Sunday, February 10, 2013

The Letter I sent to our Local State Rep Fraink J Mautino of Spring Valley Illinois concerning his choice to support discrimination.

Last week I wrote a blog post and mentioned in our podcast about how Frank Mautino our local State Representative from Spring Valley Illinois  has decided not to support Marriage Equality in Illinois due to his "beliefs and how he was raised"  I wrote a letter to him expressing my views on the subject.  What follows is the email I sent to his office.  

Dear Mr. Maution

     My name is Keith Zimmerman from La Salle Illinois and my wife Jennifer and I have been supporters of yours sense you first ran for office.  We both feel you have done a great job for the Illinois Valley area but we were both disappointed to learn you had decided not to support marriage equality in Illinois due to "your beliefs and how you were raised."  

     While you do have the right to believe how you want you don't have the right to use your religious beliefs to discriminate against others.  I was raised Lutheran (now an atheist) but I was taught growing up that we should not use our religious beliefs to discriminate against others. .  To me denying a group of Americans their civil rights does not sound very Christian.  Despite what you may have been told there is no evidence that same sex marriage has any negative effects on marriage.  If Tom marrying Sam bothers someone that much than I think it says more about the person complaining about it than the same sex couple.  In the countries and states where same sex marriage has been legal for a long time there have been no negative effects.  

     I believe all Americans deserve the same rights and that includes the right to marry weather they be gay or straight.  Denying these Americans their civil right to marry is unAmerican and UnChristain.  You don't even need to go to a church to get married in this country.  You can go to the court house and get married by a judge.  Proves right there that it is a civil right.  Also if we're going to decide things based on the bible than should we start stoning woman to death who are not virgins on their wedding night, should we stone people to death for working on Sundays, should we start requiring women to marry their rapists,  All those things and many others  are in the bible too.  So trying to use the bible as a reason for weather we should legalize something is a pretty weak argument.  Also the constitution should be used for giving rights not taking them away.    In closing I would just like to add that discrimination for religious reasons is still discrimination.  You cannot use your religious beliefs to discriminate against a group of people just because you don't like who they fall in love with.  Now you said part of your reason for not voting yes on marriage equality was because of "how you were raised"  I hope you were not raised to discriminate.  That does not sound very Christian to me.  

Thank you for your time

Keith Zimmerman 

La Salle Illinois 

Saturday, February 09, 2013

312Candidradio with Zman and Littleflury

Click here to listen
On this show, 

The big storm on the East Coast, 

Unemployment office stupidity,

Zman got a horrible virus (on his computer) and a common problem that happens when reinstalling Windows seven,

Is there a way to get I Tunes to install on the D Drive? 

Littleflurry talks about the old days of DOS,

Littleflurry talks about what she's learned in class so far,

The Birdman of Walmart,

Some of the stranger scams people try and pull on customer service, 

Same sex marriage could soon be legal in Illinois and our thoughts on our local state Rep, Frank Mautino not supporting it.  

and much more

Find us on I Tunes and Stitcher Radio

Email us at candidradio@gmail.com




Friday, February 08, 2013

Illinois State Rep Frank Mautino does not support Same Sex Marriage due to his "Religious Beliefs"

Posted by Zman

As you know if you listen to our podcast or read the blog posts Little Flurry and I are in support of same sex marriage. Illinois could be the next state to make marriage equality the law as it should be.  It saddened us to see that our local State Representative Frank Mautino of Spring Valley Illinois has come out against marriage equality sighting his, "Religious beliefs and how he was raised."  It saddens me when people use their religious beliefs to push discrimination.    If Mr. Mautino was raised to believe that discrimination of others for religious reasons is OK. then he was raised wrong.   While he certainly has the right to believe what ever he wants, he cannot use his religious beliefs to push discrimination.  Discrimination due to religion is still discrimination.  If that is the kind of god he believe in than I want no part of a god like that.  I do hope and believe that most of our congressional members here in Illinois are more open minded and don't give in to discriminatory thinking by those like Frank Mautino and do the right thing and make marriage equality the law in Illinois.  These people should not be allowed to dictate our civil rights based on the parts of the bible they choose to believe.

If you would like to contact Mr. Mautino and let him know what you think of his decision to support discrimination, here is his office information for both Springfield and Spring Valley Illinois

Frank J Mautino

Springfield Office:
259-S Stratton Office Building
Springfield, IL   62706
 (217) 782-0140
(217) 557-7680 FAX
District Office:
221 E. St. Paul Street
Spring Valley, IL  61362
 (815) 664-2717
(815) 663-1629 FAX