My American accent

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Makes sense; I spent the bulk of my formative years (7-14 yo) there.

To: my friend who supported Prop 8 but won't actually allow others to talk with her about it

Honey, I'm sorry you're feeling persecuted. I really am. I think hatred or vitriol towards any individuals involved in the situation is wrong.

HOWEVER.

Posting links to Mormon sites that moan, "Oh, we're so persecuted! People are picketing our churches!" is a non-sequitur. The LDS church bankrolled a hell of a lot of negative advertising that *truly did* make misleading claims in order to scare the uninformed into voting for Prop 8. They tried to -- and in many cases, succeeded in -- using pressure tactics to force their members into voting for it (which you well know).

Those are facts. "Oh, we're so persecuted!" does not change the FACT that they FIRST persecuted others in a very legitimate sense (i.e. not merely picketing and protesting, but actually removing rights!) who are simply trying to have a normal life. IT IS WRONG TO TAKE AWAY CIVIL RIGHTS. PERIOD. Two consenting adults who want to become a family and are not otherwise legally barred from doing so (i.e. siblings, whatever) should not be forced to separate by a religious group or a group of religions; religion DOES NOT belong in legislation. If the Mormons or the Catholics or whoever doesn't want to marry gays and lesbians in their churches, that's fine! Nothing in CA state law was going to force them to! All these people want is to have families like heterosexual families have them, with the rights and responsibilities that go with them. Just because your Prophet says no doesn't mean that people *not even in your church* have to abide by his rules.

Personally, I don't care if Joseph Smith appeared to you in a rain of gold and said unto you, "Vote YES on Prop 8 or face immortal hellfire!" It's still not right for your religion (and others like it, lest it be said that I am singling out Mormons; Catholic hierarchy is just as guilty) to force that decision on an entire state.

I need to know that you understand this. You voted to take away another person's rights based solely on what you were told by your church, as far as I can tell. That's what I can see.  If you didn't vote for it, GREAT! Keep me as a friend and I will put it behind me. But if you did vote for it, I really want you to take me off your friends list. I genuinely do. I think that (if you voted for it) what you did was incredibly wrong. Amazingly so. I can't live with that. I'm not going to defriend you until I know for sure what actually happened. If you don't defriend me, I will assume that you voted against it, and YAY! that would be great and I won't say another word about it. But I expect you to be honest about this; if you can't stand by your vote, how much *worse* is that than the actual vote itself?

PSA: Stay clear of emusic.com

I liked eMusic for a while, when I was actively using them.

But they make it *really* hard to cancel the account -- you basically have to call them in person to do so, and when you do, it's voicemail hell until you finally get to talk to someone. Instead, they put your account on hiatus... but they don't tell you ahead of time when the 3-month hiatus is up; they just quietly charge your card with no warning. I just happened to notice the latest charge on my PayPal account a couple of days ago. When I emailed (because the last time I went on hiatus and they charged me without warning, I asked to be notified ahead of time), I found that in fact my account went from hiatus back to active status *5 months ago*. Did they tell me? No. So I've been paying $20/month for 5 months without knowing it (because I don't generally check my PayPal activity daily; I just assume it's only been charged for things that I, you know, authorize -- obviously, I won't be trusting that anymore!) and not downloading any music -- so, I'm out $100 with nothing to show for it. Grrrr. Bastards. Of course they cite the terms of service, which says essentially that you sign over your firstborn when you agree to the terms, and the downloads of course do not roll over. F*ckers.

Anyway. Lesson learned. Don't join eMusic, or if you do, make sure that they don't charge you behind your back. Don't trust them to notify you about anything.