Weird weather and meme commentary
Oct. 3rd, 2006 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoWeird weather stuff all day. This morning was bright and sunny in spite of some hefty thunderstorms overnight that apparently just missed us. We got an inch of rain and one rattle of hail last night. Driving to work, however, I went from sunlight to a fog bank like a cloud just lying on the ground. It happened very abruptly right near the Harvard city limits. Fog was dense by the time I got to the library.
By lunch time things had cleared up, and the sun was shining. It was getting warm out (mid to high 80s F I guess) and a colleague who lives five miles north of town at the state line went home for lunch. She came back reporting dense fog at her house, and a temperature in the low 60s. That much difference in five miles. There was no wind, which probably helped keep the abrupt interface from breaking up.
Now about this meme thing that's going around. You know, the one that asks you to repost a statement that you support gay rights, or ignore it if you don't support gay rights? Well, I'm not going to post it. [gasp]
Here's why: I support equal civil rights for everyone, regardless of skin color, gender, height, weight, national origin or citizenship, language spoken, religious belief (or lack thereof), sexual identity (or lack thereof), age, marital status, educational status, race (whatever that means), skin color, eye color, hair color or length, clothing style (or lack thereof), or whether their belly button is an innie or outie. In fact, I even support equal civil rights for people of all political parties or no political party.
So I wouldn't wish the experience of being held a prisoner indefinitely without charges or habeas corpus or counsel and being water boarded or otherwise tortured even on the most rightwing neocon Republican. I'm even willing to allow that Republican to get married to a liberal Democrat, and I won't laugh at the sparks that are bound to fly eventually. At the same time, I will defend the right of two men or two women to marry each other legally until and unless all legal benefits and privileges associated with marriage are withdrawn from everyone, making all equal, married or unmarried. No tax breaks or penalties for the married. No SPECIAL PRIVILEGES for the married couple. No special insurance benefits, no automatic legal powers, no joint property or inheritance unless a legal contract or will is drawn up. The lawyers should love that. The married people who want to deny gays the right to marry will hate it, but hey, fair is fair. Just because their religion doesn't accept the idea of gay marriage doesn't give them the right to force their values on everyone else. My religion says anyone can marry anyone or anything they want to, and we have freedom of religion, right? Oh. That freedom is only extended to conservative protestant Christians who oppose abortion and vote Republican? Guess what... I defy you to find anything in the Constitution that says the US is a "Christian country" or has only two political parties or can only have executives from the southern tier of states and they must all be conservatives.
By lunch time things had cleared up, and the sun was shining. It was getting warm out (mid to high 80s F I guess) and a colleague who lives five miles north of town at the state line went home for lunch. She came back reporting dense fog at her house, and a temperature in the low 60s. That much difference in five miles. There was no wind, which probably helped keep the abrupt interface from breaking up.
Now about this meme thing that's going around. You know, the one that asks you to repost a statement that you support gay rights, or ignore it if you don't support gay rights? Well, I'm not going to post it. [gasp]
Here's why: I support equal civil rights for everyone, regardless of skin color, gender, height, weight, national origin or citizenship, language spoken, religious belief (or lack thereof), sexual identity (or lack thereof), age, marital status, educational status, race (whatever that means), skin color, eye color, hair color or length, clothing style (or lack thereof), or whether their belly button is an innie or outie. In fact, I even support equal civil rights for people of all political parties or no political party.
So I wouldn't wish the experience of being held a prisoner indefinitely without charges or habeas corpus or counsel and being water boarded or otherwise tortured even on the most rightwing neocon Republican. I'm even willing to allow that Republican to get married to a liberal Democrat, and I won't laugh at the sparks that are bound to fly eventually. At the same time, I will defend the right of two men or two women to marry each other legally until and unless all legal benefits and privileges associated with marriage are withdrawn from everyone, making all equal, married or unmarried. No tax breaks or penalties for the married. No SPECIAL PRIVILEGES for the married couple. No special insurance benefits, no automatic legal powers, no joint property or inheritance unless a legal contract or will is drawn up. The lawyers should love that. The married people who want to deny gays the right to marry will hate it, but hey, fair is fair. Just because their religion doesn't accept the idea of gay marriage doesn't give them the right to force their values on everyone else. My religion says anyone can marry anyone or anything they want to, and we have freedom of religion, right? Oh. That freedom is only extended to conservative protestant Christians who oppose abortion and vote Republican? Guess what... I defy you to find anything in the Constitution that says the US is a "Christian country" or has only two political parties or can only have executives from the southern tier of states and they must all be conservatives.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 03:20 am (UTC)Seriously though, I did always wonder why there should be any legal privilages to being married or any kind of automatic legal powers etc, what about us poor saps who are single on one income yet if you're married and on two incomes there are financial benefits o.O
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 09:55 am (UTC)Here in the US there are penalties associated with marriage too. Couples with two incomes and no children often pay extra taxes rather than less, though many people are unaware of this.
I was being facetious there, though it is one way of making things fairer. The right wing here is fond of that "no special rights" argument, in which they claim that legislation that specifically names gays as a group to be treated equally is in fact granting them special privileges. So I generally turn that around by pointing out the special privileges granted to married couples, who have really done nothing to earn those privileges and frequently take advantage of them, then get divorced and add to the social economic load by demanding extra social services "for the children."
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 05:34 am (UTC)First of all, I would argue that marriage itself not a -right- at all but a priviledge. Marriage does not fall into the same category as food, shelter, security, or anything else that is entitled to someone. Rights are entitlements, things that are inherently given to us based simply on the fact that we our human beings and have some sort of perceived value. People have and should have the freedom to get married, but marriage is not something one is automatically entitled to. Marriage is something you work for and something you earn, not something that is just given to you.
Secondly, there can be no such thing as gay marriage by technical definition. Marriage is defined as the union between a man and a woman. You can look it up in the dictionary. This is not a value or moral judgment on whether or not gays should be able to get married, it's about definitions. Marriage is defined by a heterosexual relationship and therefore it is logically impossible for gays to be "married." Gays can be in a relationship similar to marriage, but it's not specifically marriage. In order for gays to be married, you have to change the very definition of marriage itself and by doing that, marriage ceases to exist in a sense. Once you change the definition of word or idea and its meaning, it becomes something else.
I'm all for gay couples having the same legal rights as married couples and for having there own institution that works like marriage, but what we know as marriage cannot include homosexual relationships simply because that is not what the -institution- of marriage is. I don't know if I'm making sense here and you might say this is all semantics but I see this as a matter of simple logic.
When people say the U.S. is a "Christian country," most of them are referring to our traditions, our values, our laws, and our culture which is predominantly Christian or based to some extent on Judeo-Christianity. Christianity is the dominant religion in our country (and has been for all of its nearly 300 years of existence) and the majority of the population claims to practice or believe in some form of it. So from a certain perspective, this is a Christian country, however, it is not exclusively Christian, and that is a significant fact that should not be ignored.
I did find your idea of just withdrawling all priviledges from everyone so it's fair to be interesting and somewhat humorous :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 07:00 am (UTC)Marriage is defined as the union between a man and a woman.
Semantics is such a lovely debate arena. I'd assume, however, that it has little to do with what
So from a certain perspective, this is a Christian country, however, it is not exclusively Christian, and that is a significant fact that should not be ignored.
This is to say that a great deal of the US voters are Christian, which is true. But unless we're all willing to practice some sort of Rousseau-esque "voice of the people" majoritarianism, this does not imply that American contract legislation, and hence the subsidisation involved, should be Christian.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 07:38 am (UTC)No, I disagree. That was the attitude held towards marriage for sometime, especially by the religious, but it was never part of the actual definition. We know this because there have interracial marriages throughout the world and history. Attitudes towards marriage have changed in the specifics over time but the basic defintion, a union between a man and woman has not changed for thousands of years.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 10:05 am (UTC)Religious groups can define marriage however they choose. I don't care. However, if the state is going to recognize marriage with special privileges or special responsibilities, then it must be open to all, not just those who meet the qualifications of a certain religious definition.
There are two ways to fix this. Redefine civil marriage so that those privileges and responsibilities can be granted to anyone who wishes to apply for them, or do away with the privileges and responsibilities entirely. Nothing else is just and Constitutional. Imagine the uproar if some state were to reinstitute the legal notion that only men could vote. Or perhaps turn it around and say that only women could vote and hold office? That is the situation with the legal definition of marriage in the US.
Times change, society changes, and since 1969, US society has been evolving in a new direction. There is no reason that we have to be stuck with the ideas and thinking of 1869, and there has never been any legal grounds for using the values of a single religious faith to define social and civil law. In fact, it has always been illegal, at least technically.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 07:27 am (UTC)About the definition of marriage though, it is not a religious definition. One does not need to go into religion to define marriage. It has been defined as a union between a man and a woman not since 1869 in Protestant white America, but for -thousands- of years all over the world. Name one major society in all of history, pagan or Christian or whatever else where homosexual marriage existed and was legally recognized. Homosexuality has been widely practiced all over the world and throughout history, but I've never heard of it being recognized in the context of marrital relationships, especially marriages authorized and supported by the government or governing authorities and laws. Christians are not the only people in the world who define marriage in the traditional way. What say you to this?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 11:21 am (UTC)Here I will defer to an expert on the subject, the late John Boswell (1947-1994) who was an academic, historian, Christian, and happened to be gay. Three major works on the subject during his lifetime, which was unfortunately too short.
Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality : gay people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century by John Boswell (University of Chicago Press, 1980.)
Rediscovering gay history : archetypes of gay love in Christian history by John Boswell (London, Gay Christian Movement, 1982.)
The marriage of likeness : same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe by John Boswell (HarperCollins, 1995.)
There's a lot of other research that points in the same direction, some older. The truth is, we get a revisionist view of history all the time. First, because we are only ever given highlights of it, and those highlights are selected to make us believe what someone else thinks is important; and secondly because we remember the parts that fit in with our own world views and tend to forget or de-emphasize the ones that we find contrary.
There have indeed been recognized same sex unions in many cultures through history, just as there have been polygamous and polyandrous family units. The "one man-one woman" concept is a majority view overall, for various reasons, but even in the bible we find lots of polygamy, and even one or two "suspicious" male relationships. David and Jonathan comes to mind for me immediately.
When one culture overpowers another, aspects of the submerged culture that are distasteful to the victor are often suppressed and even expunged from the recorded history. We have to look no farther than the Native Americans to see that. Gay relationships, transvestism, polygamy and polyamory, and many other social practices that were frequent in some of those groups have been suppressed from the school literature about them.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 05:57 am (UTC)You're not actually getting anything that a single person doesn't have by getting married... except a spouse. There are as many legal obligations as there are legal benefits.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 10:13 am (UTC)So I am just pointing out the "special privileges" that are granted in law to married couples, yet illegally and improperly restricted to monogamous dyadic heterosexual pairings, excluding anyone who practices polyamory, polygamy, polyandry, or same sex relationships. This is obviously discriminatory recognition of a particular subset, and granting them "special privileges."
The truth is, I don't really care about those privileges EXCEPT that they should be available to anyone, not just some people. If it complicates things to make them properly available, so be it. Two choices: do away with them, or change the way they are granted so that everyone is eligible.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 08:14 pm (UTC)Promoting polygamy isn't a good way to get gay marriage accepted. It just adds credibility to the "slippery slope" argument that gay marriage will lead to legal acceptance of polygamy, incest, bestiality, people legally marrying their plushies, and so on. You'd be playing right into their hands if you used that argument.
I think you (the USA) should follow the example of Canada and other countries when it comes to gay marriage and getting it legalized. You'll no doubt reply and tell me how and exactly why the US is a special case and that nobody else's example can apply, but that's not important and it's not true. EVERY country is different, and you (the USA) are not THAT special when it comes down to it. Americans tend to put on blinders when it comes to the rest of the world. It's come to the point where much of the rest of the (first) world has "been there and done that" when it comes to gay marriage, and the US is ultimately going to do little more than follow everyone else's examples. There's really no need to take extraordinary measures or do anything particularly unique about gay marriage.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 08:41 pm (UTC)Personally, I see nothing wrong with that slippery slope, but I agree it isn't going to fly at present.
As for your mythical basket of goodies, well, you really don't want to use some of them, at least not for a long time. Many of the issues, at least in the US, involve inheritance and power of attorney if one partner becomes seriously ill. Those are good things to have without needing to draw up legal documents at considerable expense and still have them challenged by putative "next of kin." I agree that the imagined tax benefits are generally negligible and sometimes there's a penalty instead, especially if both have decent incomes in the US. Also, a big issue in the US is health insurance, which is quite a different thing in Canada. Here, most employers offer heavily subsidized medical coverage to legal spouses of employees. Only about 10% extend that to same sex couples. I had coverage for my mate at my last job, but can't get it here. We can't afford really good coverage for him on our own, so he has to settle for a bare bones kind of policy. When he was hospitalized overnight last year, it cost us over $6000 and that was AFTER the insurance paid what they were willing to cover.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 12:07 am (UTC)I understand that it is frustrating that the progress of gay rights in the states isn't going as fast as it should, and some gay Americans invent reasons why that is, and invent their own solutions, and then obsess over them. But that isn't going to solve anything. The real solution is, like you said, that a "case properly presented to the Supreme Court might win the whole thing overnight". But you also need a non-Republican president, I think, and that will take a while.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 02:35 am (UTC)In the last 50 years, Democrats have occupied the White House 40% of the time, but have controlled one or both houses of Congress less than that I think. In general we are seeing the effect of that as environmental legislation, social programs, educational funding, and other typically Democratic sponsored projects have been trimmed, trimmed, and trimmed again. Somehow, though, taxes really haven't gone down. That's typical too.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 07:30 am (UTC)Moderate conservative here :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 11:31 am (UTC)The political landscape of the US has transformed radically in the last 50 years. Nelson Rockefeller, who was governor of New York back in the 1960s, was a moderate Republican. Today's GOP would consider him a "card carrying liberal" suitable for burning at the stake. Even the Democratic Party has moved somewhat to the right, yet the conservatives point to them constantly while waving burning crosses and screaming the "L" word as if it were some kind of obscenity.
The extreme social conservatism of current Republicans would have been anathema to the GOP of 40 years ago. Senator Barry Goldwater was considered an arch-conservative when he ran for president in 1964, yet his positions rarely touched upon the degree of social engineering that the GOP advocates today. Conservatism then was related strictly to economics and international relations. I am confident that the idea of amending the Constitution to define marriage would have appalled him.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 11:20 am (UTC)Which, of course, does in no way translate to Liberal control, largely because of that weird Southern thing where, for the longest time, it was just Democrats competing over who is the most socially conservative.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 08:36 am (UTC)Last election, no politician from any political party spoke of anything except "hard working families", which implies that three are no "hard working individuals".
I got sick of hearing the phrase towards the end.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 10:23 am (UTC)The tax benefits of marriage in the US are not all that large. The benefits of having children can be larger, which is probably a serious error. We don't need a continued increase in the number of children. That whole thing is a sacred cow, though, just as the "family" this and that has become. Every piece of kooky legislation that they want to push through gets the word "family" attached to it to somehow justify its existence, and people who don't have "families" that meet the narrow-minded definition of the bigots are treated as non-entities with no rights to speak of, granted only the privilege of contributing their tax money to the support and benefit of those officially-recognized "families".
I find it downright sickening. My family, as defined by any psychologist or sociologist, consists of another male human, three horses, two dogs, and three cats. I am a very obvious working and contributing member of society just the same, and should be entitled to the same benefits as some guy who happens to be married, but gets drunk three times a week and beats his wife and children. However, that guy is given extra benefits "for the family" and treated as innocent of his crimes until proven guilty without any doubt, while I am leeched of half my income to build schools for his children and shelters for his battered wife, in addition to having to support my own family without any social assistance or recognition whatsoever.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 10:30 am (UTC)I do not object to funding schools for children (education is vital and IMO should be a human right), or indeed the odd tax break or two for families. But there comes a time when it just gets too much. When my own personal welfare is ignored as a result, I feel bitter. It’s like I don't count simply because I have opted out of having children.
I want to say to the politicians that: "You either care for everyone equally, or love counts for nothing."
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 10:58 am (UTC)And of course, people without children are non-entities and don't need or deserve any recognition of their existence. It's sickening.
They argue that marriage is sanctioned and must be a privileged state for the sake of children. So why don't they require fertility tests before giving out a marriage license? Why should a childless couple receive the benefits associated with marriage? Why should a heterosexual couple well past child bearing age be even allowed to get married? The whole thing is spurious and inequitous.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 05:46 pm (UTC)