If you like TV with a purpose, then you will love to watch "30 Days." Morgan Spurlock, creator of the "Super Size Me" documentary, has created this series for the FX network that follows the same format as the documentary. The show, in its third season, takes people with polar opposite views on social issues and places them together to learn from one another. Some examples would be having an evangelical with an atheist for 30 days, a homophobe with a gay couple or a minute man with a family of illegal immigrants. Tonight's episode places a soccer mom with a family with gay parents. The whole idea is to open up the mind and bring about tolerance and reconciliation. It is truly amazing how you see people's perspectives change. Here is link to the show's web page if you are interested in learning more.

LINK

Oh shoot, I saw the preview for this on Monday and I totally forgot...I was watching "Flipping Out" on Bravo. I'm trying to obtain the episode now because I really want to see it.

The soccer mom episode is on tonight!!! It airs at 10:00 pm mountain time.

Are you sure? I thought it was on Tuesdays at 10pm. I just checked my cable guide on the TV and it showed Starsky and Hutch on from 10pm-midnight tonight.

You know you may be right. I go to bed early and Tivo the show.... I usually watch it wednesdays... but it does record on Tuesdays.... my bad.

Ahhh...TiVo. I used to have that but now I have DVR through the cable company. I don't know how I ever lived without DVR.

Looks like a great show.

Well Alfredo.... I watched Tuesday's episode last night and I was disappointed. I have watch this show from day one and it is the FIRST time that someone walked away without any change in opinion.

The soccer mom was a mormon. She was an adopted child and has two adopted children.

She met with two straight foster kids that were wards of the state their entire lives and they are now adult advocates for anyone being able to adopt. They took her too inner city Detroit and showed her they street that they grew up on and to the group home where they lived. The whole time gasped and cried and she STILL said that gays should not be able to adopt. She would rather see children in the foster care system than have a loving home.

She thought that the couple that she lived with were wonderful parents (raising four boys, some with special needs), but that didn't change her thought. In the end, the couple she was staying with said that they couldn't be friends with her. She had the nerve to get upset about it. She said "it is not personal" but nothing is more personal than the man/woman you love.... nothing is more personal than your family.... nothing is more personal than your rights. I wept I was so frustrated.

She kept talking about the "icky" factor of what they were doing down the hall from the kids at night. I think in a lot of ways, opponents associate gay with pedophilia. It is so not the same thing! Besides, the overwhelming majority of victims are little girls by straight men. There is a big difference in what two consenting adults do and touching children.

I was also disappointed in Morgan for the first time. He had a couple of groups on the other side spout off statistics about depression and abuse and did not have the counter arguments. Like kids of straights aren’t depressed or never are abused. Some parents suck and some don’t… it has nothing to do with sexual preference.

I watched it last night as well and I was very deeply upset both because of this woman's hatred and because of the shows production.


I knew the minute I heard her say she was LDS that nothing that happened would sway her from her beliefs, these are people who will readily disown their child if they are gay or lesbian. These people will disown their children if they do anything considered "sinful."

Right off the bat she said:

"In my book a man and a woman are married and they raise their children and that's that."

"That's the way God ordered it to be and that's the way it should be."

"If God would have wanted two men to give birth, he would have given them a womb, but he didn't." She says with a smug look that made me want to reach through my television and slap living hell out of her. They go on to reveal that she herself was adopted and that both of her children were adopted. Perhaps if God intended for her to have children, she would have had them herself, that self-righteous witch.


Her constant argument throughout the entire show was based solely upon her ideology and she had no reasons why, only that it was wrong. At the risk of offending those who are religious or more strict in their religion, often times a person has a hatred that is planted within them by their church and it is so ingrained that for them there are no answer except that it's wrong.


Many times she kept saying that it's not personal and that "I don't think any less of you." Truth is she does think less of gay and lesbians, she just would not admit to it and every time anyone confronted her about it, she'd start crying and walk away. She had no basis for her hatred aside from religion, but the hatred was there, it just was not obvious to her.

There was a great conversation she had with an older lesbian woman at one of the picnics:


At many points throughout the show, she would say how it's not personal. She really did not get that it IS personal, she DOES think less of gays and lesbians. The woman she was talking with was so nice, so genuine, so...sweet, but Katie couldn't see how her beliefs actually hurt other people on a personal level.


I was very very pissed off by this and I'm going to write to Morgan Spurlock and the FX Network regarding this. They had a guy on the show from the "Family Research Council" (see Christian based nutcase organization) who stated that:


None of these items were challenged, this asshole was given free time to spread his message of hate and opinion without any type of opposition to his statement. The producers then went on to a woman who was raised by a gay man who IMO is not very characteristic of the type of gay man who raises their child. This woman could have easily been raised by a single heterosexual father who could have done the same things in front of her or worse.

It just seemed to me that aside from the gay family that Katie went to live with and the social interactions within their community, no opposition was given to the "facts" that seem to have been stated from the opposition to gay marriage and gay parenting.

its not personal, i dont think any less of you



that is a lie, people like her and there are tens of millions of them who are christians, do think less of gays and despise and fear them

i have seen it countless times in their eyes, their body language

I agree 100% and it is not like they didn't have the opportunity to show the stats from our side. They had Katie working for an activist group. It's not like they didn't have any stats to counter the argument.

And the girl with all of her issues that were caused by her gay father. Again I contend, bad parenting.... not bad gay. What about the straight person who brings in randoms for sex.... or the cheating parent.... they are equally destructive to a child. My father was a cheat and I can't trust any man not to do the same to me. Working through it, but I'm 32 and it still is a struggle.

I loved the old lesbian that made Katie cry! I was like yes sister preach it! My husband and I were high 5ing each other.

That was my favorite part too. The woman was very calm, collected and she sat back and said what she wanted to say and at no point did she raise her voice or say anything mean or hurtful. I wanted to hug her for having far more patience than I would have had.

Speaking of hugging, when Katie first entered the home, she hugged both guys...I noticed they commented on it later for the cameras, it seemed like she was trying too hard to appear to be "tolerant" but it just didn't come out that way in the end.

It reminded me of when I have these types of discussions with family members. All I have to do is ask them "why" and they come unraveled. They get all mad and butt hurt because they know that by not having an answer that it makes them look stupid and irrational. I always tell them that I am not making them feel that way.... it's their own insecurities.... and if they are that insecure in their beliefs.... then maybe they should think about getting some new ones.

but they feel its gods word.

At least thats how some of the "christians" i know feel. Yes, is ubsurd on so very many levels. Lets start with thier belief it is a sin, even if it were, who does not sin on a daily basis. Thats what I ask them, usualy no answer.

This is an offshoot of a series called "Wife Swap" (I think). Aside from the seedy title of the series, it was pretty interesting for the same reasons. It was couples/family oriented.

Last 2 weeks, not 30 days. Wives from two opposite families went to live with the other. For the first week, each wife lived by house rules, and for the second week she made the rules. Sometimes people dug their heels in and learned nothing, but for the most part it was eye opening and mind-expanding, sometimes life changing, for everyone.

This episode was similar to that but the overall premise of the show in other episodes is different.

My god says that war is wrong.... but I bet Katie's god says it is cool.

Katie said that you fight your fight and I'll fight mine and we'll see who wins. That's what we have to do... get off our lazy asses and do something. If you can't get off the computer long enough, then start an emailing campaign.

My first husband didn't pay off some debt and impacted my credit negatively. I tried a few times to get the credit agencies to get it off. Finally I started sending a letter per week.... it was the same letter, I just changed the date and the number of times that I had contacted them and sent it off again. In 3 months time, they sent me a letter stating that my good credit had been restored. My point to this story is that if you want something you have to work for it.

There was something else that Katie mentioned on more than one occasion in the show, that our country was founded with the ability to vote for what a person believes should be law. That's not actually true, we were founded with a belief that "All men (and woman) are created equal," and "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." In my opinion, if something is not ILLEGAL then someone's opinion should not be allowed to make it ILLEGAL based solely by majority rule by those who are uneducated on the facts. That is why we have legislative and judicial branches, so that people like her do not pass laws which would be (in my opinion) Unconstitutional. If our country ran solely on votes for laws in elections, we'd have more religious based law than we already have.

I saw the one with christian and a wiccan swaping...the christian lady went ballistic.... tore up her $50,000 check.... she later asked for them to reissue the check.

The main diff is that Wife Swap pays the peeps.... If 30 days does, then they don't advertise it.

Yes. Eventually all these state bans will be overturned for being unconstitutional. This is the civil rights of our generation. I have a couple of lesbian friends that don't even vote. I don't understand it. They are older and have just given up on the idea of change. They also have supportive families that wouldn't challenge there estates or their partners making end of life decisions for them. Not every gay couple is that lucky. I hear a lot of anti people say that the gays can set up most of the same rights through wills and medical power of attorney etc. But that doesn't resolve issues of insurance, taxes, social security....

A nicely oblique way of saying she'd vote to restore "anti-sodomy" laws. I'm just going on everybody's description of the show, but I'd guess what was going on behind her tears was not so much: "I can't reconcile my religion with these nice people," but more like: "I wanna go hooooome."


"Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig." ---Tao Jones