $400 per year per household. 

Neither is exactly true. The labeling would not have made any judgment about GMO foods; it would merely have afforded transparency about their presence. And the $400 claim is predicated on food producers having to replace their stocks as opposed to merely relabeling it. 

I am not a scientist. I do not know whether GMOs are intrinsically unhealthful. But I'd like to be able to make my own decisions based on the greatest amount of information possible.

Many food companies supported Prop 37, and I support them. Here's a handy chart to know which food businesses were in favor of transparency. Click here to download a larger PDF for printing. 

No on Prop 8

I am not a particularly political person, and have never before used this blog as a platform from which to expound my views on matters other than hedonistic ones, but let's just say this issue is a teensy bit important to me. You see, thanks to recent changes in California law, I was finally able to marry my fiancé of 15 years, and that was a very good thing indeed. Literally dozens of our coupled friends have done the same in the past few weeks. And gee, it would be great if others could continue doing so after November 4.

Proposition 8 is a particularly hateful ballot initiative that would amend the California constitution to eliminate the now-given right for same-sex couples to marry. That's right. A constitutional amendment to discriminate against a specific segment of the population. Fun!

Of course the fundies are all over this shit, whining and moaning to "protect traditional marriage," whatever that means. Cuz you know, upstanding citizens like Britney Spears and Elizabeth Taylor and John McCain have unimpeachable records when it comes to marriage. Heck, even my father, heaven rest his soul, married four times. I'm pretty sure this falls outside the parameters of "traditional," but somehow the Mormons didn't get their panties in a twist about it. 

No, this is different, because the Bible, which was obviously written by God himself on the universe's first IBM Selectric, supposedly had a few things to say about homosexuality. Sure, those same words have been mutated through a few millennia of translation across multiple languages, but whatev. 

A favorite supporting verse in Leviticus says "men shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, that's an abomination." So, by that logic, we should amend the constitution only to ban marriage between men; lesbian marriages are perfectly OK according to the bible. Look it up! And anyway, if they want men to stop having sex with each other, shouldn't marriage be the solution?

Pro-8 ads have also been pulling the old pearl-clutching "Won't someone think of the children???" trope, saying that schools will be teaching grade-schoolers about gay marriage. Aside from the fact that, according to the State Superintendent of Schools, that's a lie, here's what I think: Good! Teach children the virtues of equality. This is about human rights, not sexuality.