Opacity

I’m trying to add a banner (with 0.5 opacity) to the Supersized plugin template, but when I add the 0.5 opacity in my css code, my text is also effected by it.

How do I over come this?

<head>

	<title></title>
	<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.js"></script>
<script src="http://dev.jquery.com/view/tags/ui/latest/ui/effects.core.js"></script>
<script src="http://dev.jquery.com/view/tags/ui/latest/ui/effects.slide.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="supersized.2.0.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">  
		$(function(){
			$.fn.supersized.options = {  
				startwidth: 640,  
				startheight: 480,
				vertical_center: 0,
				slideshow: 0,
				navigation: 0,
				transition: 0,
				pause_hover: 0,
				slide_counter: 0,
				slide_captions: 0,
				slide_interval: 3000  
			};
	        $('#supersize').supersized(); 
	    });
	</script>
	
	<style type="text/css">
		*{
			margin:0;
			padding:0;
		}
		a{
			color:#8FC2FF;
			text-decoration: none;
			outline: none;
		}
		a:hover{
			text-decoration: underline;
		}
		img{
			border:none;
		}
		body {
			overflow:hidden;
			background:#000;
		}
		#content{
			margin:0px auto;
			height:100px;
			width:100%;
			bottom:5%;
			z-index: 3;
			background:#262626 no-repeat 90%;
			border-top:1px solid #000;
			border-bottom:1px solid #4F4F4F;
			position:absolute;
		}
		#contentframe{
			overflow: hidden;
			border-top:solid 1px #4F4F4F;
			border-bottom:1px solid #000;
			height: 100%;
			text-align:left;
			z-index: 3;
		}
		.stamp{
			float: right;
			margin: 25px 20px 0 0;
		}
		#supersize{
			position:fixed;
		}
		#supersize img, #supersize a{
			height:100%;
			width:100%;
			position:absolute;
			z-index: 0;
		}
		#supersize .prevslide, #supersize .prevslide img{
			z-index: 1;
		}
		#supersize .activeslide, #supersize .activeslide img{
			z-index: 2;
		}
#menu {
	height: 108px;
	width: 100%;
	z-index: 3;
	background-color: #F60;
	position: absolute;
	bottom: 50px;
	opacity:0.5;
	padding-left: 200px;
}
#menu_text  {
	z-index: 10;
	font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
	font-size: 12px;
	color: #FFF;
}
    </style>
</head>
<body>

<div id="supersize"><img src="images/home_image.JPG"/></a></div>
<div id="menu">
    <div id="menu_text">
    <ul>Home</ul>
    <ul>Illumination</ul>
    <ul>Music</ul>
    <ul>People and Events</ul>
    <ul>Shape and Form</ul>
    <ul>Urban Landscape</ul>
    <ul>Weddings</ul>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

</body>
</html>