SCOTUS rules on marriage equality: Everyone write something!
The Supreme Court just struck down the bans on same-sex marriage and during this historic weekend there have been a lot of people sounding off. Why not? Whether your agree or disagree (or are indifferent, which is a large group, too) – it’s a BFD! This kind of major milestone inspires many people to write something or say something.
Most of what I see are “thumbs up” posts with positive messages for an outcome that most everyone saw as eventual inevitability (though perhaps not this soon). But not everyone, right?
The views from the heterosexual camp break down into 4 basic categories.
- I’m totally and completely on board with this and I have no reservations whatsoever. I can’t believe it hasn’t already been done. Marriage is a civil doctrine and two consenting adults from marrying is a civil violation. (I’m probably a Liberal).
- I don’t really worry about it much but I’m in favor of legalizing gay marriage. I think it’s an unnecessary rule and a civil rights violation. It makes no difference to me if a couple lives together with or without a marriage certificate. If I put myself in someone else’s shoes, if I or my child were gay, I would be for gay marriage. I don’t care if straight people do or don’t marry. This neither picks my pocket nor breaks my bones (Thomas Jefferson). A couple is going to make a commitment to each other anyway and it doesn’t really affect me. (I’m probably a Progressive).
- The whole gay thing is wrong and immoral and I don’t like it. I don’t want my kids around a lot of gay couples. But whether or not they are a gay couple without a marriage certificate or a gay couple with a marriage certificate makes no difference to me so I have no problem legalizing gay marriage. (I’m probably an Independent).
- Gay people are ruining everything for me and I am totally and completely against it. Jesus is against gay marriage and anyone who supports it will go to hell. 9 out of 10 Christian divorcees agree that homosexuality is destroying the sanctity of marriage. I will fight against it and I will refuse to acknowledge it. (I’m probably a Conservative).
If you’re in that last camp…I caution you to be careful what you write. Conservatives tend to be on the wrong side of history more often than not. You’re not going to change anything and there’s no upside to continuing to rant against gay people.
My advice, in this day of posting-permanence is to be mindful of what you say…especially if you’re on the wrong side of this one. On historic topics that people (like your grand-kids) might see, you might want to think before you write. Back when conservatives were ranting against de-segregation, every idiot didn’t have a social media account and a blog. If your grandparents were on the wrong side of de-segregation, you don’t see their remarks…typically just people like Strom Thurmond.
There are always conservatives who don’t want change. But before you post how upset you are, and how sure you are that Jesus should have mentioned this in his teachings, and how sure you are that this is the worst thing that’s ever happened…before you write, consider these conservatives cheering this guy on a few decades ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgH7WgtIU2k
From a corporate level, this is a list of companies tweeting about it this weekend: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/love-wins#.gu9MKdDaOJ
Edit: For detractors who are undoubtedly going to cite the Old Testament…We all know that you aren’t following everything written in the Old Testament so just skip the hypocrisy.
You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together. Deuteronomy 22:11
You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT
Nevertheless these you shall not eat . . . the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. Leviticus 11:4, 7
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them…they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Look in the mirror and acknowledge that you are picking and choosing the parts of the bible that you feel are “right” and you can follow only the ones you like.
If you get to decide which parts of the bible are wrong and that you can ignore, then logic dictates that other people also get to choose which parts of the bible are wrong and can be ignored – rendering your argument completely pointless.
Climate Change, Cosmos, Republicans
Just read an article – a great one – on Cosmos. The link is below.
Neil deGrasse Tyson v. the Right: Cosmos, Christians and the Battle for American Science – http://huff.to/1l3Nerk
This is a passage that struck me:
“The scientific consensus about global warming must be untrue, because, as Dr. Innes writes in Left, Right and Christ, the world is “not a glass ornament that we might accidentally destroy… we are not capable of destroying it, whether by nuclear weapons or carbon emissions.”
Just to clear something up:
The Earth itself will be fine. The Earth doesn’t care about its cities; it will keep spinning and orbiting. It’s the humans who are at risk. It’s our way of life that would suffer. The rocky planet will keep going…
Fearing Rising Backlash, NRA Urges Gun Activists to Stand Down | Mother Jones
The best way for fun control activists to get new laws is for the NRA supporters to keep holding open carry demonstrations. Society instantly reacted negatively. Local businesses immediately redacted to society. If it continues, local governments will also react to social demands.
I don’t have a problem with concealed carry. But if society keeps setting these rented inbred uneducated skids representing them, they are going to suffer.
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/nra-open-carry-guns-backlash-texas
Shared Article: Plan To Make Silicon Valley Own State Gets Green Light To Collect Votes
I like it, except for the Silicon Valley “super-state”. You shouldn’t just carve out one section for the wealthy. Is the goal is to improve the whole region, that doesn’t seem to meet the goal. That state would only have its own interest at heart, which would be to protect its wealth from others.
I’ve often wondered: what would the world look like without the Louisiana Purchase?
Thomas Jefferson had perhaps the greatest “stamp”on the world..from his role as Founding Father to his role as the first Secretary of State, to his Presidency.
Without the Louisiana Purchase, does that layer become its own country? Does the Southwest break from Mexico? Is there a “Plans Nation” like on Revolution? Is the Northwest is own country? California? And is DI, what are global politics like without the USA..if we were a little more decentralized? Would we have to have to work together mute…have more unity in our decisions with each other and with the world?
Canada Post reacts quicker than USPS
You can save stacks of cash by moving from home delivery to community mailboxes. Instead of the time and energy expended to go to each house, a carrier drives to community boxes holding 20 to 30 individual mailboxes. The residents then come to the little community box.
Our neighbors to the north have lost a couple of hundred million for a couple of quarters and they are working to fix it rather than doing nothing like our congress likes to do.
Canada Post, a government corporation, said it will replace foot delivery with community mail boxes.
The company’s core mail operations have been losing hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter for several quarters in a row. In the third quarter, Canada Post reported…a pre-tax loss of $102 million. The pre-tax loss in the comparable period a year ago was $136 million.
I highlight ‘hundreds of millions’ for ‘several quarters’ before we read this:
In fiscal 2013, it [USPS] had a $5 billion loss, ending in the red for the seventh year.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/canada-phase-out-home-postal-delivery-stem-losses-2D11728643
Going from door to door to community mailbox: It still takes tons of workers, tons of cars, tons of car maintenance, gas, hours, etc. So…if we move from 30-count mailboxes to 1,000-count mailboxes….how many less vehicles and employees are needed? Shouldn’t we move to larger ‘community’ mailboxes if we’re still losing money?
If the community mailbox was a store in the strip mall holding 1,000 mailboxes, how much could we save? What a boon to the businesses in the strip mall, too! Everyone that I know just checks mail once or twice a week anyway, because it’s 95% junk mail (pardon me…”direct mail”). What if the USPS leased/purchased a larger building, like an an Albertson’s or KMart…how much would we save? I’m suggesting the post goes back to the “old days” (like way old) where you go to the post office to get your crap. You go to a ‘Big Lots’ or ‘Staples’ type of place.
And the Post Office only needs to deliver a few times a week. If they delivered M-W-F or Tu-Th-Sa we’d all be content. To be honest, I’m not sure that we can’t deliver mail twice a week and keep everyone content. If your letter/package is so time-sensitive that it can’t wait a couple days…use a private company like DHL or FedEx. Put the mailboxes in strip mall shops or even larger locations and lower the cost. The USPS needs to quit trying to compete with home delivery services.
The converse side of this is that if it’s less convenient, it will result in less “Direct Mail” being funneled through the USPS which is a primary source of revenue – which then compounds the revenue problem. If we make it less convenient, the advertisers might use USPS less. They might cut down less trees, they might use less chemicals to convert it to waxy paper, they might use less chemicals to create ink and glue. We might use less gas to deliver tons of chemically-treated paper products to people who don’t want it and instantly throw it in the trash to go to a landfill. To that we say…who cares? If the economy is truly built on creating trash, then it’s destined to fail.
Former GOP Senator slams Republicans
Given the the charged question of how prevalent he believes sexism or racism are within the Republican Party, Weicker didn’t flinch.
“Oh, I think it clearly shows… it seems to me when I hear Republicans talking, I hear a lot of sexism, I hear a lot of racism,” Weicker said.
The sun is hot. The sky is blue. The GOP attracts racists and sexists. We know. But thanks for acknowledging it, Weicker.
That’s the first step to fixing it and fixing is what the Republicans need. As you said, they’ve moved really far to the right over the past two decades. I found my views and the Republican views separating about 20 years ago. It started with the environmental issues. Across the board, all Republicans are nearly always voting against environmental protections (or voting to reduce them). But they’ve also gone way (way) too far to the right on race, sex, and religion. It was too far right for me 20 years ago and they’re getting farther and farther away. How many 2008 Republican candidates for the Presidency reject evolution? If it’s greater than ‘zero’, it’s concerning that they weren’t weeded out. (It’s more than zero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Cc8t3Zd5E).
I know a fair amount of Tea Party fans who have medical conditions…and they’re quietly whispering that they want the Tea Party Republicans to shut the hell up because they’re thrilled about not being denied coverage. Talk about a vocal minority…it’s the Tea Party Republicans. And people like Palin, Bachmann, Huckabee, and Cruz are just taking it further and further to the right.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/lowell-weicker-gop_n_4171618.html
Bikers in NY: Deserving
Mieses, Cruz, and the other bikers cornering an SUV – and then complaining that they got hurt is like…
…a burglar complaining that a homeowner shot him.
…someone sticking their arm into a lion’s cage and complaining that they got bit.
…hyenas cornering an elephant and complaining they got trampled.
If a pedestrian tries to carjack a man in an SUV and then gets run over…that’s the fault of the car jacker. If a motorcycle gang threatens a man in his SUV and then some of the riders get run over…that’s the fault of the hyenas who decided to corner an elephant.
Do bad things, bad things happen. That’s the way it goes. I am not going to lose sleep over some idiots getting run over. No more sleep than an idiot getting their arm bitten off dangling it in front of a tiger. If you (Christopher Cruz) initiate an attack on something bigger and stronger than you and you get hurt in the process…tough shit.
And there were off duty police officers I this gang?? What chicken-shit police commissioner hasn’t already fired these guys?
These are adult bullies and nobody cares when a bully gets knocked down.
If you’re on a motorcycle, I keep extra distance to keep you safe….because you are on a motorcycle and it’s REALLY dangerous for you amongst cars (especially SUVs).
If you start thinking motorcycles make you invincible when you get around 20 friends…you are an idiot. I know that even idiots deserve compassion…but it’s hard.
Mieses’ family members need someone to blame? Mieses shouldn’t have tried to corner and threaten an SUV driver (who didn’t have the luxury of having 25 friends with him).
My fourth grade teacher once warned me: “Don’t news with the bull, boy, or you’ll get the horns.”
Shutdown…it’s all been said?
So everyone’s talking about the shutdown and everything’s already been said. Still, I feel like just adding my two cents to everyone else’s two cents.
In 2008, Barack Obama ran for president saying he would attempt to implement a healthcare system that required people to insure their kids, required insurance companies to provide insurance coverage despite the discovery of a condition, require businesses of a certain size to offer a plan, etc. And he was elected.
The House passed the law. The Senate passed the law.
Obama ran for president again, this time against a man who’s primary platform was that he would take down Obamacare. And Obama won by 5 million votes.
The Supreme Court affirmed the law is Consitutional.
EVERY branch of government has weighed in on this.
The voters have weighed in on this. Twice.
The Republicans are getting jerked around by a couple of 1st year politicians.
Kenya vs Syria
40 killed and 150 injured in an attack by Islamist terrorists on a mall in Kenya. Is there any talk about the US invading Kenya? Nope – get some oil, Kenya.
And if we are (contemplating) invading Syria as part of some moral “we must protect humanity” action, then I’d like to see the plans to invade the dozen or so African countries where citizens live in fear, just like Syria.
There are no such plans, are there Mr. Obama? So quit selling ‘humanitarian’.
Surely you’re not going to sell us “imminent threat”.
This is a job for NATO and NATO alone. We can commit our troops to NATO, but we do not need to spend hundreds of millions on Syrian attacks.
To everyone on the planet: The further you keep your religion from your politics, the safer you are. Ask the Kenyans, the Syrians, the Pakis, Afghans, the Iraqis. Then ask the British, the Norwegians, Swedish, the Dutch, the Canadians, the Americans.
Freedom IS separation of Church and State.
Blue Goose
Ugh – ate at the Blue Goose today. Food tasted good, but…I asked for hot sauce and the busboy brought out a ramekin of “made on request” salsa with fresh jalapenos and stuff. It was OK – not terribly spicy but at least a little hotter than their regular salsa. 6 hours later…my innards are not doing well. I hope they didn’t get me sick…but I’m nervous. That’s the only thing I’ve had today besides a yogurt I had at 7:30 this morning… No more fresh jalapenos….
Go Earth! 