It's All Andrew's Fault

Andrew linked an article about gay marriage to me, so the entirety of this post, including the motivation, is clearly all his fault. He's wholly responsible and should be, obviously, destroyed.

The article he linked me was this one and it got me thinking about just what the hell anyone ought to do about the whole thing.

Now, I've got an idea that wouldn't work: make marriage available to any combination of two human beings (man/man, woman/woman, man/woman, or any other transgender fun you can imagine). It wouldn't work, obvs.com, because people would just lose it over such a liberalization of something so sacred [sic] and wonderful [sic] as marriage, something that's timeless [sic] and totally great [sic] and has always [sic] led to great [sic] and wondrous [sic] joy [sic].

Andrew's article discussed an idea by two lawyers on opposite sides of the California mess arguing that marriage should not be governed by the government, only by the churches. What they would like to see (really just to compromise and bring an end to the whole thing) is the government grant civil unions to anyone and then allow whatever religious organizations out there that have the desire to grant any kind of supplementary title like "marriage."

But why sacrifice the word "marriage?" I think that would just piss everyone off even more. And it seems a little strange to more or less guarantee that marriage is then a religious thing. A lot of people, religious and otherwise, would be pretty upset about that inevitable label.

I say we just try to force through my original plan: making marriage available to any combination of two human beings. It would take money, time, and a fair amount of violence, but hey, what are things like equality and justice for if not to fight and die for?

This always makes me wonder about bigamy. Is it really a bad thing? Andrew, Philippi, Fillman, and I had a chat about this a few weeks ago and I think the general conclusion we came to (at least I think it was "we"; it might have just been me, I guess) is still significant: that the follies of marrying multiple people are the result of the person and not the situation. That is, the reason so many bigamist marriages are fucked up and evil and wives get beat up or abused or not taken care of is because people are messed up, not the marriage itself.

And really is there is anything different that occurs in a bigamist marriage not in a regular ole' man/woman marriage? Surely domestic violence happens in both and surely bad shit in general happens in both. It may be that more bad shit happens with bigamist marriages, but that's probably due to the type of people that try to live bigamously, which is illegal. I can't imagine all men and women who want to marry multiple people are awful, turrrble, and just all-around shitty human beings.

It's worth a thought, I suppose.

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Thoughts and Things About Tolerance and Stuff

(Due to the stream of consciousness nature of this post, I’ve left it unedited. So ideas and things that don’t make sense and that don’t fit together are probably side by side. But it’s how I was thinking at the moment. So the second idea might supersede the first, though I may not have made that clear. Have fun, kids.)

There’s a prevailing idea that we should be tolerant of other people’s beliefs and ideas. There’s another idea that says that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’ve been wondering lately if maybe both of these statements are incorrect, or at least misguided. Of course, these are just thoughts and do not necessarily reflect any definitive position on my part. I have to include that statement, otherwise I’ll be quoted as believing something I might not believe. These are thoughts, wanderings, musings, and should be treated as such. If I solidify my position on anything that follows, I’ll be sure to send out postcards letting everyone know. (har har)

It’s usually assumed that we should be tolerant of what other people think and that we should be tolerant of someone else’s opinion, even if we think it sucks. But I’ve been thinking about racism and discrimination: should we tolerate racist beliefs? Should we allow someone to perpetually hold that one group of people is inferior to another and thus deserves less attention legislatively (or whatever)? The standard response is to say that they can hold those beliefs but that their practices should be voted down by ‘the people.’ Well, why even let them hold the beliefs? If our society takes a hard stand on certain issues, such as racism, then why should we ‘let’ people hold beliefs that go against those positions? I think we can agree that the Civil Rights Act of ’64 and the Voting Rights Act of ’65 will not and should not be overturned, so why should be let people think differently? Shouldn’t they be punished or ostracized?

What is the difference between being a racist and institutionalizing racism? The difference, it seems, is the scale of effect. In the first instance, only those in the immediate vicinity are affected, but in the second, whole towns, cities, and states are affected. So should we discriminate between objects of which we are tolerant? We are being legislatively intolerant but socially tolerant. If we are going to be intolerant of legislative discrimination, shouldn’t we be intolerant of social discrimination? It seems a person should be penalized when they act in a racist manner.

I’m really not sure on any of this. The original thought stems from an ongoing discussion I’ve been having with my brother about a friend of his. The general discussion concerns marriage (whoa!) and his friend voting for Proposition 102. Jon and I have been trying to rationalize why he voted for the proposition, and other things, and we came to a place where I started thinking about being tolerant of thoughts but not laws.

This friend of Jon’s voted for Prop 102 for a number of reasons. One reason was that a school in Massachusetts apparently sent home a “diversity backpack” that included a number of children’s books that were meant to introduce children to different races, different cultures, and different ‘lifestyles’ (one book involved a child’s life growing up two fathers). Jon’s friend was afraid that if Prop 102 passed, his child might be introduced to things he either a) didn’t want his son to know about or b) he wanted to first teach his child about.

I can see his reaction, to an extent. I suppose it would seem natural to want to teach my child about something like homosexuality, sex, and so on. But then I started thinking: why? Why should I feel the need to be the first to let my kid know about vaginas, black people, and men kissing men? If I feel the schools are doing an adequate (for argument’s sake) job of teaching my kid history, math, and so on, why should I do the job myself on other issues? But this is an issue I’m not entirely certain on, so I’ll let it go.

Another thing is that I think our schools need to teach tolerance, aggressively. A lot of parents don’t want their children to know about this or that and so they fight the school until they school drops the issue. And then their children grow up hating non-whites, Jews, gays, and so on. Why should be let this continue in our society? It only seems natural that people grow up and start voting down equality if no one is educating them properly.

So why should we let Johnny Smith go through school without learning tolerance for other cultures, other ideas, other lifestyles? I think Jon’s friend’s kid should be taught these things in school, otherwise, he’s a longshot to grow up tolerant and egalitarian-minded. He’ll grow up just like his dad, voting away the rights of his fellow humans.

The other focal reason as to why his friend voted for Prop 102 was that he himself didn’t believe in homosexuality or marriages between them, and he didn’t want his kid to believe so either. It stems from his belief in the Mormon Church; he is, as is the lingo nowadays, LDS. This is what brought me to this notion of social tolerance of what our laws deem to be bad ideas. I think this man is very backwards in this thinking and that his judgment is clouded. Moreover, his beliefs appear irrational to me. But the standard operating procedure is to be tolerant socially and then vote down his ideas in the legislative arena.

I find a problem with this, however. To me, the issue of marriage and homosexuality is one of equality, and if ‘the people’ don’t vote ‘correctly,’ then inequality is being encouraged and augmented in an apparently free state. So what happens here? What happens when a majority of the electorate thinks along non-egalitarian lines? Can we have a society that works on equality? I think not. And so that’s where I get this idea of being socially intolerant of bad ideas.

This, of course, brings up the issue of what’s bad/good/etc. and whether or not each person should be entitled to live in an area that fits his belief system. That’s all nice and everything, but I sure as hell ain’t moving so some discriminatory Mormon can have all the land. But then again, why should he move? And there’s the problem: who moves? Who leaves and forms a separate state? I think he’s an idiot, he thinks I’m a sinner: and who’s right?

Well, obviously, I am.

This has been a lot of rambling and wandering. Somewhere in there I may have formed a loose connective of rational thought. If that’s the case, awesome. If not, have fun trying to fit something together.

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You

Your Creator told you to love. Your Savior told you to love. Your book, your beliefs, your worldviews – they all tell you to love. So why don’t you love?

You are greedy. You want love all to yourself. You want to love who you want to love and enforce legislation that disallows others the same luxury.

You are a bastard.

You are treason to your Book, treason to your God, treason to your Savior.

You are treason to the Love you so dearly profess.

Universal Love does not consist in keeping others from marrying whomever they choose. Universal Love consists in loving – and that’s it.

So you are a bastard, a horrible piece of garbage disguised as something better. You should be ashamed, but it is impossible, because to know shame is to be human. And you are not human. You are less than human. You are garbage.

Go through your Book and tell me where Universal Love requires hate. Go through your Book and tell me where Universal Love requires discrimination, the augmentation of inequality, the complete dissolution of the egalitarian spirit your Savior taught you to embrace.

Your arguments, your reasoning, and your “logic” all fail. Time and again, your “rational” theses about homosexual marriage stand inert in the face of true, rational thought. They stand inert in the face of Universal Love.

So you are a bastard, a horrible piece of garbage disguised as something better. Return to the woods and live like the animal you truly are.

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There Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus

So today on campus, at the busiest intersection in terms of both foot traffic and cars (and such), a Catholic Organization (which apparently inhabits a nearby building) decided to protest gay marriage. They came armed with multiple signs, poles to hang them twelve feet int he air, pamphlets...and a bagpiper! Needless to say, for many reasons, I was excited. Any time people gather to protest something, and are so prepared, they deserve attention. I gave them some of mine.

As a preface, I want to say that people are allowed to hold whatever position they want on a given issue. My dissatisfaction stems, in most cases, from a lack of consistency in a person's beliefs. That's usually the point at which I get upset. So, in the future, all I ask, Catholic organization, is that you be consistent in your beliefs.

I first approached the nearest member; he was an older gentleman, with a kindly disposition. I calmly asked him what he found so unattractive about equality.

...

He apparently felt the need to ignore me. After this initial foray, the herd could smell danger; they knew there was a lion in their midst.

I then asked the young guy handing out pamphlets and saying something about Jesus if he felt Jesus was an egalitarian. He asked what "egalitarian" meant, and after explaining that it had a bit to do with equality, he said, yes, Jesus would have been an egalitarian. I then proceeded to ask if Jesus would have supported taking away rights from citizens. He turned away and began handing pamphlets to someone else.

Hmmm. I wasn't getting anywhere. Well, might as well head for the bagpiper; I love bagpipes.

Now, my love for bagpipes is rather strong. And the bagpipe is an instrument that requires precision, exactness, and perfection that is beyond the capabilities of most mortals. For purity's sake, I'll simply give an exact transcript of our conversation. No joke; this word-for-word:

"Hey, man, you blow pretty good, but your pipes are a little out."
"Yeah? Yeah? They're out of tune? Really?" (he was rather defensive)
"Yeah, brother, they're a little off."
"Really. Flat or sharp? Huh? Which one?"
"Flat, man."
"Oh yeah? Do I push in or pull out?"
"Why would you pull out? That would make it worse. Push in, dude."

Then he turned away and refused to say more. I imagine his musicality quiz didn't exaclty turn out the way he envisioned. I suppose he didn't expect an adept musician to give him tuning advice. I wanted to tell him, a bit more forcefully, that he clearly had a deficiency in pitch perception, but I don't think that would have solved anything.

At this point, I was getting blacklisted by everyone, so my conversations were going unheeded. Flag waving and sign holding are apparently taxing activities.

Also, I suspect that none of them share my egalitarian attitude. Come to think of it, I don't think any of them share Jesus' egalitarian attitude, either.

This brings me to the crux of what I see as the misunderstanding between those who support gay marriage and those who do not: the issue is strictly about equality and beliefs concerning the rightness or wrongness of the act are irrelevant. If the lack of gay marriage fosters inequality in the state, then clearly there is a problem with the state. But for some reason, the conversation seems to center on the deontological nature of gay marriage.

It seems a rather easy issue to deal with: what fosters equality is permissible in the state and mandatory; and what fosters inequality must be reevaluated and, most likely, terminated.

So what's the big deal? Why do I get blacklisted for asking simple questions to people who put themselves in public situations in the desire that they will be examined and questioned? It's pretty awful.

Oh, and I guarantee Andrew says something about how I'm beating up on stupid people.

Thanks Andrew. :)

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