Pro Gay Marriage Ban Governor Says He Would Attend Gay Wedding

In a recent interview with CNN, Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, told reporters that if he were ever invited to the marriage of  a gay couple he would surely attend it. This is to the contrary ideal of the past  legislation that Jindal proposed.  In his last few years as governor, Jindal has proposed laws that protect people who refuse to participate in gay weddings and ban gay marriage in Louisiana. In the past, Jindal has spoken out heartily against corporations that have tried to pressure him into lifting the gay marriage ban that was and still is present in Louisiana at this time. Jindal also has condemned the Supreme Court for trying to legislate gay marriage laws through trials over the issue. But despite his opposition to any law, lobbyist,etc... trying to remove the gay marriage ban in Louisiana, Jindal stands strong to attending the weddings of those close to him that are gay.

I found this article to be very heartwarming. All political and religious beliefs aside, Jindal has the kind heart to attend the wedding of a gay friend. He shows us a trait that what seems to be almost lost in our modern world, trust of conscience. The church, media and government are always telling us what is right and wrong, and many people are so caught up in doctrine and teaching that they forget to see what their heart says about something. Very few of us have Huckleberry Finn moments anymore where we decide that what everyone else's beliefs are wrong and what our heart tells us is right. Jindal does this though. While his political agenda and religious beliefs might go along with the majority of his home state, when it comes down to the important things in life, like weddings, he will defy the crowd and support a gay person when it matters most. Im not saying that he turns pro gay marriage every time he goes to a gay wedding. I am saying that Bobby Jindal is an example for all of us because even though we might not agree with someone we still should support them because we know it is the right thing to do.

Maternal Leave for Dads

Sweden has been known throughout the years for its generous time handed out to mothers for maternity leave. A woman gets 480 days off of work with 360 of them paid at 80% of her normal salary, every time she has a baby. But it's not only the mothers that get 480 days leave from work. The father does too. While very few men actually use all of the days and  only 12% of them use half of the days, Sweden has made it so that the dad must spend 60 days with the baby and his wife or else the 60 are lost from the 480 days of leave given to them. Some Swedish fathers were interviewed about the numerous days of leave they receive to take care of their children, and most of them agreed that they felt that it was good for the Dad to be involved in the full time job of caring for children. They also felt that it is good for all men to sit back and think about their direction in life while taking care of children instead of quickly returning back to the hustle and bustle of work life.

A common scene in the American media is dad coming home from a long day of work and flipping on the television after mom has taken care of the kids all day and taken them to school soccer and everything in between. The father of the family is not very involved in these scenes. He might go out and play catch with the kids or mow the lawn with his son but really there isn't a lot of contact between the father and his family portrayed in our modern society. The father is very important to the family dynamic, and provides a male influence that is lacking in many young people today. But instead of being taken seriously now a days we see the goofy dad, like Phil Dunphy from Modern Family. Dads are great for their humor but they have a lot more to offer than their comical presence but they have more important duties. The first step we need to take to instilling the serious father role is creating a system that is conducive for the father to be close to his children. And one way we could do this is to give American fathers just as much maternity leave as mothers get. This way from the point of birth the dad and mom are equally viewed as caretakers of the children instead of the mom being the caretaker of the children and the dad the provider for the family. The father and child will be closer than they could have been before. A child might call for its dad as much as his mom. The dad might become more involved in what his child is involved in throughout his childhood. And hopefully the family will become closer because of the time spent together between mom, dad, and child in the infant years. It's time we take some notes from Sweden on what to do with our dads when they have newborns.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/05/living/cnnphotos-swedish-dads-parental-leave/index.html

Marrying your Rapist?!?!- How we Can Stop Prejudice in Afghanistan

In life, your environment is who you are and what you do. It is written in our very human nature; adapt to survive. Sometimes, our environments are very rough and we have to be extremely mentally tough to survive. A key example of this mental toughness is a 20 year old Afghan girl named Gulnaz.When Gulnaz was 16, she was raped by her cousin’s husband, Asadullah. When this was discovered, they were both sent to jail and Asadullah got less time in prison for rape than Gulnaz did for "adultery!" After Gulnaz got out of jail, she was lost with no one to turn to. Her family and the rest of society had disowned her and women have few job opportunities in Afghanistan. The only ways that she could create a solid life for herself were to leave the country or to get married. But since the government wouldn't let her leave and no man would marry her because of her status, she was stumped. Her only option was to accept the offer of marriage from her rapist and she did so. It was the only way for her to make it in the world. She now lives a fairly steady lifestyle with Asadullah and his other wife (her cousin) and she accepts her situation very well. She says she has a "good life" and that she is "happy." I really hope what she says is true because someone who has lived through all of that deserves a happy life.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read this was anger. I was angry at Asadullah, I was angry at the Afghan government and mostly I was angry at Gulnaz’s Afghan piers. But as I stepped back a little bit, I started to develop some more complex thoughts about the issue. Obviously, the life and rigorous trials brought upon Gulnaz are absolutely heartbreaking and hard to see. But when you think about it, is it fair to be angered with the people around her who shunned her? If all you were ever raised to think your whole life that shunning her is OK, is it really your fault? I say no. The problem here is the social constructs that have been built up in Afghan culture. Many people blindly follow the mob mentality no matter what the issue is. The only way to stop the mob is to get the organization that is controlling it to change. In the case of Afghanistan the head of the mob dragon are the Islamic leaders there. Cultural orthodoxies arise very frequently in heavily religious areas due to the preaching of the religious oligarchy. And knowing that Afghanistan is very religious, we can infer that the problem with women’s rights is deeply seated in religious teaching there.So the only way for cultural prejudices to stop is for some brave souls to rise up in the ranks of Islam and once they near the top they should speak out against what is wrong and try to commence change. Someone could rise up and make a difference in the way that Pope Francis has in the Catholic church with his stance on gays, for example. The road to the top is dangerous and possibly life threatening for anyone who wants to try, but in the end if successful an end can be brought to the horrors that haunt people like Gulnaz every day.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/asia/afghanistan-gulnaz-rape-marriage/index.html