Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Did you hear something?"
¤ Usage: *cats crash through the room engaged in noisy mortal combat*
Flux: "Did you hear something?"
Malaya: "Nope."
¤ Synonyms: N/A
¤ Notes: This one is a little game Malaya and I play where in one of the cats makes a loud or pathetic noise, and I ask if she heard it, and she says no.  Dusty used to be the cause of this, with his frequently yowling or noisy/clumsy TV-mounting attempts, but now that we have two cats who frequently chase each other around and make a lot of noise doing it, the saying is more all purpose.

Over the months it's become ritualized to the point that any time we hear any loud, interrupting noise, at home or elsewhere, I can say, "Did you..." and she'll immediately reply, "Nope." -- January 14, 2004

So emails and such tomorrow, and some quick news items here.

¤ If you've been idly following the "Dubya went AWOL" story for a while, but never really grasped what it's about or the exact details of it, check out this post, and the two others linked to from it, by CalPundit.  The whole thing is really heating up, as more and more evidence comes to light and we get a clearer picture of just how much of his duty in the national guard Dubya skipped out on (at least 8 months, possibly more like two years), why he skipped it (just never showed up or else refused to take a physical since it included a drug test that would have busted him back in his cocaine days), how much favoritism he received in being promoted and put into flight school (tons, given his very low entrance scores and lack of seniority), and why he wasn't sent to Vietnam as an active duty soldier after he skipped out on his assigned National Guard duty (unclearly exactly, but the CalPundit post is the best info on it yet).

That's a very long sentence, but read this if you want to know more about the issue; there's world breaking news in it.  Seriously.

¤ The Rotten.com-esque two-headed baby girl died during surgery to try and remove her second head.  I glanced at the news articles and photos, but didn't read them too closely, or blog about it, since it was just too freaky. For some reason, there's yet another weirdly-conjoined twin in the news about every other week now, and we've moved far beyond the old days of "joined at the hip" or "sharing a liver" connections.  Now every kid has half their unborn, undeveloped brother's head in their left ass cheek, or they share a spinal cord, or something else downright freakish.

This girl was a sort of half-ogre, with another human head joined to hers, with part of a brain, but they were joined in about the least attractive way possible; at the top of the skull, facing in opposite directions.  So you've got the one normal human child, with about half the head and face of another person on top of her head, upside down, facing in the other direction.  I don't know if it was potentially fatal to her to just leave it alone, or if it would have caused her to have a brain hemorrhage or it would have died and she'd have gotten necrosis or what, but I don't think anyone could envision her living a normal life with that thing on top of her skull. At least not unless really big hats suddenly came back into style.  Plus they were probably afraid that it would come to life and start staring at other people or flapping its toothless mouth or something.

In an effort to be more thought-provoking and less cheap shotting, take a look at that picture.  I'm pretty inured to grossness, and yet I find it uncomfortable to look at, to the point that I've cropped and reduced it in size quite a bit from even the version on Yahoo. Maybe it's just me, but this picture creeps me out and I'd rather not see it, or other medical disaster photos.  Yet this, and bloody photos of war dead, bomb casualties, murder victims, etc are considered perfectly fine to post in the newspaper, magazines, or on major Internet news sites.  All places you can never find a photo of a naked human body, or even the shapely, interesting-ornamented boobie of a formerly popular female pop vocalist.

Can anyone explain why?  What sort of person would rather see this, or have their children see this, than the partially-nude breast of an attractive female? Why are people so fucked up about sexuality, or even just minor partial nudity in the US?  It disturbs and depresses me.

¤ People like myself, who have come to a place in their personal development and growth that they no longer require any sort of religion or faith to make sense of the world tend to think that everyone else is traveling a similar path to the one we traveled, and that it's only a matter of time until most everyone in the civilized/modern world is standing in our shoes.  In other words, atheists like myself have trouble understanding why anyone who isn't very old, or uneducated, still believes in all that medieval superstitious stuff. And we think that since we got past it and reached an understanding of how the universe really is, that everyone else should also, if not right now then within the next year or two.

And yes, I realize that most every atheist on earth has thought this since about 1742.

That sort of blind, faith-like belief (ironic, isn't it?) lives on despite all evidence to the contrary, especially in the United States, which is about the the only really religious Western nation left on earth.  Evidence such as this:

NEW YORK - An American Airlines pilot asked Christians on his flight to identify themselves and suggested the non-Christians discuss the faith with them, the airline said.

American's Flight 34 was headed from Los Angeles to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on Friday when the pilot asked Christians on board to raise their hands, Wagner said. The pilot, whose name was not released, told the airline that he then suggested the other passengers use the flight time to talk to the Christians about their faith, Wagner said.

Passenger Amanda Nelligan told WCBS-TV of New York that the pilot called non-Christians "crazy" and that his comments "felt like a threat." She said she and several others aboard were so worried they tried to call relatives on their cell phones before flight attendants assured them they were safe and that people on the ground had been notified about the pilot's comments.

The pilot also told passengers he would be available for discussion at the end of the flight. Wagner said the pilot had just returned to work from a weeklong mission trip to Costa Rica.

Or this:

BOSTON - Boisterous opponents of same-sex marriage sang, cheered and chanted Sunday at a rally to build support for a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

The demonstration on the Boston Common, a short distance from the Massachusetts Statehouse, broke out into chants of "Let the people vote!" while demonstrators held aloft banners with phrases such as "Marriage, ancient, sacred," and "Repent or perish." Police estimated the crowd at 2,000 people.

Demonstrator Ed Zicko, 69, acknowledged that gay marriage could become the law before residents in the state have a chance to vote on it. "We'll just have to wait for that time to vote, unless they find some way to delay it, which I hope they can," Zicko said. He said he came to the rally because marriage is a tradition going back thousands of years and "I think people should have the opportunity to vote on it."

Not that there's anything exactly atheist vs. religious in the Gay Marriage issue, but as far as I know all opposition to it is from religious people who don't like homosexuality in general, and are making a stand on this one particular issue, since they can do it about marriage without being all that openly homophobic.  The code words are pretty clear, I mean anyone how says male/female is the only way for marriage to be and says that it's "sacred" or "tradition" or whatever is obviously channeling the Christian interpretation of the Bible.

More on this below, in the whole gay marriage discussion.

Prompted by all of the recent news about it in the US, mostly propelled by the conservatives who are agitating for an anti-gay marriage amendment to be added to the US Constitution, here's my take on the subject.

Personally, I don't see any problem with it.  Marriage or Civil Union, whatever.  People do better in long term monogamous relationships, are better parents, stick together and have happier lives, etc.  Plus they've got more purchasing power, they get financial boosts in terms of tax breaks and hospital visiting privileges, health insurance benefits from one or the other's job, and so on. I'm actually not that big a booster of gay marriage, since I don't have a very high opinion of marriage.  So many people get married and keep on cheating, don't respect or really love each other, just stay together since a divorce would be expensive, etc.  Why subject gays to that sort of bullshit? True, some people really see it as a sacred (in the non-Biblical sense) institution and respect it and take it very seriously, but for all of them there are plenty of others who use it as a convenience, who cheat, who get married and divorced at the drop of a hat, and so on.

For me, so long as a civil union confered the same benefits in terms of tax breaks, health care coverage, right to not testify against your mate, etc, I don't see any real difference between that and a marriage, other than purely symbolic one. But of course it's precisely that symbolism and romance that straights now have that what gays want (and straights want to keep), since they're being unfairly and arbitrarily denied it now. And I can see their point.

For example, Malaya and I talk about being together for the rest of our lives, and that we'll get married, someday.  We (she, mostly) talk about where we'd do it, what type of ceremony, who we'd invite, what we'd wear, what sort of punch and pie we'd serve, etc. We never debate the legal ramifications, or fantasize about our future joint tax filing status, or the other such stuff that makes up the real meat of a wedding, beneath the candy coating of lace and flowers and white tablecloths.  

So even though the legal ramifications of a civil union might be identical to a marriage, what's the fun in that? The civil union is boring; it's like buying a car or signing an apartment lease, rather than going through the whole love and flowers and wedding dress and banquet hall rental ordeal.  And I think that sort of ceremony helps tie people together, and puts a formal end to their days of dating, and being together for convenience, rather than because they have an obligation to do so.

Basically, marriage is (or at least it should be) a solemn vow and legal agreement between two people who are in love.  The wedding and flowers and ceremony are just the ritual and celebration that have come to be more or less inextricably-attached to the whole marriage concept. And if two men or two women want to enter into that sort of agreement, rather than a man or a woman, why not let them?

Well, ask a conservative and you'll probably hear something like this:

Gay's can't have children.  Sure they can; they can adopt or use a surrogate parent, and if they're lesbians all they need is a sperm donor, either in frozen turkey baster form, or real live male friend form. It's one of their children, and the other's step child. And if children is a requirement, that's a problem for a lot of male/female marriages.  Who don't have kids, or are too old to have kids, or require surrogate mothers or sperm donations or other such things that gays do also.

Another argument is tradition, as if that's something we should honor.  Tradition allowed slavery and genocide and prevented women or non-whites having any civil rights.  So we're picking and choosing our traditions, are we?  Also, find an argument against gay marriage that can't also be applied to interracial marriage? That was once illegal, and while there's still some taint on it for many people (especially for white/black marriage) it's mostly accepted, and growing more so every day, even if some people (generally the same ones who oppose gay marriage) disapprove of it.

Also, it's an oddball argument, but it's perfectly legal for men or women to get sex change operations, legally switch their gender, and then marry someone of their birth sex.  They can't have kids, at least not physically, but that's not considered "gay marriage" (though it probably should be).

The most mainstream argument against gay marriage is one that carefully skirts the whole, "I don't like fags." issue, and it's one that you hear made repeatedly by conservative intellectuals. I've never been able to see the essence of it, though. They say that allowing legal gay marriage will somehow "de-legitimize" heterosexual marriage.  Whatever that means. While this is, again, identical to the old arguments against interracial marriage, it just has never made any sense to me. It's from the Santorum school of logic, where if you allow gays to marry, then straights who are married no longer feel so bound by their bonds.  Congressman Santorum legendarily extended this "logic" to cover gay sex, incest, and bestiality, which I found equally perplexing.

How does letting people different than you do something you've been doing all along make your doing it any different?  Did men stop voting and give up on democracy once women were allowed to vote?  Would men all go pee sitting down if women grew a labia that allowed them to use urinals? It's just a nonsense argument, as far as I can see, and I'm usually pretty good at seeing other people's points of view, even if I strongly disagree with them.

An example of this argument that I tripped over tonight while viewing a site linked to from the very long comments thread on the Calpundit post about Dubya's latest AWOL info (see above) is found on AdamYoshida.com.  I'm not recommending the site, since I don't find his writing very interesting or illuminating.  He's one of those people who are intelligent and write well gramatically, but never actually say anything or make any real point.  I'm sure it's clear to them, in their head, but other people read it and come away with a "What was he just talking about?" reaction.

I'm only linking to it since after I wrote most of this post, I was reading the CalPundit thread on Dubya, saw Adam flaming away, followed his link back to his site, skimmed over his incoherent rebuttals, looked for some posts on other things to see if he made any good points or wrote any better, and found this one on gay marriage, which I only took note of and waded through since I'd just been writing about it myself.  His post on the subject can be found here, and while he goes on and on (almost as long as I do) and says a number of things at the start that I completely agree with, he then takes an odd turn and reaches an anti-gay marriage conclusion that is the sort of "intellectual and non homophobic" reasoning.  It's reasoning that I find logically indefensible.

Here's the start of his post: 

Let’s get something straight: marriage, and the privileges that come with it, have absolutely nothing to do with “love”. The core of the argument for gay marriage is predicated upon this concept that it is immoral to deny “two people who love eachother” the “right” to marry. Marriage, and the various rights and responsibilities that come with it, is meant to serve an actual societal function: providing for stable families which are capable of having and raising other children.

He sets up several straw men here (putting "right" in quotes, and making a very weak argument for the other side) but I agree with his initial comments, as they somewhat reflect my own, made several paragraphs ago and hours before I read his post on the subject. Marriage has nothing to do with love; that's just the window dressing and the romance. However I think his argument that it's all about rearing children and providing stable families is ridiculous. Most of the time it's better for kids to grow up with two parents (a mommy and a daddy?) than with a single parent, but that's a very debatable concept.  Lots of fathers and some mothers are abusive, drunk, in jail, etc, and their kids are probably a lot better off without them around.  The argument then is that those people should never have gotten married, and never had kids, but if your argument requires a time machine, it's not much of an argument.

There are also millions of kids who are born bastards, who never know their fathers at all, or who grow up with a step father or parent.  Would society be better if everyone got married and stayed married and had kids while married and raised them with love and compassion?  Of course, but that argument requires both a time machine and a magic wand, so it's equally invalid.

You can't make an argument by picking the small percent of perfect, wonderful, happy marriages, and use their kids for your winning example, while ignoring all of the other data that's inconvenient and that doesn't fit your preconditions. That's Ann Coulter quality logic there, and it's simply not read for the adult table.

Adam continues for a while on that theme, before turning to the argument for gay marriage, as he defines it.

If you believe that marriage is merely an “affirmation of love”, or something along similar lines, then the case for gay marriage makes perfect sense. Who are you (or the state) to, “tell people that they may not love another”? If you believe that marriage is merely a way of expressing love, then the only reason to oppose gay marriage is opposition to homosexuality itself which, of course, is a verboten “homophobic” notion according to the modern establishment.

The people who are pushing for gay marriage feel that the institution is social in character. Marriage, as they see it, legitimizes a relationship. They are so determined to reach this end, of inhibiting any claim that gay relationships are not the equal of straight relationships, that they are seeking to, in essence, hijack the institution for their own purposes.

So gays and people who support gay marriage just want to legitimize their love.  Which is okay, but shouldn't be done with marriage, since that's a sacred contract that can only be between a man and a woman. And if gays are allowed to use the same type of marriage as the rest of us... what?  This is where the whole argument falls completely apart.  There's simply zero evidence or proof that allowing gay marriage will do anything.  People who oppose it say that it will cause this or that problem, but they have no evidence or argument beyond "Because I say so." to back it up. Go analyze societal trends, such as divorce, in countries that allowed gay marriage and show us some stats.

The whole argument is ridiculously easy to ridicule too. "So... why are you so insecure in your sexuality and marriage, sir?"

What does gay marriage have to do with straight marriage? What would it change about how you feel about your husband/wife?  I'm not married, yet, but I can't think of any way it would affect me at all.  I think polygamy and arranged marriages are obscene, but do they make me not want to get married or stay married myself? Of course not; what do they have to do with my (hypothetical) marriage? It's a ludicrous concept.

Men in many countries around the world can take 4 or more wives.  Lots of countries and societies have arranged marriages as a matter of course, often betrothing children, just to lock up a potential partner while they are still available.  Lots of people expect the wife in a marriage to be a virtual slave to her husband. All of these things are abominations, in my eye, but I don't take them as any sort of reflection on marriage as an institution.  Unreformed Mormons in Utah have 5 wives, all of them arranged and consumated while the girls were under the age of 14.  So does that make the rest of us want to go rape 14 year old girls, or marry them, or get a divorce from our wives/husbands?  Of course not.

Besides, what about gays who want to have children?  Lesbians can obviously have a lot of kids, more than a single straight woman, if they were foolish enough to want that many of the little creatures.  True, it wouldn't be 50% their genetic material and 50% their partner's genetic material, but so what?  If you object to that then you must object to surrogate mothers, sperm banks, adoption, etc.  All things that are entirely commonplace and acceptable for MF marriages to take advantage of. MM gay marriages would obviously have a bit more difficulty reproducing, but that's what adoption and surrogate mothers are for.

One who opposed it could certainly argue that gay parents aren't as good at raising children as hetero parents would be, but that's like the other argument.  Provide some proof.  Do some studies and surveys. Just saying it because you want it to be true is meaningless. And anyway, it's not as if tons of MF marriages aren't farces, turning out abused, angry, rotten children. There are good and bad kids coming from single parents.  So why wouldn't gay parents be just as good and bad as straight ones? In fact why wouldn't they be better, on average, since they had to work a lot harder to actually get the kids in the first place?

How many straight couples have kids by accident, or in a desperate bid to stay together, or who get married in the first place while they're both cheating and not happy, just because the woman gets pregnant?  And then get divorced, leaving the kids in a poor situation, lacking one parent, lacking enough financial support, etc? You're telling me that two under-educated 16 y/o's who were too stupid to use a condom are going to be good parents and the cornerstone of society, but two intelligent, well-educated, well-off, working gay men or women are unfit for that role, or a marriage to legitimize their life long bond?

And anyway, it's similar to the anti-abortionists who claim to be so concerned with children, and then give nothing to charity, don't adopt, and don't support social services, but if you're do damn worried about kids and society, wouldn't a Constitutional Amendment forbidding adultery and divorce by parents who have children under the age of 18 make a lot more sense?

It would, if any of their arguments about the betterment of society weren't just flimsy excuses.

Basically, the anti-gay marriage argument boils down to this series of hypocritical and illogical points.

• Straights who want to get married are doing it to form a pair bond meant for reproduction, and that's the cornerstone and foundation of our modern society.
• This ignores/disregards:
  • Straight but childless marriages.
  • Gay couples who have or will have kids.
  • And all straight marriages that:
    • End in divorce while the kids are still young.
    • Turn out rotten kids.
    • Are between bad parents.

The ultimate logic seems to be:

• "Straight marriage is the way we should pair bond and reproduce, but gays who want kids can't do it, and straights who marry but don't have kids don't count, and we're not going to mention straights who aren't good parents."

And that's just not a passable argument, at least not by any objective adult standard.

I'd respect them more if they just did the bible defense, and said something like, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and therefore gays shouldn't marry or raise children since it's morally wrong."

I would not agree with that for any number of reasons, but at least it would be a consistent, internally-logical argument, if you accept their popular interpretation of the bible.  However since they realize that that's a sure losing argument, based as it is upon ancient religious codes and prejudice, they are instead trying to popularize and defend this weak, half-assed, straw man, hypocritical, homophobic tiptoeing, bullshit about "de-legitimizing" marriage.

In belated conclusion, I've yet to see any legitimate argument against gay marriage, other than the religiously-inspired one that is entirely predicated on faith rather than logic, and as such can't be argued.

However, I'm not a big fan of granting credit to arguments based on what someone thinks an old book says, or doing something now just because it's always been done that way.  We've thrown off most historical forms of oppression: slavery is gone, laws against mixed marriage are gone, most laws against racial or sexual discrimination are gone, most laws against being homosexual are gone... this is just the next one on the list, and people who oppose gay marriage are pretty clearly following in the footsteps of people who opposed civil rights, equal rights, women's vote, etc.  And they're on the wrong side of history.

At least until some future world wide calamity destroys civilization, driving us back into a new Dark Ages of autocratic theocracies, (such as most of the Arab world suffers under) and all of the modern, liberal, freedoms most of us have come to know and expect vanish.  And that wouldn't be a whole lot of fun. 

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