Second, I would like to thank Michael for a fantastic post regarding Proposition 8. As usual, his eloquence and logic are hard to beat. I just wish more people would read his writings. I wish more people would read in general rather than simply parroting what they hear in propagandist advertising. I had a conversation with a woman a few weeks ago in which she openly supported Prop. 8. Not because she was really against gay marriage, so she said, but because she didn’t want her child taught that it was ok in school. Her only sources of information on the proposition were the advertisements she had seen on television and heard on the radio.

I told her the vote wasn’t about what would be taught in schools, but I didn’t push the issue very hard. I didn’t think I had to.

I am a California native. And, for the first time in my life I am completely disheartened about my beloved state by the results of this single Propositional vote. While I cried Tuesday night from joy, on Wednesday I shed tears of sadness. I didn’t believe there would be so many more people like that woman heading to the voting stations.

How is it that at the same time as we looked past skin color to elect our nation’s first black President, a sub-set of the nation could decide to take rights away from a group of citizens?

It’s because the decision was not based on logic. The decision was based on fear.

Fear that children would be brainwashed into thinking homosexual behavior is something they should try. Fear that gay marriage although different is really acceptable. Fear that somehow gay marriage will lead to the destruction of society as we know it.

Well, you know what? If society continues to condone discrimination because of fear and hatred only thinly veiled by morality, maybe it deserves to be destroyed.

Or, at least, roughed up a bit.

I’ve sat quietly by many times, not wanting to stir up a hornet’s nest of a conversation. I make excuses internally for not pushing forward on an issue that I believe is important: People can believe whatever they want, and I have no right to judge their beliefs. I have no right to impose my beliefs on anyone.

Yet, that’s just what happened. The belief/judgement that homosexuality is wrong led to this proposition that will impose on people by taking away their rights to marry.

It’s probably past time to speak up, but there is no better time to start than the present.

The arguments related to this issue are all distractions from the central issue of equality. The following statement from Mark Leno, Assemblyman – CA, (now Senator-elect) frames the issue better than I ever could:

“What is the one thing that all of us walking this planet have in common irrespective of our race, creed, color, religion, nation of origin, native language, sexual orientation or gender identity? What is our common humanity? It is our ability to love and our desire to love another human being in an intimate and committed fashion. That is what makes us human beings.

If we, through our public policy and lawmaking, are going to say that one group of humans loves in a way that is deserving of a marriage license but this other group just doesn’t love quite good enough so we will deny them their fundamental right to marry, then we are denying that group their very humanity. It was at that time that I decided that I was ready to fight a war over a word.”

I want to hope that love is our common humanity, and not fear. I want to hope that cultural evolution will eventually make automatic responses, like fear of differences, obsolete. I want to live in a society where love is the prevailing emotion over fear and hatred. I might be an idealist, but it’s something to work toward… something to fight a war of words for.

However, I do wonder how much of what I choose is actually free-will as opposed to programmed responses. We know that there are intrinsic neural responses within the brain. They are present from even before birth. The brain goes through a period of incredible growth when you are young. During which time new synapses are being formed at the fastest rate of your life.

Information enters the brain through your sensory system, and is checked against internal signals. Neural pathways are strengthened and weakened accordingly. The immense branching system is pruned according to what the brain receives from the outside world.

We know that there are sensitive periods within the development of the brain that if missed result in the loss or impairment of function. Speech and vision are but two of the available examples. We also know that the human brain and the neurons within it function in much the same way as those belonging to the organisms we employ for study; albeit with more neurons and exponentially greater complexity of connectivity.

We know that neurons respond reliably to given inputs. We can predict the behavior of many organisms because of basic neural principles like conditioning and habituation. And, I’m not denigrating the complexity of the human mind here, but we can also predict the behavior of people in certain situations. It’s because of basic neural principles that create behaviors.

So, what I learned, what my brain learned, while I was young and oh so impressionable has a HUGE impact on the choices I make. How do I know how much of my daily repertoire of behaviors are simply programmed reactions to environmental stimuli? Does it even matter? As long as everything works, should I care if it is real free will?

Well, where it bothers me is in the application of measures to take advantage of what we know about the brain and peoples’ behavior, namely in marketing. I’ve been reading George Lakoff’s recent book, The Political Mind, and while I have some issues with the overall tone of the book and some of his assumptions, I do think that he is onto something.

He poses the idea that people repond to what they hear, read, watch in the media with programmed predictability because of the associations we learn while we are young, and that the conservative Republican party has been immensely better at making use of these subconscious linkages than other parties (specifically the pesky progressive Democrats). I think he’s right. The Republican party has done an excellent job of using marketing tactics to their advantage.

Good marketing works, but where will it stop? As we learn more and more about our brains there will be more and more fodder for manipulation. More opportunities to make peoples’ choices for them.

And, on that frightful note, I leave you on this scariest of days prior to one of the most nationally important days (at least until the next election or something major happens) to ponder the choices you are to make and why you are making them.