Last summer, Talia moved to Colorado Springs to be a nanny for her cousin, and I moved here to be with her, of course. We lived for a while on my savings and then on my credit card when those ran out. See, she doesn't make much money at all, but at least we've had a place to live. When we got desperate, I finally managed to get a couple of seasonal jobs, but only one kept me on after Christmas.
There have been bits of tension with her cousin, and we were never planning to live with them indefinitely, so we've been trying to find our own apartment. We went to a low-income apartment complex last week, the kind where you have to make under a certain salary to qualify. We found out that we made too little money to qualify to apply for an apartment there. >.< I asked the apartment manager (somewhat as a joke) whether there were any poverty-level apartments in town, and she said that there were, but there's a three-year waiting list for those. We have to be out by the beginning of February (of this year), so... yeah, not happening.
Fortunately, we found a different complex that would cost less, and they approved us, but we'd still only barely be making it (and that's assuming that I get enough hours). We settled on this and made a budget. Everything seemed like it would be okay.
Today, Talia's cousin gave her two weeks notice that she's being replaced by a daycare. Even with the expectation that we'd have some income from her nannying, it was already going to be hard. We'd be living in the cheapest one-bedroom apartment we could find with no furniture or other extravagances like internet service. But living on my one part-time job may be outright untenable.
It would be great if one or the other of us could just find another job, but that was difficult even when people were hiring seasonally; now that all the positions are full and there's more competition for any opening, I don't even know where to look.

I just want to be able to provide for my wife and coming son. *sigh*

Remember this scene from Borat:

It seems all good until he starts talking about drinking blood and such. Then it's "Wait, what?!"

There are Borats in every group, the die-hard supporters who don't get it and end up being more liability than help. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" isn't always true. For example, if I were advocating tax reform, which happened to coincide with the agenda of the WBC, I would never take their help. For all I know, they may believe in tax reform, but I certainly wouldn't want my name on the poster when they start saying, "Make the fags pay all the taxes."

I'm a supporter of civil rights and equal protection under the law. Due to the nature of current controversies, this puts me on the side of supporting gay rights, and that comes with a lot of unwanted help. I read an article earlier about a teacher in New Jersey who posted her personal beliefs about the sinfulness of homosexuality on her facebook and is now facing scorn and possible termination. That bothered me. Then I read the comments, and they bothered me even more.

One thing that bothered me about the case is that I know schools have social media guidelines in their ethics codes. Her students would never have seen anything she said on facebook if not for the media blitz, so it had nothing to do with her job. Now, as someone who was in the Army five years, I'm familiar with the concept of being a representative of the organization and the nation on and off duty, but the freedom to speak one's conscience is paramount to basic human rights. You can't take away her right to have opinions and talk about them in an unofficial capacity while off duty. There's no evidence that she did anything illegal, mistreated any students, or filled students' heads with hate.

Along those same lines, considering that her statements were religiously motivated, firing her would not only have nothing to do with the performance of her duties but also qualify as discrimination on the basis of religion. That means it would be not only wrongful termination but also possibly qualify as a hate crime. How ironic. By ironic, of course, I really mean hypocritical.

In case the hypocrisy isn't clear enough from that, the comments really highlighted it. People in the comments wrote that of course she should be fired because she said something they didn't like. There are plenty of people who define hate speech as anything that they disagree with, it seems. They compared her to Nazis, called her plenty of unsavory names, and made blanket bigoted statements about Christians. They had no problem with demeaning her, subjecting her to legal action, hating her, etc. for her beliefs. Only gays should be protected against such things, apparently.

They don't have a problem with hate speech; they only have a problem with hate speech they don't endorse. They don't believe in civil rights or equal protection; they believe in gay rights and gay protection at the expense of the law and any other demographic. What is wrong with you people? Don't you see that does nothing to support your agenda? If it were okay to suppress any unpopular opinion or demographic, you wouldn't be where you are. For that matter, you'd still be asking for a lot of trouble most places.

Please realize that I'm not under the impression that this is everyone, but the bad apples can ruin it for everyone. I can't stand opportunistic, manipulative, hypocritical people whose principles have no integrity. I don't care if they're for me or against me, but I'd prefer the latter. If I support a cause, I'll do it the right way: with respect and for the purpose justice and doing good for people. Going about things for ego by means of cutting down anything and anyone in the way isn't right, and I won't be associated with it, no matter the cause. The moral high road can't just be claimed; it has to be earned.