Pursuing praxis

Since the government IS involved with marriage, it should grant marriage equally to all people, including use of the term ‘marriage.’ To call it by another name, even if legally identical, implies that something is different. And as far as the gov’t goes, nothing is different: marriage is a contractual agreement. So long as the people can enter into legal contracts, the law should be blind to sexual orientation, just as it is (now) blind to race, religion, age, class, ability to reproduce, etc. Two-hundred years ago, inter-racial marriages were anathema, and it was a woman’s duty to be a baby-making machine. These are historically-true facts that properly have no bearing on the relevant rights.

It should be optional for churches to recognize gay marriages socially and theologically (assuming church and state are kept separate). That doesn’t make it right or rational. So long as subscription to a religion is optional (thank god!), there’s nothing legally wrong with this arrangement. And it’s laws we are asked to vote on, not social mores.

If there is friction between married gays and their church, it is for them (gays, pastors, theologians) to sort out. But no person or group is entitled to deny equality before the law to anyone on the basis of sexual orientation (or a myriad other things). That is a primary purpose of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

It would also be wrong for gays to use the government to force churches to socially or theologically recognize their "kind" of marriage - because the government shouldn’t recognize different "kinds" of marriage at all. For the government (ideally) you’re either married, or you’re not. No person, gay or straight, is or should be legally entitled to be a welcomed member of any voluntary group.

It’s not the place of government (preemptively or by conscription) to adjudicate a dispute between gays and religion. But, thanks to the inherent tyranny of mob-rule democracy, Prop 8 un-blindfolded Madam Justice to cannonize one group’s social and theological views.

I’m so glad I’m not in Kenya right now. You think Obamamania is bad here? You ain’t seen nuthin’. Kenyans were gaga for Obama when I was there in early 2007. In Kenya, saying you don’t support Obama is like saying in the Vatican you don’t think Mother Teresa was all that great. If you fused the celebrity power of Britian’s royal family, Britany Spears (early, middle, and late periods), Oprah, and Michael Jordan (circa 1994), you’d just about have it.

He’s welcomed as a native Kenyan (better, actually), even though he’s not one. As far as I can tell, absolutely everyone adores him, even though his Kenyan blood is Luo, and it was primarily the Luo and Kikuyu tribes who hacked each other to bits over political matters earlier this year. He’s hailed as a savior for the African continent not because he grew up there, or is terribly familiar with it, but because he’s (half) black. That’s it.

They are riding his coat-tails of fame, pretty much unconcerned with what his positions and qualifications actually are. His rank as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States is all the qualifications they need to know. But any Democrat will tell you that the Republican nomination means diddly-squat these days, and any Republican will tell you the same about the Democratic nomination. So there. Everybody has completely skirted any real investigation, analysis, judgment or thinking about things at all.

We are swept away in the currents and undertoes of emotionalism - globally.

Ready for the roller-coaster? Hell, you’re already on it.