Lies they would have you believe

1)  Feminism is bad/feminists hate men.

False.  I'm a feminist and I bet you are, too.  At least I hope you are.  Here's the thing about feminism: we believe that women and men are equal.  Not, as Rush Limbaugh would have you believe, that women are better and men are horrible and stupid and lazy.  Just equal.  We believe that women who work outside the home are just as valuable as women who work inside the home.  We believe that it is our right to decide what to do with our bodies.  That means that rape is bad and it means that it's my right not to have any children and that it is my best friend Jen's right to have as many children as she wants. 

To further illustrate this, Jen and I are the same age (27).  We have careers, not jobs.  We have college degrees.  We are, as they said in To Wong Foo, Career Girls.  I may or may not get married, but I don't want children.  I want to be a senior web producer in New York by the time I'm 30 or work for a network (as opposed to a local station) by the time I'm 35.  (This may or may not happen.)  Jen wants to get married and have kids.  Once she does, she wants to stay home and raise them. 

Feminism isn't about which of us is making a better or more valid choice--it's about the fact that we both have the right to make those choices, to do what makes us happy.

2)  Gay marriage is bad.

I can understand the religious arguments against this, but marriage is not just a religious institution anymore; it's a civil, secular one.  I would never demand that a minister who didn't agree with gay marriage marry us in his church.  But people don't just get married in a church--they get married outside and in courthouses and in all manner of places. 

Here's the thing.  If you substitute any other minority in this, you'll see how horrible it is.  Do you think black people should get married?  Hispanics?  Fat people?  Left-handed people?

The fact that I fall in love with women and not men doesn't make my love any less valid or any less deserving of recognition in the eyes of my family and friends.

Ten percent of the population is gay.  That means that there's a decent chance that it could be your kid or your best friend or, really, anyone you love.  Would you seriously want to deny them the chance to get married?  Would you look them in the eye and say, "You are not good enough to get married."  Because that's what this is saying, and don't kid yourself about that.

If we're really all equal in this country, that means it's really only a matter of time before people catch up with ethics.  It took a long time, but women got the right to vote, slaves were freed, schools were desegregated.  This will happen.  It's just a question of when.

3)  If Hillary Clinton/Mike Huckabee/John McCain/Barack Obama gets elected, the country will be destroyed.

False.  No one person has the power to destroy the country.  George Bush didn't do it with his wars and, while our economy is bad and our gas prices are too high and the rest of the world hates us, we're still moving forward.  Or, if you vote Republican, Bill Clinton didn't do it, with his infidelity that was splashed all over papers and the news for what felt like forever.  We survived Whitewater and allegations and Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

One person won't destroy the country.  It's only four years (or eight, if the rest of the country feels the president's doing a good job).  I survived George Bush and, if he's elected, I will survive John McCain.  Republicans will survive Obama or Clinton. 

Probably none of us will end up moving to Canada or Europe if our candidate of choice isn't elected.  We, as a country, will just suck it up and keep moving forward.