A question

How exactly are laws preventing same–sex couples who really want to get married from actually getting married supposed to protect the sanctity of this 72–day marriage, a marriage that, unlike many other things, actually was over by Christmas?

Plinky Prompt FAIL

A feature recently added to WordPress is Plinky Prompts, which appear at the screen just after you publish a post. They provide suggestions as to future posts. For my last post, I got these ones (see picture [click to enlarge]):

FAIL

 For those who can’t read the circled writing, the one in the upper left says “349th post.” The one in the lower right says “Do you blog? Why or why not?”

Epic FAIL.

As for those questions, the first one is pretty obvious and is utterly unworthy of wasting any more attention on. As for the second, I blog because if enough people speak up, all will hear us.

As for the Plinky Prompts, this is another example of why dictionaries define human intelligence, animal intelligence, military intelligence, extraterrestrial intelligence, and artificial intelligence and in that order.

On the Saskatchewan decision

Recently, a court in Saskatchewan ruled that marriage commissioners there are not allowed to refuse to marry same–sex couples due to religious objections.

This is the correct decision. No one forced you to become a marriage commissioner. You knew going into it that you might have to marry same–sex couples. Since you chose to enter it you should face the consequences of your actions. To do otherwise is disrespectful as it tell you that you are not a rational person who is responsible for their actions. To insist that you should not be forced to do your job goes against the principle of personal responsibility. Why do conservatives hate personal responsibility?

Religion is a choice. Absolutely no one is forcing you to follow a religion that requires bigotry against gays and lesbians. And if you truly believed that marrying a same–sex couple would send you to hell, well guess what. There is no way that losing your job could possibly be worse than that. To act otherwise is to betray a serious lack of conviction. Why do conservatives have such weak convictions?

There is no way that grandfathering in bigots who were marriage commissioners before same–sex marriage was approved is a good move. Suppose that at one time, the age of consent was fourteen. Suppose further that it is raised to sixteen. The idea that we should allow those who previously had sex with fifteen–year–olds continue having sex with fifteen–year–olds is an idea that ain’t gonna fly.

If you can’t be forced to do your job, other people should not be forced to employ you. To insist otherwise, you are forcing the government to hire extra marriage commissioners, thereby wasting taxpayers’ money. Why are conservatives in favour of big government?

If you think that you shouldn’t be forced to do the job you signed up for if you are a marriage commissioner, you undoubtedly take the same view of a Friend or Jain (these are Pacifist faiths) joining the military but refusing to fight, claiming freedom of religion. Any argument that would apply to marriage commissioners would also apply to military deserters. Why do conservatives hate the troops so much?

Get off your high horse

As pretty much everyone knows by now, there was a shooting at a Safeway store in Casas Adobes, Arizona. Six people, including a judge, congressional staffer, and a nine–year old girl were killed, and congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured. I offer my condolences.

I must ask, is it really necessary to use every event or crime as a means to try scoring political points? People on both the left and right do this. Get off your high horses and do something more appropriate, classy, and tasteful. It is disrespectful for everyone affected. Trying to “take advantage”, so to speak, only works through appeals to emotion. Appeals to emotion may convince people, but are irrational because no decision has been made in a reasonable, thoughtful, or rigorous manner. And when people don’t make rational decisions, everyone suffers.

DADT repeal signed

Barack Obama has signed the bill repealing don’t ask, don’t tell into law. As I have made clear here before, this is the correct move.

To close out what I hope will be the last post on this atrocious policy, I have two questions:

First, if we grant for the sake of argument that the wingnuts are and that an LGBT soldier would hinder unit cohesion, wouldn’t revealing this publicly actually harm the troops? If a gay or lesbian soldier will make others drop their weapons in order to run away from the gay soldier faster, wouldn’t this provide a means for hostile nations to hinder the US military? They could do it by either by sending gay soldiers against the Americans, or, (more subtly) infiltrating units with gay “agents”. I hesitate to call this treason, but you get my drift.

Second, wouldn’t DADT be demeaning for soldiers already fighting? I mean, accepting DADT requires believing that soldiers kill many bad guys, risk their lives for their country, crawl through muck and mud to fight the enemy, and at the same time collapse like a house of cards in an earthquake when they have a gay soldier in their unit. Are supporters of DADT fucking serious?

A simple question with an easy answer

David Weigel got heated commentary when he called opponents of marriage  equality “bigots” (via). He has a response, and the gist of his post may be summarized with these questions he asks:

…[W]ho’s threatened by legal same-sex marriage? Whose life is made worse? ….

Answer: No one. This has been another episode of Simple Questions with Easy Answers.

Where are those marriage defenders now?

How many “marriage defenders” are defending the sanctity of this guy’s eleven marriages and counting? (via)

Also, by the looks of it, he is basically a parasite who lived off his wives. He has accumulated debts and hasn’t paid child support. Good reasons for him to be made to pay what he owes and to stay divorced¹¹.

Also, a major FAIL for the BBC focusing on this serial divorcer and how he does not have gray hair, as opposed to, you know, the women and child he left.