Gay Marriage Was Decided 197 years ago:Get Over It

**UPDATED: Please forgive my horrible mis-citation. Madison wrote Federalist Papers, not Jefferson. Duh.**

I'm sick and tired of gay marriage being a key issue in politics. Get over it, people!

As a preamble, I feel the need to warn you: I refuse to get into debates about the values and/or downfalls of any one religion. I realize that in discussing morals and base values the line between politics and religion can be blurred. Although I do personally find the religious right offensive, abrasive, and sometimes just plain stupid -- I appreciate the value of faith, and would never attack an individual on the basis of their beliefs. You would think that a faction so often berated for their beliefs would not attack others simply because of their love life. Since when are we a nation of Evangelists?

On that note, a law based solely on religious beliefs would be entirely unconstitutional. Have we forgotten about separation of church and state? Apparently we have. Check out our coinage, our Pledge of Allegiance, the mottos plastered all over federal buildings. I'm sick of it.

Some argue that the words "separation of church and state" never appear in the Constitution, and so there need be no concern over religious rule of law. Alright. How about the 1st amendment?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." It was the foremost concern of our founding fathers -- many of whom (religious themselves) came to the New World to escape intolerance perpetrated by ruling religion elsewhere.

If that's not enough, some may argue that the Constitution does not protect sexual rights. Well...

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" (Amendment IX)

How about the big one?

"...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priveleges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws..." (Amendment XIV, Section 1)

I'd like to point out that any ban appearing in a constitutional amendment would be unprecedented and untrue to the original spirit of the document. The Constitution and joined Bill of Rights are intended to protect the civil liberties of the people from institutionalized oppression, not to prohibit so called undesired behavior by individuals. As shown in the Federalist Papers (a series of 85 essays by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay -- designed to grow the support base for the Constitution during the failure of the Articles of Federation) [see www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/], the major goal of the founding fathers was to protect the people from the people, and thus the tyranny inherent in big government. America has been a haven for systematic intolerence only in our worst hours. Why should we revert to the days of segregation and the destruction of civil rights based only upon arbitrary categorical labels?!

If you believe that "it is wrong to be gay," then don't be gay! How is gay marriage hurting the country? If single parents can raise functioning productive citizens, then so can LGBTQ couples. Why is family planning a governmental issue anyway? Laws against murder for example, are devised because the act directly threatens the people. What is the threat of two people in love, who only want an official outlet for it?

I will not even justify the argument that individuals choose to be gay with a counter-argument. I merely ask: Do you choose to be straight? Hypothetically, do you think you would suddenly be aroused by members of the same sex if you chose to be gay?

I've heard people say that "if gay marriage is allowed, polygamy will be next!" This is simply hogwash. First off, I'm not sure how I feel about the intolerance of polygamy. But more importantly, our currently adopted policies concerning marriage are very specifically written for unions of two people. The laws can be immediately put into effect for gay marriage without any changes to policy whatsoever. Multiple marriage (MM- a term which is more PC than polygamy as that only applies to men with many wives and not vice versa), cannot be injected into our system. That would require multitudinous amendments and retractions to current policy, which would most likely take at least a decade to accomplish.

Furthermore, do not permit those who would ban gay marriage to call themselves "conservative."  Conservatism is based on the belief that the government has absolutely no business butting into the people's personal lives. By calling themselves conservative, these haters (for lack of a better modern phrase) are merely trying to trick the public -- most of whom pull the lever for their party members without knowing the issues.

Not too long ago it was illegal for inter-racial couples to marry. I'm sure that there are still people in this country who disagree with that act. I'm also sure that their protest is strongly founded in faith. Does this mean we should ban racial integration again? I thought we've gone over all of this... SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, a ban on gay marriage would be in DIRECT violation of the 14th amendment. By being married, straight couples receive many benefits financially and legally. I don't feel like listing them, so look it up if you don't take my word for it. "Equal protection" as named in the 14th amendment applies to all priveleges and rights allotted to the people. If one receives them, all must receive them. This country was founded on the belief that all political factions should be feared, monitered closely, and protected, whether in the majority OR minority. I've taken this directly from a Madison Federalist Paper (#51 if my memory serves me correctly).

Marriage should not be a legal institution. Let any two people be joined in a civil union, with equal priveleges given to all regardless of color, sex, age (as long as consenting), or any mixture thereof. If a couple wishes to have a ceremony outside of City Hall, let them use whatever place of worship that will have them.

So STFU already.

Did I miss anything?

Now *this* is Intelligent Design

It's been a helluva long time since man started walking upright. It's high time for the next phase in our evolution. Snapped from a NYC biking vid called "Rumble 4". Biking as exercise, recreation, as a key (not "alternative"!!!) method of transportation, as a sport, and as an extreme sport ... is going to become a regular topic on inkback.

F.C.

We've doubled our writing staff today.

Friendly Combatant is an individual of strong opinions and unique perspective, with whom I've corresponded enough that I finally invited them* to post to inkback. F.C. has their* own reasons, I suppose, for wanting to remain completely anonymous. I cannot tell you who F.C. is because I don't know!

This will be fun ...

* No, I am not illiterate. I choose to use plural pronouns rather than "him or her" kind of constructions. For more on this, read Wif, Wer, They, Their (link in sidebar).

Quote of the Day

"I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty."
-- William F. Buckley

TAH! to Maureen Dowd.

Zen Mastery Pills, No Need To Practice

This ad seen on my Facebook page just now so perfectly illustrates how far The Western Mind is from grasping what "zen" is about. Maybe it's just me, but I laughed outloud when I saw this:

Zen Meditatation [sic]
"You told me I'd meditate like a Zen monk, literally at the touch of a button, and it's true! This is like meditation on steriods!"

This is like those herbal diet pills that make you lose weight without exercising, and you can eat anything you want, except worse because the whole point of Zen meditation is the *practice*, not *mastery as a ring to grab*. The linked-to site in case you feel the perverse desire to read this tragicomic scam.

thanks for serving your country, now FRY

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/middleeast/04electrocute.html

10 Things I Hate About You McCain

MoveOn.org has published 10 well-sourced facts everyone ought to know about McCain. This includes *you*, Hillary Lover Who Contemplates Voting For McCain Out Of A Sense Of Being Cheated.

You are never alone ...

From the New York Times Science section:

The crook of your elbow is not just a plain patch of skin. It is a piece of highly coveted real estate, a special ecosystem, a bountiful home to no fewer than six tribes of bacteria. Even after you have washed the skin clean, there are still one million bacteria in every square centimeter.

read the article ...

another day another dime dropped

A startling sign of how bad the economy is -- according to the New York Times folks anxious for money to pay the bills and buy baby formula have begun breaking the oldest code in the 'hood: "Crimestoppers" tips are pouring in at record numbers.

This seems a measure of economic desperation beyond anything I've yet heard of in my 5 decades walking the planet.

Bob Wails on Hillary the Divider

Bob Herbert on Hillary's comments to USA Today:

The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.

Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd.

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Mrs. Clinton.

There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.

He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!

Read the rest of Bob's point-blank rant ...

Good luck in W. Va., Barack!

Because you'll need it. This was the state, after all, where (speaking of Voting While Ignorant) many folks believed that the Dems wanted to ban the Bible.

If you don't vote, don't complain; If you're not informed, don't vote!!

It's not about whether voters are college educated or are any particular color. The media have the love of exit polls all wrong.

It's about folks who rely upon hearsay rumors to make the most important decision an American citizen is called upon to make: which lever to pull (or touchscreen button to push -- here in NYC we still have voting machines from the '50s with rows of levers).

It's about folks who do not understand or care about what it takes to keep oneself well-informed, to dig deeper than viral videos and fleeting sound bytes. It's about folks who believe unsourced (or falsely sourced) "forward to everyone you know" emails claiming that a particular candidate is Muslim, or that they voted for/against some piece of legislation, or that they said Kim Jong Il is their hero.

It's about those whose knowledge of what America is really about, and whose memory (if they ever bothered to read) of what the Declaration and Constitution actually say, is so pitifully wrong that they believe the United States was set up as a Straight Christian White nation and that anyone who is not a Straight Christian White person is probably not Patriotic, and is definitely not qualified to represent "us". The ones who think that being any particular religion, or none, ought to disqualify anyone from serving in the U.S. government.

The ones who thought, after hearing Dubya repeat ad nauseum the "9/11" mantra when selling his daddy's used War in Iraq to the nation, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the attack. (The percentage of Americans who swallowed the hook, the line, the sinker, was staggering.)

The ones who re-elected George H. W.'s Mini-Me in '04 because they really thought he had been acting to make us safer, and that Wiffle-Waffle Kerry had no interest in protecting us.

Indeed the media leaves so many of these mendacities unchallenged or under-exposed, so we can point some of blame for the Mass Stupidity Factor at the networks and other news outlets. But there are also many men, of whatever educational level and whatever color, who go the extra mile to seek multiple sources of news, there are also many who simply click Delete and feel slightly disgusted when they receive an email claiming that Candidate X is a neo-Nazi or a Muslim or Squeezes The Toothpaste In The Middle.

I submit that the folks who vote based on beliefs and rumors spoon-fed to them in spurious emails, in news bytes that would not overtax the attention span of a flea, and in politicians' speeches and press conferences ... should be required to take a Voter IQ Polling Place Entrance Interview (IQ for Informed and therefore Qualified). If you think Obama is a Muslim (or if you think that, even if he were, this automatically makes him an undesireable candidate unfit to lead your country) or that he was sworn in with his hand on the Koran, you just disqualified yourself. Go home, and invest some actual time and thought and care into this process. You can try to pass the test again in 2 years ... meanwhile you're on probation for Voting While Ignorant.

McCain on the Lower 9th

from Newsweek, what McCain said after his photo-op tour of New Orleans:

Asked earlier this week if he thought the Lower Ninth Ward should be rebuilt, McCain shrugged, considering the question for several seconds. "I really don't know," he finally said. "That's why I am going … We need to go back to have a conversation about what to do: rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is."

Sheeesh.

Being tHere Now

Andrew Sullivan on whether to photograph or not photograph an experience:

... why is remembering an event the key to experiencing it fully? Sometimes, being there, without mediation, without worrying about whether one day it will be forgotten, just being there is what matters. Life is now; and when we obsess about storing it for the future, we forget to experience it in the only way we truly can: in the present.

Amen! I love taking and looking at photos, mind you, but love even more simply having experiences that I am not attempting simultaneously to document. Either you have the experience, OR you document it through a "how will this look on paper?" lens.

When you die, you can't take your photo -- or anything you can see or think you "have" -- along with you. We have nothing. Including other people, even our own children. But when I watched my mother die it became clear, it is exactly our experience that does continue, on both sides of the veil.

Hillary's Pasty "Electability"

Richard Kim in The Nation:

... in the name of another personal quality--honesty--I'd like Hillary Clinton to make the following statement: "Though my opponent has run a terrific campaign, in primary after primary, I have proven that I am the more electable candidate. I am more electable because I am white. Barack Obama--Wow!--he's certainly inspired a lot of hope, but as voters in Indiana and North Carolina make up their minds, as the superdelegates make up their minds, they should remember that Barack Obama is black. They should also remember that a whole lot of white working-class Americans are racists. White racists are an important part of the Democratic Party, and time and time again, they've supported me because I am white. I am ready on day one to govern as your white American president."

If this sounds--excuse the pun--beyond the pale, it's because it is. Or at least, it should be. But the alleged racism of white working-class voters has become, through her campaign's own actions, the last remaining rationale for Clinton's candidacy.

Jeremiah Wrong

Bob Herbert in the New York Times:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him.

Smiling, cracking corny jokes, mugging it up for the big-time news media — this reverend is never going away. He’s found himself a national platform, and he’s loving it.

It’s a twofer. Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He’s living a narcissist’s dream. At long last, his 15 minutes have arrived.

continue reading the article ...

Obama Play Hoops

Can't wait to see that court installed on the White House Lawn!

And he's not the only one

In today's NY Times:

In interviews with several associates and aides, Mr. Obama was described as bored with the campaign against Mrs. Clinton and eager to move into the general election against Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Anyone out there not bored by the way Clinton has been forcing herself on us as being at the center of Obama's set of concerns?

Who let the dogs in?

To this day I have in my files a copy of the front page of the New York Times from 1984, with a photo of Presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale and his choice for Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro raising their clasped hands in an upside-down V. Of course their hopes for victory were doomed, as perhaps foreshadowed by the gesture.

Irrespective of their failure to foil Ronald Reagan's re-election, I will never forget, as a girl who came to political consciousness during the late '60s and early '70s, the feeling of joy and hope that literally swelled my chest to almost bursting with pride that a wif was on the ballot. I was so grateful (and still am) to the wifs a half-generation before me, who took put their marriages, careers, and futures on the line in their quest to bust up the lingering 1950s concepts of what it means to be female, and who had such a strong impact on my own road to self-liberation from all those restricting and oppressive preconceptions of wifhood.

One would expect, then, that I might be passionately backing Hillary Clinton in her bid for the Presidency. NOT! Hillary is chalk squeaking across the political board. Hillary is riding around on her husband's coattails and claims 35 years of experience whereas the extent of her service is merely 1.7 terms as a carpetbagging Senator. Hillary can't figure out who she really is and instead strings together an odd assortment of personnae. (The difference between Hillary and Bill, and one department in which she is far superior to her wer, is that generally speaking she has nearly perfect -- actually, scary -- control over which personna to use under what circumstances; whereas Bill's behavior seems fairly out of control lately.)

Apart from my distate for her personality, and some differences I have with the policies she is laying out ... my biggest fear if Hillary is nominated and elected is that she will need to maintain her cool and make rational decisions while sitting, most of the time, in the Oval Office -- the room where Bill used his cigar on Monica. I imagine that always present somewhere in her consciousness will be that lovely image and remembrance of all the pain and shame that ensued. On the other hand, if Hillary can compartmentalize the present from the past so thoroughly that the Memory of Monica is truly not present anywhere in her psyche while she fulfills her duties as President of the United States ... well, then, she scares me more than ever.

You are reading my baby

I dreamt a few nights ago that I had another baby and was lovingly nursing it. The good part of the dream was that my breasts were replenished to the glory of their youthful state. The excellent part of the dream was that the baby had no particular gender, not even a face, really, it was a blank slate and as I nurtured it my train of thought was all about all the things I want to do (now, in the rapidly-depleting-youth stage of my life).

So. Welcome to (one aspect of) my baby.