Adding to the list of election year stunts, the Republican majority has pushed the anti-Flag desecration Amendment to the floor of the Senate for debate. Let me clear up right at the front that anything I say is not an attack on Republicans only, especially since many of them are smart and decent enough to oppose this nonsense, and some Democrats are just desperate and dumb enough to support it.
This is another thing that I just don't understand. At least when people are opposed to gay marriage they have some sort of moral or religious reason to back it up; in this case I don't think "You shall not burn your own flag" fell anywhere near the Ten Commandments. Burning the American flag, or desecrating it, are forms of free expression, which is a foundation for, if not what our country stands for, than at least for the ideals we pretend to stand for. Do I think it's a bit misguided? Yes, if only because it's too easy a target and represents too many different things to serve as a proper protest in most cases. It represents our government in it's present form, it represents our history, it represents ideals that we strive for, and unless you are ready to protest all of those various things, all it does is make a mess of your argument and distract from whatever valid points you have. Also, it's incendiary (pun intended). Some people get irrationally upset over the burning of a flag, as though you had dug up a veteran and then burned the corpse. Perhaps it's because violent protests overseas often involve the burning of U.S. flags. So, really, if you're trying to make a legitimate argument, burning the flag immediately shuts a lot of people's ears and makes them equate you with a terrorist, so it's not an effective means of creating change. That's why I'm opposed to it. Otherwise, I think people should be free to do whatever they want with the flag.
Why? Well, because freedom of expression is a cornerstone of any democracy, and specifically ours, and ensuring that this right is protected is the only way to ensure that truth will be protected and change will be allowed to come when it is needed. Also, the desecration of a flag has no consequence other than a little smoke, so unless this is meant to protect the environment, it's foolish. Burning a flag is not some gateway rebellion that will lead to armed conflict, it is simply a symbolic way of expressing anger or disappointment.
Some people like to think that the American flag is some holy object, deserving of greater respect than our leaders or our laws, and certainly more important than even our Constitution. I had a professor in college who, not long after the September attacks asked our class how many people had American flags in their windows or on their cars. It was roughly 80-90 percent of the class. When he asked how many of us had voted in the Presidential election, it was four of us. Four out of 40. Clearly the 10 percent of us who weren't flag waving were too busy actually participating in the Democracy to participate in such shallow displays. If anything, I think it's more disrespectful to paste a photocopy of the flag in the window of your SUV. It's more tacky and insulting to print it on your t-shirt or as a design on your underwear. It's shallow and ironic to buy up cheap flags at Wal-Mart, made in China. If the flag is deserving of such protection as a Constitutional Amendment, then perhaps we should devote more time to protecting the things it stands for in our minds.
I think it's more damaging to the integrity of our nation and our flag to ban its desecration. The flag is a symbol. It is the physical expression of an idea or an institution. Are we saying that this expression should be protected, but that any counter expression should not? Are we saying that the good things about our country should be said loudly and proudly, but the negative things should be hidden and kept silent under punishment of law?
I think burning the flag sends the wrong message, but it is not my right nor the right of anyone else to tell people what message they want to send. If someone wants to express themselves this way, so be it. Make laws to ensure that it is done safely, or with precaution, but to make an Amendment banning any form of free expression certainly sends the wrong message, not only to us but to the world. When we are desperately trying to convince the world that we are great lovers of freedom and liberty, this is not the message we should be sending.
On a side note, if the Senate should get so far as to pass this, which I certainly hope they won't, then I think it should be amended to protect the flag from being defiled by hypocrites and cowards. In order to buy a flag, you should be required to take a test on the Constitution. You should only be allowed to buy flags made in America. You should be able to prove that, if you are over 18, that you voted in the last election, Presidential or otherwise, unless you were in the hospital or in the midst of battle. The right to own or display a flag should not be permitted for people who commit corporate crime or lie to the American people. The right to wave the flag should be kept from people who care only about the symbol and nothing about the ideas for which it stand. And, it should be kept from anyone who supports a war with a country that they can't point to on a globe.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Monday, June 19, 2006
Some People Just Don't Get It
When I was in France, I discovered the burden and the gift of a language barrier. Well, that's not entirely true. I first discovered it in high school. See, I attended a good and competitive middle school (well, comparatively). When I got to high school, I discovered that not everyone had that same benefit. For instance, since I had been taking typing and computer courses all through middle school, I was already proficient by the time I entered typing my Freshman year (it was required) and I was shocked to find that most of my classmates seemed to have barely even seen a computer before (keep in mind this was way back in 1995). Within a month, I completed every assignment the teacher had planned for the semester, plus a few she made up. After that, I spent the rest of the time goofing off and helping my friends cheat on their assignments. So, to get back to my point, I also found that I had a better vocabulary than most of these kids, so I had to dumb myself down to be understood most of the time. It was frustrating.
Anyway...France. With my limited knowledge of French, plus my insecurities about sounding like an idiot, it was burdensome to try and communicate for fear of not being understood (without resorting to English, which most of them spoke anyway). On the plus side, I found how great it is to be able to walk around and not have to listen to people's inane chatter all of the time because I couldn't understand them anyway. It was quite a shock when I came home and could no longer block out the ramblings of random people as they perused the aisles of Barnes and Noble.
Unfortunately, living in a heavily populated city, it is completely inescapable, especially when your iPod freezes up on you and you've finished the only book you were carrying (always bring a back-up). It's hard to say which is worse, the people who feel the need to express every thought they have as loudly as possible no matter how mundane ("This subway is so cold" "I had chicken for lunch, I like chicken.") or the people who try to hold lofty conversations about subjects they know nothing about.
The thing that really bugs me is that people just don't understand the world around them. Either they are not paying attention, ignoring the news, and stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, or they are willfully ignoring the world around them, choosing not to think about why it is that things are the way they are. I don't just mean on a global scale, I mean on a personal one. Do you know how much of the day I spend analyzing my own actions and the actions of others? Its a lot, and yet they can just stumble through life without a care, knocking into you and getting in your way, ruining your new suit and making a mess. Ignorance is bliss, but the greater bliss is in being completely self-centered but thinking otherwise. But anyway, let's talk about me.
Anyway...France. With my limited knowledge of French, plus my insecurities about sounding like an idiot, it was burdensome to try and communicate for fear of not being understood (without resorting to English, which most of them spoke anyway). On the plus side, I found how great it is to be able to walk around and not have to listen to people's inane chatter all of the time because I couldn't understand them anyway. It was quite a shock when I came home and could no longer block out the ramblings of random people as they perused the aisles of Barnes and Noble.
Unfortunately, living in a heavily populated city, it is completely inescapable, especially when your iPod freezes up on you and you've finished the only book you were carrying (always bring a back-up). It's hard to say which is worse, the people who feel the need to express every thought they have as loudly as possible no matter how mundane ("This subway is so cold" "I had chicken for lunch, I like chicken.") or the people who try to hold lofty conversations about subjects they know nothing about.
The thing that really bugs me is that people just don't understand the world around them. Either they are not paying attention, ignoring the news, and stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, or they are willfully ignoring the world around them, choosing not to think about why it is that things are the way they are. I don't just mean on a global scale, I mean on a personal one. Do you know how much of the day I spend analyzing my own actions and the actions of others? Its a lot, and yet they can just stumble through life without a care, knocking into you and getting in your way, ruining your new suit and making a mess. Ignorance is bliss, but the greater bliss is in being completely self-centered but thinking otherwise. But anyway, let's talk about me.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Football Makes More Sense in Europe
That was one thing that always bothered me when I was a kid, the fact that what we here in the colonies refer to as football seems oddly named since the ball spends most of the time in someone's hand, and spends almost no time making contact with someone's foot. We just have to be difficult, though, don't we. It would be one thing if we invented the damn sport and gave it a different name than everyone else, but we didn't, and not only that, we don't seem to like it very much.
So why am I talking about Soccer? The obvious reason is that it's the World Cup once again, and my TiVo is eagerly awaiting me to finish watching the Iran v. Mexico game and to start watching the U.S. v. Czech Republic game. Its also a good time to reflect on the fact that, much like with our foreign policy, everyone else in the world seems to agree on this one thing, and we couldn't care less. I'm also amused by the fact that something exists that could allow us to say "The United States was defeated by the Czech Republic".
The thing I've always liked about Soccer is that it takes a great deal of skill and control. Running while also trying to manipulate a ball with you feet, and also defending that ball...that's nigh-on impossible for most people. Plus, play is more or less continuous. One of the most irritating things about American Football (aside from the fans and the music) is the fact that much of the game involves throwing the ball a few feet, then someone running with the ball a few more feet, and then that person being tackled followed by a minute or two of discussion and people dusting themselves off. I can understand the American love of aggression, but is it all that interesting when our desire to see someone assaulted by 5 other juggernauts should outweigh our desire to watch a sporting event where each play lasts more than a few seconds?
Maybe it's just me, though. I find most sports fun to play but boring to watch. One exception might be golf, which I find to be neither fun to play nor fun to watch. Pitch and putt, that's fun. Walking for miles on end to hit a tiny ball at a tiny cup tends to be less than thrilling, and it's hard to be excited by a sport which is a favored pasttime of the elderly. Even still, I can't entirely fault someone for playing it if it holds their interest, but watching it on television? You spend minutes just watching the person prepare to hit to ball. Minutes of a person just standing there, hunched over with their club, while no one talks or moves and nothing happens. Then they swing and we can neither see the ball nor where it went and as far as we're concerned they could have just planted a ball somewhere else and told us that's where it landed. It's mind-numbing.
What if we combined golf and soccer, or to be more precise, what if we played soccer on a regulation golf course? Two teams of 11 players kicking their way through sand traps and water hazards perhaps with an occassional golf cart driving through and taking out a player. Now that's a sport Americans can get behind.
So why am I talking about Soccer? The obvious reason is that it's the World Cup once again, and my TiVo is eagerly awaiting me to finish watching the Iran v. Mexico game and to start watching the U.S. v. Czech Republic game. Its also a good time to reflect on the fact that, much like with our foreign policy, everyone else in the world seems to agree on this one thing, and we couldn't care less. I'm also amused by the fact that something exists that could allow us to say "The United States was defeated by the Czech Republic".
The thing I've always liked about Soccer is that it takes a great deal of skill and control. Running while also trying to manipulate a ball with you feet, and also defending that ball...that's nigh-on impossible for most people. Plus, play is more or less continuous. One of the most irritating things about American Football (aside from the fans and the music) is the fact that much of the game involves throwing the ball a few feet, then someone running with the ball a few more feet, and then that person being tackled followed by a minute or two of discussion and people dusting themselves off. I can understand the American love of aggression, but is it all that interesting when our desire to see someone assaulted by 5 other juggernauts should outweigh our desire to watch a sporting event where each play lasts more than a few seconds?
Maybe it's just me, though. I find most sports fun to play but boring to watch. One exception might be golf, which I find to be neither fun to play nor fun to watch. Pitch and putt, that's fun. Walking for miles on end to hit a tiny ball at a tiny cup tends to be less than thrilling, and it's hard to be excited by a sport which is a favored pasttime of the elderly. Even still, I can't entirely fault someone for playing it if it holds their interest, but watching it on television? You spend minutes just watching the person prepare to hit to ball. Minutes of a person just standing there, hunched over with their club, while no one talks or moves and nothing happens. Then they swing and we can neither see the ball nor where it went and as far as we're concerned they could have just planted a ball somewhere else and told us that's where it landed. It's mind-numbing.
What if we combined golf and soccer, or to be more precise, what if we played soccer on a regulation golf course? Two teams of 11 players kicking their way through sand traps and water hazards perhaps with an occassional golf cart driving through and taking out a player. Now that's a sport Americans can get behind.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Do These Effectively Hide My Thunder?
Whenever you step on a subway in New York City, you stand a good chance of being treated to a performance of some kind. In some cases it comes in the form of a well-rehearsed pan-handle. Often, it's the racist man with the suitcase full of bootleg CDs, or the tag-team duo of movie pirates selling DVDs of whatever terrible horror movie came out this week. The best though, and by best I mean 'the worst' just like 'bad' means 'cool', is the subway musician. My roommate once got to see a man perform acrobatic feats on the subway, and I would have much rather enjoyed that. No, this is the worst kind.
I should step back here and mention that I love subway performers, meaning those who perform in the stations and not on the trains. Its a nice cultural quirk to be able to step off a train at Times Square and see a talented musician performing a rythmic masterpiece on nothing more than a few overturned buckets, or wait for a train in the village with a violinist as your companion. It adds flavor to the day, but also has the added bonus of being avoidable if you don't particularly want to listen to it. You can walk to the other end of the tracks and continue your conversation or listen to your iPod. On the actual train, you are trapped. It's so confined and loud that not only can you not hear whatever music you were enjoying previously in your headphones, but you can't hear anything else over the noise. You can't concentrate enough to read, and in fact, your eardrums stand a good chance of rupturing. You can't leave the car because, in the confined space, they are blocking your way.
Sometimes its merely a few guys singing acapella, or one person with a boombox. What do I get? I get the two guys who step onto the train with 3 large bongo drums and two folding chairs so that they may block anyone from being able to get on or off the train, and they set up shop right next to me, as if to say "Fuck you, Chris, you're not reading another word, and don't even pretend to be able to hear Bruce Springsteen's new album (side note: it is excellent) They proceed to play an 8 minute percussive piece interspersed with occasional breaks during which they would yell out some phrase or object, seemingly at random. At first you thought they had some running theme as they shouted "Africa" and "James Brown", though by the time they got to "Pillow Cases" and "Backgammon" all semblance of poetry was lost. They were then distraught as they moved up and down the length of the train with hands outstretched that no one wanted to give them money for this performance which no one either wanted or enjoyed. They claimed we weren't "showing the love".
I believe in the impromptu performance. I believe in working your way up from nothing. I believe in struggling to survive on talent alone. I do not believe in expecting to get paid for forcing yourself upon people. First, it's rude to assume people want to listen to you, and to interupt their day and their ability to easily get on or off a subway in order to force them to listen. It's also rude to ask them for money when, especially in an urban area, they understand the idea of street performers; if they liked you and had money to spare, they would give it to you without being asked. Then, to act indignant that they don't pay you, as though they don't have bills to pay and mouths to feed with what little their real jobs pay them. Some of us work for a living, and even then don't have a lot of money to spare. If I stood up on the subway tomorrow and started singing "The Lusty Month of May", no one would pay me, and I'd be lucky to make it off the train alive, and I'd be foolish to expect otherwise.
It also reminds me of a time when I was in Philadelphia and my tire blew out. Pulled to the side of the road in a less than reputable neighborhood, I jacked up my car and changed the tire. A drunk on a nearby stoop called out to ask if I needed help (and no, I'm not just assuming he was drunk...he was holding the bottle and could be smelled from a block away). I politely said no thanks, and continuted my task. Once I was nearly complete, all but one lug nut put back on the new tire, he comes over and, despite my protestation, takes the tire iron out of my hand, turns the nut literally one final time, and then asks if I can give him some money for the help...help that was unnecessary, unwanted, and in fact not help. What happened to the American work ethic of hard work for decent pay and what happened to the idea of being a good samaritan? As a progressive, I believe in helping the least among us, and supporting people in their efforts to improve their situations. These people are not helping.
I should step back here and mention that I love subway performers, meaning those who perform in the stations and not on the trains. Its a nice cultural quirk to be able to step off a train at Times Square and see a talented musician performing a rythmic masterpiece on nothing more than a few overturned buckets, or wait for a train in the village with a violinist as your companion. It adds flavor to the day, but also has the added bonus of being avoidable if you don't particularly want to listen to it. You can walk to the other end of the tracks and continue your conversation or listen to your iPod. On the actual train, you are trapped. It's so confined and loud that not only can you not hear whatever music you were enjoying previously in your headphones, but you can't hear anything else over the noise. You can't concentrate enough to read, and in fact, your eardrums stand a good chance of rupturing. You can't leave the car because, in the confined space, they are blocking your way.
Sometimes its merely a few guys singing acapella, or one person with a boombox. What do I get? I get the two guys who step onto the train with 3 large bongo drums and two folding chairs so that they may block anyone from being able to get on or off the train, and they set up shop right next to me, as if to say "Fuck you, Chris, you're not reading another word, and don't even pretend to be able to hear Bruce Springsteen's new album (side note: it is excellent) They proceed to play an 8 minute percussive piece interspersed with occasional breaks during which they would yell out some phrase or object, seemingly at random. At first you thought they had some running theme as they shouted "Africa" and "James Brown", though by the time they got to "Pillow Cases" and "Backgammon" all semblance of poetry was lost. They were then distraught as they moved up and down the length of the train with hands outstretched that no one wanted to give them money for this performance which no one either wanted or enjoyed. They claimed we weren't "showing the love".
I believe in the impromptu performance. I believe in working your way up from nothing. I believe in struggling to survive on talent alone. I do not believe in expecting to get paid for forcing yourself upon people. First, it's rude to assume people want to listen to you, and to interupt their day and their ability to easily get on or off a subway in order to force them to listen. It's also rude to ask them for money when, especially in an urban area, they understand the idea of street performers; if they liked you and had money to spare, they would give it to you without being asked. Then, to act indignant that they don't pay you, as though they don't have bills to pay and mouths to feed with what little their real jobs pay them. Some of us work for a living, and even then don't have a lot of money to spare. If I stood up on the subway tomorrow and started singing "The Lusty Month of May", no one would pay me, and I'd be lucky to make it off the train alive, and I'd be foolish to expect otherwise.
It also reminds me of a time when I was in Philadelphia and my tire blew out. Pulled to the side of the road in a less than reputable neighborhood, I jacked up my car and changed the tire. A drunk on a nearby stoop called out to ask if I needed help (and no, I'm not just assuming he was drunk...he was holding the bottle and could be smelled from a block away). I politely said no thanks, and continuted my task. Once I was nearly complete, all but one lug nut put back on the new tire, he comes over and, despite my protestation, takes the tire iron out of my hand, turns the nut literally one final time, and then asks if I can give him some money for the help...help that was unnecessary, unwanted, and in fact not help. What happened to the American work ethic of hard work for decent pay and what happened to the idea of being a good samaritan? As a progressive, I believe in helping the least among us, and supporting people in their efforts to improve their situations. These people are not helping.
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Theocracy...FOR KIDS!
I can't tell if this blog is merely preaching to the choir or screaming at statues. I doubt I'm going to be changing your mind with this is my point, though I feel compelled just to give my two cents, or whatever the equivalent is with inflation.
Given that we are only a few months from another election (and yes, midterm elections are just as important as Presidential ones) it's time for us to roll out our favorite nonsense issues to distract people from the real ones which are not exciting or sexy enough. I should mention that this is not simply a strategy of the Republicans, though they certainly are adept at it. Just like in the last Presidential election when poor people were tricked into voting for the man who cuts taxes for the rich because otherwise a war veteran would welcome terrorists into the country with open arms and homosexuals would use their fairy wands to turn all of your children into slutty, drug-fueled transexuals.
So what's this year's issue? Much like the Da Vinci code, the Marriage Defense Amendment is now out in paperback and climbing the charts again. Before I get in to the actual argument, let me say this...why is this necessary? Much like Christmas, the political extreme is saying Marriage is under attack, because of gay marriage, and the only thing to stop it is an amendment to the Constitution. Given that gay marriage is banned in nearly the entire country, and that the states that do ban it won't recognize it even if you gays are married where it is legal, how is this a national issue? If a few gays being allowed to marry in one state is an attack, then it's like attacking China by starting a fire in a garbage can at one of their ports. The Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton no less, already allows every state to ban gay marriage and defy the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, so do we really need an Amendment? That's like saying we need an Amendment against Dinosaur attacks.
Here's the other issue...Amendments tend to protect certain rights so that laws can't be passed to infringe on them; freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to not work on a plantation for no money. Notably, the one Amendment that went so far as to tell us what rights we don't have was the fiasco now known as Prohibition, which was such a mistake that we had to pass a whole other Amendment to repeal it. If you want to pass laws, go nuts, but Constitutional Amendments are reserved for important things.
But they wouldn't want to do that. See, a Constitutional Amendment would never pass because it takes overwhelming support, and its hard to round-up overwhelming support for turning ten percent of the population into second-class citizens, especially when what they do has absolutely no effect on anyone else. A law could possibly squeak by and actually pass which would do two things...it would force Conservative judges, such as those on the Supreme Court, to actually judge the legal merits of gay marriage and conclude that there is no legal merit to a law banning it. Second, it would take away the issue as something that can be wheeled out every two years to distract people and rile an already decided base.
Here's the thing...this is the land of the free, is it not? So why are our laws more restrictive than nearly every other western democracy? We believe in free speech, but not on television during certain hours and on certain channels. We believe in seperation of church and state, unless of course the state tries to make decisions based on public health and safety or the will of the people instead of the Bible. We believe that government shouldn't interfere in our lives, except in the cases of your phone calls, your reproductive rights, and your marriage.
Some people are morally opposed to homosexuality and, you know what, let them be. If you believe that it's a sin, then don't do it and don't be friends with people who are gay (though also make sure you don't talk to people who eat pork or work on the sabbath, which are actually regarded as worse in both The Bible and The Torah) Here's the thing...you can't inflict your morals on others. Laws are meant to protect people from one another. You're free to fire a gun, but not at another person because that endangers them. You're free to say whatever you want, but not incite a riot because that endangers people. Two women wanting to live together and file taxes together endangers no one. It doesn't even effect anyone else. If two men got married tomorrow, would your parents divorce? Would your sister's marriage be invalidated? Would you be barred from ever dating a woman again? No, of course not. It would have no effect on your life or my life whatsoever. If marriage is under threat, it's under threat from celebrities like Britney Spears who get married multiple times and then divorced a few days later, making it just glorified dating. It's under threat from people who marry for money, or people who murder their spouses, or people who get married simply because they knocked someone up and spend the rest of their lives resenting and abusing their spouse and children.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED that Republicans are actually pro-promiscuity. They don't want homosexuals to enter into legally binding monogamous relationships. They would prefer that gay people be denied that option, encouraging them not to work through relationship problems that married people would to avoid divorce, but instead to just jump ship when things get rough and then date someone else. Given that neo-cons support abstinence till marriage, what they are saying is that, since gay people can't get married, then they might as well just tap as much booty as they can and not even consider having a serious relationship...because that would be an attack on heterosexuals.
Yes, marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman. It was also traditionally not between people of different races. It was also traditionally not based on love but on economic interests, class structure, or the arrangements of parents. Things change. We become more free, more reasoned. Opening marriage to homosexuals doesn't open a Pandora's Box to polygamy and beastiality. It simply extends freedom: the same freedom the rest of us have already. Would children be better-raised in a loving home with married parents regardless of their genders, or a house with two parents who don't love each other but live a lie because society prevents them from living as god created them?
Freedom comes to all eventually. In the long run, progress occurs, dictators always fall, and repression always fails. One day, gay people will marry just as us straight people will marry, and not only will it not hurt the institution of marriage, it will improve our society as a whole. Why wait for that day and continue to live in a dark age?
Given that we are only a few months from another election (and yes, midterm elections are just as important as Presidential ones) it's time for us to roll out our favorite nonsense issues to distract people from the real ones which are not exciting or sexy enough. I should mention that this is not simply a strategy of the Republicans, though they certainly are adept at it. Just like in the last Presidential election when poor people were tricked into voting for the man who cuts taxes for the rich because otherwise a war veteran would welcome terrorists into the country with open arms and homosexuals would use their fairy wands to turn all of your children into slutty, drug-fueled transexuals.
So what's this year's issue? Much like the Da Vinci code, the Marriage Defense Amendment is now out in paperback and climbing the charts again. Before I get in to the actual argument, let me say this...why is this necessary? Much like Christmas, the political extreme is saying Marriage is under attack, because of gay marriage, and the only thing to stop it is an amendment to the Constitution. Given that gay marriage is banned in nearly the entire country, and that the states that do ban it won't recognize it even if you gays are married where it is legal, how is this a national issue? If a few gays being allowed to marry in one state is an attack, then it's like attacking China by starting a fire in a garbage can at one of their ports. The Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton no less, already allows every state to ban gay marriage and defy the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, so do we really need an Amendment? That's like saying we need an Amendment against Dinosaur attacks.
Here's the other issue...Amendments tend to protect certain rights so that laws can't be passed to infringe on them; freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to not work on a plantation for no money. Notably, the one Amendment that went so far as to tell us what rights we don't have was the fiasco now known as Prohibition, which was such a mistake that we had to pass a whole other Amendment to repeal it. If you want to pass laws, go nuts, but Constitutional Amendments are reserved for important things.
But they wouldn't want to do that. See, a Constitutional Amendment would never pass because it takes overwhelming support, and its hard to round-up overwhelming support for turning ten percent of the population into second-class citizens, especially when what they do has absolutely no effect on anyone else. A law could possibly squeak by and actually pass which would do two things...it would force Conservative judges, such as those on the Supreme Court, to actually judge the legal merits of gay marriage and conclude that there is no legal merit to a law banning it. Second, it would take away the issue as something that can be wheeled out every two years to distract people and rile an already decided base.
Here's the thing...this is the land of the free, is it not? So why are our laws more restrictive than nearly every other western democracy? We believe in free speech, but not on television during certain hours and on certain channels. We believe in seperation of church and state, unless of course the state tries to make decisions based on public health and safety or the will of the people instead of the Bible. We believe that government shouldn't interfere in our lives, except in the cases of your phone calls, your reproductive rights, and your marriage.
Some people are morally opposed to homosexuality and, you know what, let them be. If you believe that it's a sin, then don't do it and don't be friends with people who are gay (though also make sure you don't talk to people who eat pork or work on the sabbath, which are actually regarded as worse in both The Bible and The Torah) Here's the thing...you can't inflict your morals on others. Laws are meant to protect people from one another. You're free to fire a gun, but not at another person because that endangers them. You're free to say whatever you want, but not incite a riot because that endangers people. Two women wanting to live together and file taxes together endangers no one. It doesn't even effect anyone else. If two men got married tomorrow, would your parents divorce? Would your sister's marriage be invalidated? Would you be barred from ever dating a woman again? No, of course not. It would have no effect on your life or my life whatsoever. If marriage is under threat, it's under threat from celebrities like Britney Spears who get married multiple times and then divorced a few days later, making it just glorified dating. It's under threat from people who marry for money, or people who murder their spouses, or people who get married simply because they knocked someone up and spend the rest of their lives resenting and abusing their spouse and children.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED that Republicans are actually pro-promiscuity. They don't want homosexuals to enter into legally binding monogamous relationships. They would prefer that gay people be denied that option, encouraging them not to work through relationship problems that married people would to avoid divorce, but instead to just jump ship when things get rough and then date someone else. Given that neo-cons support abstinence till marriage, what they are saying is that, since gay people can't get married, then they might as well just tap as much booty as they can and not even consider having a serious relationship...because that would be an attack on heterosexuals.
Yes, marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman. It was also traditionally not between people of different races. It was also traditionally not based on love but on economic interests, class structure, or the arrangements of parents. Things change. We become more free, more reasoned. Opening marriage to homosexuals doesn't open a Pandora's Box to polygamy and beastiality. It simply extends freedom: the same freedom the rest of us have already. Would children be better-raised in a loving home with married parents regardless of their genders, or a house with two parents who don't love each other but live a lie because society prevents them from living as god created them?
Freedom comes to all eventually. In the long run, progress occurs, dictators always fall, and repression always fails. One day, gay people will marry just as us straight people will marry, and not only will it not hurt the institution of marriage, it will improve our society as a whole. Why wait for that day and continue to live in a dark age?
Monday, June 5, 2006
That Corpse is Just Full of Surprises
A few random thoughts to keep the synapses firing and the eyes focusing. First, a narrative...
This weekend featured both the strangest bachelor party and one of the better weddings I've been to, which is not all that many, though enough to know that its worth the extra money to hire a band if only to avoid the Chicken Dance. My roommate's brother's bachelor party was Friday night and featured...I kid you not...all the orange soda you could drink and XBox games like it was 1999. Sure, some might say that it more closely resembled a 12 year old's birthday party than a final hedonistic hurrah of bachelor boisterism, but those people would of course be right. Still, I enjoyed the experience in much the same way you enjoy seeing that one guy who shows up for casual day wearing a hawaiian shirt and jeans when it is, in fact, not casual day. Oh the sights these eyes have seen. Two days later came the wedding, beginning early in the morning with the groom riding shotgun in my car as we discussed the finer points of Jack Bauer's bad-ass-itude and the gradual decline in quality of McDonald's greasy delights (these topics were the groom's choice, and who is to argue on his wedding day?). Then, in sheer defiance of all traditional ideas of luck, the bride and groom not only saw each other before the wedding, but had all of their wedding photos taken prior to the wedding, while also wearing the wedding bands. The wedding itself was brief, if only because it's hard to combine Italian and Jewish traditions into a single ceremony without a lot of butchering of languages and unintentional racism. The food was good, and I got to hang out in the bridal party VIP room for cocktail hour due to the fact that I was escorting the groom's sister, and then my friends and I became the resident jerks of the wedding, mocking all that we saw. It was a great wedding though, and to Pete and Melanie, I saw Mozol Tov.
That took up more room than I was planning, so I'll keep it to a sentence per topic.
My father should stop attempting to convert me into a neo-conservative ideologue simply because he has given up on reason (which is sad, considering his Princeton education has now gone to waste).
Religious groups should stop protesting things, because all it ever does is increase people's interest in those things and give them free advertising (i.e. Da Vinci Code, Passion of the Christ, South Park, popular music.)
It's racist to assume that all Italian people love the song "That's Amore" and that we enjoy cannolis, even if they are delicious.
Based on the paleness of my skin, my last name seems to now be the only thing representing my Italian heritage while my Irish heritage is taking over like some sort of X-gene, giving me a super ability to drink and burn in daylight.
There is a distinct and important difference between bluegrass & folk music and country music, namely that country music is awful and listening to it makes you wish that we had let the south secede after all.
No one has ever used the phrase "I don't want to bother you" and actually meant it, though at least they had the honesty to acknowledge how intrusive they were being.
Politicians won't stop rolling out the same b.s. legislation just before an election until the voters stop falling for their "keep the gays and mexicans at bay by voting for us" strategy.
And finally, people you went to elementary school with will turn out almost exactly as you expected but look nothing like they used to, thus making it very confusing when you run into them a decade later.
Thank you for bothering to read all of that, because I certainly wouldn't.
This weekend featured both the strangest bachelor party and one of the better weddings I've been to, which is not all that many, though enough to know that its worth the extra money to hire a band if only to avoid the Chicken Dance. My roommate's brother's bachelor party was Friday night and featured...I kid you not...all the orange soda you could drink and XBox games like it was 1999. Sure, some might say that it more closely resembled a 12 year old's birthday party than a final hedonistic hurrah of bachelor boisterism, but those people would of course be right. Still, I enjoyed the experience in much the same way you enjoy seeing that one guy who shows up for casual day wearing a hawaiian shirt and jeans when it is, in fact, not casual day. Oh the sights these eyes have seen. Two days later came the wedding, beginning early in the morning with the groom riding shotgun in my car as we discussed the finer points of Jack Bauer's bad-ass-itude and the gradual decline in quality of McDonald's greasy delights (these topics were the groom's choice, and who is to argue on his wedding day?). Then, in sheer defiance of all traditional ideas of luck, the bride and groom not only saw each other before the wedding, but had all of their wedding photos taken prior to the wedding, while also wearing the wedding bands. The wedding itself was brief, if only because it's hard to combine Italian and Jewish traditions into a single ceremony without a lot of butchering of languages and unintentional racism. The food was good, and I got to hang out in the bridal party VIP room for cocktail hour due to the fact that I was escorting the groom's sister, and then my friends and I became the resident jerks of the wedding, mocking all that we saw. It was a great wedding though, and to Pete and Melanie, I saw Mozol Tov.
That took up more room than I was planning, so I'll keep it to a sentence per topic.
My father should stop attempting to convert me into a neo-conservative ideologue simply because he has given up on reason (which is sad, considering his Princeton education has now gone to waste).
Religious groups should stop protesting things, because all it ever does is increase people's interest in those things and give them free advertising (i.e. Da Vinci Code, Passion of the Christ, South Park, popular music.)
It's racist to assume that all Italian people love the song "That's Amore" and that we enjoy cannolis, even if they are delicious.
Based on the paleness of my skin, my last name seems to now be the only thing representing my Italian heritage while my Irish heritage is taking over like some sort of X-gene, giving me a super ability to drink and burn in daylight.
There is a distinct and important difference between bluegrass & folk music and country music, namely that country music is awful and listening to it makes you wish that we had let the south secede after all.
No one has ever used the phrase "I don't want to bother you" and actually meant it, though at least they had the honesty to acknowledge how intrusive they were being.
Politicians won't stop rolling out the same b.s. legislation just before an election until the voters stop falling for their "keep the gays and mexicans at bay by voting for us" strategy.
And finally, people you went to elementary school with will turn out almost exactly as you expected but look nothing like they used to, thus making it very confusing when you run into them a decade later.
Thank you for bothering to read all of that, because I certainly wouldn't.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
