ElementalMom

This just slays me. But then again, we all need a revolution we can dance to, yeah?

Hey gang… this just in from Advocate Aaron (who is, believe it or not, cooler in person than online):

The U.S. Senate is set to give legally protected status to pedophiles and 30 other sexual orientations. The Senate refused to define what is meant by sexual orientation in S. 909, the “Hate Crimes” bill. This means that the 30 different sexual orientations will be federally protected classes.

The House has already passed this bill, and the Senate will vote as early as Wednesday. Pres. Obama has said he would sign the bill.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

Call your two senators today and demand that he or she vote against S.909. Please forward this to all your family and friends. The Senate refused to define the term “sexual orientation,” which means that all sexual orientations are protected. (See loophole below)

To see the orientations that will be protected by the Hate Crimes bill (S. 909) See BELOW. (I am REALLY PISSED)

The Hate Crime law, S.909 (and HR1913), will make 30 sexual orientations federally-protected. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has published 30 such sexual orientations that, because of Congress’s refusal to define “sexual orientation,” will be protected under this legislation. These 30 orientations are listed in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), which is used by physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and psychiatrists throughout the U.S. It is considered the dictionary of mental disorders. Those 30 sexual orientations include behaviors that are felonies or misdemeanors in most states. See, this is the PROBLEM with our FREAKIN lawmakers.  It’s the stupid loopholes that allow PEDOPHILES to be PROTECTED. (Did I mention I am PISSED)

Go read his whole rant here, and do please call your Senators. Anyone who has ever stood up for a kid, been a kid, or had a kid, needs to scream about this.

Oh, and the title? Nothing to do with swine flu. My grandfather, who died over 20 years ago, used to say “When the virus takes us, we will have had it coming.” I used to think he was overly cynical, but the older I get, the more I quote him.

I spent another half an hour on the phone with HR. They’ve upped they ante.

The rules, if you’ll recall from part I of this rant, are that if you’re disabled during the focal review period, you are ineligible for raises, etc, until you come back, at manager’s discretion. I happen to think this is ridiculous, since the timing of my pregnancy is random (basically), and it’s discriminatory to hold a penalty over my head because I happen to have gotten pregnant when I did. People who take vacation time are not penalized, and it’s a similar situation. But because the state feels that pregnancy equals disability, and since disability is seldom of finite duration (unlike maternity, sigh), they feel the need to protect themselves. I understand it within the disability context, but I find it to be highly irritating in this circumstance.

So… I figured out during my last two pregnancies that if I were to go on disability (maternity), then go off and go onto vacation for the focal review period, then to go back on maternity (disability), it’d preserve my general sense of fairness, dot all the correct “i’s”, and be done with the charade.

However, the charade has escalated. No one can tell me when, precisely, the “focal review period” is. No one has dates. Nowhere on the HR website, nowhere in the manual they have for the phone center folks, nowhere, are there actual dates that define the “focal review period”. Everyone’s sure it’s in June or July. No one can say precisely when. But everyone can see clearly that if I’m on disability (maternity), I miss out, and it creates more paperwork and hassle for my manager, and some financial loss for me, potentially.

Seriously uncool.

The gentleman I just got off the phone with took 20 minutes trying to find the information. Finally, he asked me why I cared. So I explained. He could tell me that if I was out on leave for more than 1/4 of the total focal review period, I was ineligible, but he was, again, completely unable to define “focal review period” as a set of calendar dates.

So everyone’s clear that there are penalties and I will suffer them, but absolutely no one can tell me what the rules we’re playing by are. Frankly, I’m beginning to feel ever-so-slightly oppressed.

The gentleman, whose curiosity is piqued, promises to call me back tomorrow, “after he’s jumped on the focal guys”. I’m looking forward to finding a nice, simple answer. Normally, this kind of sparring intrigues me, but at this point, I’m baffled at the inconsistency. I am very lucky, in that my manager rocks, and I’m not actually worried about the penalties of the situation. It’s more a “fighting the principle of the thing” than an actual fight for my check, but frankly, it’s unfair to put myself and my manager in that position. I’m dependent on the kindliness, reasonability, and sense of fair play that my manager has, which is not a luxury everyone has. What about women who get pregnant and work for rules-based creatures? How do they fare? And again, I’d have known none of this, but for my prior two pregnancies. The information is not at all forthcoming.

So stay tuned, mommies and iconoclasts. This could get entertaining.