Petition fun

Thursday, May 13th, 2010 10:58 am
mothwing: The Crest of Cackle's Academy from The Worst Witch TV series. (Work)
I regularly check our government's official e-petition page. It's a political barometer as good as any to find out what are the burning issues on my compatriots' minds, and naturally these days, there are petitions on our laws concerning sexual crimes and sexual predators, petitions against financial bail-outs in the Euro-zone, but there is also this:

«Einstellung der Förderung des LHC-Experiments an der Großforschungseinrichtung CERN»
Der Deutsche Bundestag möge beschließen, die Förderung des aufwändigen und unabsehbaren physikalischen LHC-Experiments an der Großforschungseinrichtung CERN ab sofort einzustellen und die Richtlinien zur Förderung der Naturwissenschaften um klare Ziele zur Erhaltung von Landschaft, Artenvielfalt, Gesundheit und Menschenwürde zu ergänzen.

"Stop funding the expensive and unpredictable LHC experiments at CERN and work to include clear objectives for the conservation our landscapes, biodiversity, health and human dignity into the application guidelines!" - For those of you who speak German, do click on that link and read his explanation of why we need to support his petition and find out why LHC experiments are esoteric.

There's also a petition which has 2k supporters right now, 2k too many in my eyes - a petition to decriminalise homeschooling in Germany, which I am really not a fan of. I like our compulsory school attendance and having children educated by professionals trained and paid to do so rather than their parents - unless these parents are trained to do so.

«Hausunterricht straffrei stellen»
Hausunterricht oder Homeschooling wird in allen EU Ländern und englisch sprachigen Ländern bereits schon länger mit großem Erfolg praktiziert und erweist sich immer mehr als der Bildungsweg der Zukunft. In Deutschland ist es eine noch weitgehend unbekannte und mit zahlreichen Vorurteilen behaftete Form des Lernens. Die unzureichende Vermittlung von ethischen und moralischen Grundwerten an öffentlichen Schulen, Gewalt und Mobbing, negative Sozialisation der Kinder, fehlende Lernfreude, sinkendes Bildungsniveau, die Unfähigkeit vieler Schulen Kinder individuell zu fördern und ihrem persönlichen Begabungsprofil zu bilden, haben dazu geführt, dass immer mehr Eltern sich Alternativen im bestehenden Bildungssystem wünschen. Bis dato existiert die Schulpflicht in Deutschland statt einer sinnvolleren Lernpflicht. Schule wird somit in Deutschland direktiv verordnet. Eltern, die ihre Kinder selbst unterrichten wollen, müssen mit staatlichen Strafmaßnahmen wie Bußgeldern rechnen und werden somit unnötig kriminalisiert. Es sollte mündigen Bürgern frei gestellt sein wo sie ihren Kindern Bildung zukommen lassen. Alle staatlichen Sanktionsmaßnahmen gegen Eltern, die ihre Kinder selbst unterrichten, sollten aufgehoben werden.
His main arguments are the lack of ethical and moral values students are taught public schools, mobbing, violence, negative socialisation, lack of motivation, falling standards, lack of support according to the student's individual aptitude and talents.

While I'm aware that especially for gifted students with gifted and didactically savvy parents this model might be ideal, especially if the child was subject to mobbing and endemic boredom, I doubt that it's a model that ought to be encouraged on a larger scale in Germany right now. It's not a model that's likely to be successful for families without a lot of cultural capital.
Also, I don't know about countries which do allow homeschooling, but I'd like to believe that enough trust in our educational system is warranted to make changes in the system and our institutions a solution even for those who are currently so unhappy with it that they'd like to take their children out of school.

*sigh*

Thursday, March 4th, 2010 08:13 am
mothwing: Gif of wolf running towards the right in front of large moon (Wolf)
Well, looks like it's over. Thanks to everybody who signed - 9749 people did.

5429 so far.

Monday, February 8th, 2010 10:29 am
mothwing: (Woman)
Oh, you guys. You deserve celebratory sparkle text:

Thanks to those of you who signed the petition!



Yes, I'm a creepy stalker and spotted some of your names among those who did sign, so a big THANKS for that. On the family front? Well. )
mothwing: (Woman)
So, I asked my family to sign this petition I keep harping on about and was told by my father that he doesn't really see the point because only so few people are taking part, so he doesn't see a reason to bother with it. Edit: but he did sign it in the end, yay! Leaves only my brother and my mother who are deterred by ... having to sign up?

That doesn't really sound all that logical to me, especially as a reason to not bother as well if it's something you even moderately care about, but it's true. It is doomed, really - to be seriously considered it needs to gather 50k signatures within a month - it has roughly 5k now, and it needs 45k more until March 3. Plus you need to - gasp- sign up to sign it and people are lazy and don't care whatever the fuck is in our constitution, so both the people who actually would be protected by this law and the majority can't really be bothered.

The third article of our basic law reads as follows:
Article 3: Equality before the law
(1) All persons shall be equal before the law.

(2) Men and women shall have equal rights. The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist.

(3) No person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavored because of disability.

The changed version looks like this:
Suggested change:
(3) No person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, sexual identity, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavored because of disability.

According to our government, the term "sexual identity" covers bisexual, lesbian, gay, intersexed, transgendered and transsexual people because all components of the LGBTI acronym are the same to them. For once, this might be a really good thing and generally A Step In The Right Direction, regardless of the weirdness of having all those different things subsumed under the term "sexual identity".

Well, before, back in November, people in our government thought that the other parts of our Basic Law already nicely cover all relevant aspects and voted it down, it's now being brought back to attention by major parties, and there is also this petition. But, well, you need to sign up. D=

People like our more conservative and sillier folks thought back in November that would will mean paedophiles would be protected under the law and there would be a need to change the legislation to include something they refer to as "bisexual marriage", which turns out to be polygamy. No, I'm not making this up, these people really are that dense, and judging from the comment section of the petition, they're not alone.

Now I am not a legal expert, but I am pretty sure that there are ways to define what exactly they mean by "sexual identity". Having to define terms that sound incredibly vague is a bound to be a central feature of a legislation in which the first article of the Basic Law is "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority". What is this "human dignity", exactly? And how can state authority protect it? Maybe I'm being naive here, but I can't help but have faith in our lawmakers to get down a definition that says pretty clearly what they mean by "sexual identity".

As for the petition and this matter in general, it seems that there are three basic possibilities to view this - not to give a damn, to be for it with or without knowledge of the legal implications, or to be against it with or without knowledge of the legal implications. So to my mind, you either don't give a damn and I dislike you, you're on the side of the "bisexual-marriage-is-group-marriage"-people or have a more sane legal reason I'd really like to know about, or your name is on that list already or bloody well should be.

This petition, even if it doesn't lead to momentous changes, at least seems to be pretty good a way of showing on which of the three sides people are in this matter. I signed it because I'm still hoping against all reason that this could go somewhere and because also I want to show my support for this publicly, even if this does turn out to be futile. Sometimes that seems to be all I can do, really.

I'd also be much a happier person if more people I know were not completely failing to give a damn or against it, especially my own family, bloody hell.
mothwing: (Woman)
So you live in Germany? Sign this petition for the inclusion of sexual identity in our Artikel 3 in the GG.

So you have to sign up on the website to sign it? Sign it anyway, it really doesn't take that long (and I know people for whom that was the only reason not to sign it. Seriously, people, seriously).

So you don't know anyone who'd benefit from this petition and therefore don't want to make the effort? Yes, you do, so sign it.

So you don't think it is necessary to include sexual identity in the constitution specifically because everybody's protected by the other parts of that article already? Do you think that the inclusion of this would harm anyone? Sign this petition.

So you think that this won't accomplish anything and therefore is not worth your time? You can continue doing so, later, so sign it in the meantime.

So you think that this won't accomplish anything? It does not hurt to sign it, anyway, so sign it.

Why?

Because the absence of your name on this list says a lot about you. Because I'd like to be able to read your name alongside mine in this matter, even if it does nothing, even if this doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't hurt to sign this. It won't hurt you to sign this. It won't hurt your rights to sing this.

If you have a really good reason not to sign, please do share. I'd like to know what could speak against that.

Otherwise - sign this petition.
mothwing: (Woman)
Ich bin mir zwar immer noch nicht ganz über die Sinnhaftigkeit offiziellen Onlinepetitionen unseres Bundestags im Klaren, aber hier ist sie trotzdem, hoffentlich bringt sie etwas.

Also, hier könnt ihr sie finden, und darum geht es: 

"Der Deutsche Bundestag möge beschließen ...Änderung des Grundgesetzes (Artikel 3 Absatz 3 Satz 1)"
Lesben, Schwule, Bisexuelle, Transgender, transsexuelle und intersexuelle Menschen sind in unserer Gesellschaft auch heute noch Anfeindungen, gewaltsamen Übergriffen und Benachteiligungen ausgesetzt. Einfachgesetzliche Diskriminierungsverbote haben die rechtliche Situation der Betroffenen zwar verbessert. Die fehlende Berücksichtigung in Artikel 3 Absatz 3 des Grundgesetzes (GG) wirkt sich aber bis heute negativ auf die gesellschaftliche und rechtliche Situation von Lesben, Schwulen, Bisexuellen, Transgender, transsexuellen und intersexuellen Menschen aus. Ein ausdrückliches Verbot der Diskriminierung aufgrund der sexuellen Identität im Grundgesetz schafft eine klare Maßgabe für den einfachen Gesetzgeber. Letztlich steht es für das deutliche Bekenntnis, dass Gesichtspunkte der sexuellen Identität eine ungleiche Behandlung unter keinen Umständen rechtfertigen können.
Hans-Werner Sperber.

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