Fog, rain, wind! Unavoidable as same sex marriage...

[altivo]

Fog this morning was so thick you could barely see your hand at arm's length. Visibility got up to an eighth of a mile bye the time I had to drive to work, which made it possible to get there, with luck. This in spite of the idiots who wouldn't even turn their lights on and insisted on driving well over the speed limit and aggressively passing everyone else on a two lane road with no shoulders and no visibility... People are utter morons when it comes to driving, I swear.

As the fog cleared, rain intensified. We got probably another inch this afternoon. It stopped around sunset, and they cancelled the thunderstorms that were on the forecast, trading them for 50 mph winds. Oh goody. That's likely to mean a power outage before morning.

I'm seeing a lot of negative commentary about the chances that California's court will strike down Prop 8. Since I don't live there, I'm not close enough to have a solid guess what's going to happen. However, I do have a prediction for what will happen in the long term. The cat is long out of the bag folks. With more and more European countries and even our neighbor Canada going in the direction of validating same sex marriages, the US isn't going to be able to hold out forever. It's just a question of how long before the lavender curtain crumples. I'm betting on less time, rather than more, at this point. As in surely less than 20 years and quite possibly a lot less. The federal courts are going to come down solidly in support of the separation of church and state, and conclude that civil marriage and religious marriage are separate and parallel contracts. The state can decide to whom it will grant recognition for civil marriage, but must do so consistently and in compliance with all the equal protection guarantees inherent in the US Constitution. Churches will be allowed to do as they choose, but any status they confer or refuse to confer will have no legal standing unless it correlates directly to the terms of civil law. This has, in fact, always been the case, but religious conservatives fail to see it.

Comments

[equusmaximus.livejournal.com]

I've been fortunate enough (at least in the past) that when it comes to dense fog, people have been slowing down, using fog-lamps and/or running-lamps, and generally being careful.

SNOW on the other hoof, people don't seem to understand. It can be just as blinding as the fog, sometimes moreso, and it makes the roadways slick and dangerous, yet they charge through it as it it were a clear Summer's day with perfectly dry roads. I've seen a few of them in the ditch as a result, and thankfully such wasn't the case today.

I've outfitted all of my vehicles with fog-lamps, as I find they really do make a huge difference.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Snow, fog, and torrential rain are all treated the same here. A certain percentage of drivers are just too stupid to realize that they can't get away with the same reckless speed and abandon under those conditions. Usually by the end of the winter they start to catch on, but then each summer they forget all about it and when the first snow or ice storm hits we have vehicles off the road or smashed up in multiple collisions all over again.

I find it amusing that my horses remember better than humans in this respect. They poke their heads out of the barn and immediately recognize icy conditions, changing their gait and behavior accordingly.

Drivers wanted. To do a better job driving.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing that my horses remember better than humans in this respect. They poke their heads out of the barn and immediately recognize icy conditions, changing their gait and behavior accordingly.

*nods in agreement*

People are too used to travelling in cars, and this leaves them unprepared for the enviroment just outside their metal & fiberglass boxes. You wouldn't believe how many people are saying it's "cold" in Florida these days :P

[soanos.livejournal.com]

*nods and noses* Horsies are smart. ^^

Drive safely out there o.o

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

Prop 88: Ban Fog!! Jesus hates fogs!

Actually, was there any mention of fog in the bible? Does Jerusalem get fog?
I'd suppose there's also no mention of snow in the bible.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No, no, you got that wrong. It's FROGS. Jesus hates FROGS. No one who speaks French will enter the kingdom of heaven unless he's riding on a camel of course.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope you're right there, but I can't help but wonder whether you (the USA in general, that is) won't end up with one of those "separate-but-equal" things again that, in reality, are separate and NOT equal.

Specifically, I could see a scenario where certain groups will start a big hullabaloo about the term "marriage" (conveniently ignoring, of course, that different religions may very well include same-sex marriages under that definition) and insist it should be called something else instead, such as "civil unions" - which would then make it much easier to make sure the two concepts are not actually equal. Divide et impera, in other words.

In the long term, it'll probably all work out, of course, but I'm less optimistic that there won't be a big struggle for quite a while first, still (and for considerably longer than, say, 20 years, too).

But of course, we'll see.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

That scenario is already playing out- civil unions vs. marriage. Honestly, I think we should kick out marriage, make all "marriages" civil unions, and leave marriage as a separate entity that is religiously centered with NO political or legal backing.

But yes, the whole separate but equal thing... we've been there before and that worked out SO well...

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Aye. :/ It's like that in Germany - you can enter in a civil union/registered partnership, and you'll get many of the benefits and perks of heterosexual marriage, but not ALL of them. And of course, almost (?) all conservative policitians try to make sure it stays that way, and a significant portion of the population supports this.

I never understood why homophobia is seen as socially acceptable when racism, antisemitism etc. is not, but there you go...

to understand social values, you must understand where they come from...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

And generally religion is the default mechanism at work in culture- from words like "good" & "bad" to what archetypes of people are typically used in film & television, people have allowed religion and those who support it to hijack & control the mindset (Morality? Come on- what moral right has one to bomb an abortion clinic or brainwash the masses for personal gains?), and since its prevalent, most people would rather ignore the influence than scrutinize the motives of those who support such behaviors. When life gets too complicated, people retreat into fantasy to avoid examining the roots of the devotion people have towards a "higher power"... that can be applied to most people and their so-called "problems", or at least that's how I see it ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I fully believe that the courts here have painted themselves into a corner on this. There are only two resolutions possible: either completely separate the concept of religious marriage from the notion of civil marriage (what you call them doesn't matter, but to have legal rights, a civil marriage/union/partnership must be formed) or else completely merge the two in the eyes of the law whether the churches like it or not. Legally, two kinds of marriage depending on who the partners are simply is not going to stand up in the face of modern constitutional interpretation.

I even see a step beyond this that is someday going to appear as a similar issue, and that's the notion of group marriages (more than two parties.) Now that will give the right wingnuts and fundies something to really be scared about. ;p

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree, a modern interpretation of the US constitution does not allow for discrimination based on the gender of the partners, but who knows what will happen. Courts are ultimately stacked with people, too, and depending on who there'll be on the SCOTUS, for example, it's difficult to predict whether the constitution will actually be read correctly. Put another way, if the constitution says A, and the SCOTUS says "the constitution says A, but it really means B, not A", then that'd be a problem no matter what - it wouldn't be the end of the world (a different SCOTUS could overturn this later on, and grassroots efforts and political movements could create the necessary pressure for congressional action etc. as well), but it could still be a roadblock that might last a while.

Ah well, we'll see.

And yeah, I fully agree about group marriages as well; there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be possible for more than two people to marry. It'll be interesting to see how that'll play out.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Separation of church and state <3. I hope you're right.

The situation isn't ideal here in the UK yet... I want the right to have a "civil partnership" no matter the bio-sex of the person I wanted to wed! I don't want people to call it "marriage" just because my intended's got the wrong set of sex chromosomes! (Hypothetical intended, of course.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Of course it's sillier than that. They don't care about sex chromosomes, but only about physical genitalia. People who've had sex reassignment surgery are allowed to marry as the gender to which they've been surgically assigned. I believe that's now a protected right in all states here. And of course, those individuals are sterile, so any arguments that "marriage" is only about procreation and "family" are pure cow manure.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

So, in other words, it is possible for gays to marry if other goes trough a sex change?

I wonder if it can be reversed... That would circumvent the system completely and raise a lot of questions. :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Reversing a sex change operation would be a pretty disappointing process, I fear. But there's some precedent on that too. Where a heterosexual couple have been married, and then one of them undergoes sex reassignment, they remain legally married unless they get divorced. However, if one was male and one female, and then one of them got a sex change BEFORE trying to marry, they would be refused marriage in most states.

It's all very stupid and illogical.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Heh. I see there this proposition 8 makes very little sense.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Lavender curtain XD

Does it get foggy a lot there?
Fog is fairly rare around where I live so most people become very cautious, and considering all those blasted driving lights people have and don't need to have on when its clear, visibility is much improved :p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Fog is very frequent here in winter and spring, and gets quite dense. I think it's related to the number of lakes and river valleys and the dramatic temperature changes we get.

I hate those fog lights. People never use them when it's actually foggy, but they drive at night with all of them on and blind you as they approach. Morons.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to express my opinions on same sex marriage, about whether it is morally right or anything of that nature, but I just want to say a couple of things.

Your essential argument is difficult to debate because you are basically saying that universal gay marriage is inevitable which might be true. It's not a certainty but a strong possibility. I can tell you it will never happen in Islamic countries :P But in America, it might.

I personally do not believe in gay marriage, not just on religious or moral grounds but because the concept of gay marriage is in itself, a logical and existential absurdity. However, I will accept it as reality if, and only if, the people choose to accept and acknowledge it. If it is forced upon us by activist judges in direct violation to the will of the people, then that is an act of tyranny.

And I'm not sure where you get the idea that marriage being between a man and a woman is a religious definition of marriage. According to all recorded history in every culture up until the last 10 years or so, marriage has always been defined between two people (sometimes more than two people in the case of polygamy) of the opposite sex. Where has same sex marriage ever existed in history before?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Allow me to refer you to a significant research work by a historian with a doctoral degree and many pages of bibliographic references:

Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell

As with any such work, there has been controversy, but I think Boswell's research gives ample evidence.