Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion
In a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit DiscussionIn a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Straight people of the world this post is for you, it is in no particular order and just a little informational piece that you might find interesting. Numerous court hearings have been held on the issue of same-sex marriage recently both in the United States as well as over seas. In light of these events I thought you might like to know what your government has said about you.
I’ll start with New York as it is my home state and I would like to address my fellow New Yorkers for a few moments. In New York State the highest court voted down same-sex marriage by a vote of four to two.
“. . .the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. . .The Legislature could also find that [heterosexual] relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. . .” - NYS Court of Appeals Decision (pages 5 and 6)
So lets take a look at that, shall we? The New York State Court of Appeals more or less says that heterosexual men are so careless and frivolous that they require a legally binding contract in order for them not to abandon the women who they will ineviably get pregnant and their offspring. As for heterosexual women, the court apparently believes that they are so free with themselves that they are all too likely to casually have kids (perhaps the nine month waiting period was removed without my notice). In addition the court finds that heterosexual people exist almost solely to produce offspring. Therefore, if you are unable to have children, uninterested in having children, or too old to have children you do not matter in the eyes of New York State. Don’t worry, you have a lot of company (For instance the one million plus New Yorkers who identify as LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender).
In Indiana a similar decision was handed down.
“The Plaintiffs assert that there are three possible, but ultimately unreasonable, reasons for the legislative classification: to promote procreation and child-rearing by both natural parents, to promote the traditional family unit, and to promote the integrity
of traditional marriage.” - Indiana Court of Appeals
But wait! Traditional marriage? How do we define this “traditional marriage”? If what I’ve read is correct traditional marriage was an institution in which African American couples couldn’t marry, inter-racial couples could not marry, and women had no rights? Hey, if it works for all of you it works for me, but somehow I
think there might be a few people with something to say about traditional marriage, just a hunch.
Other rulings against same-sex marriage have come down in Georgia, London, and Washington. Washington State recently upheld a DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) which is a piece of legislation that defines the words “marriage” and “spouse” to exclude same-sex couples. With a vote of five to four. By 2004 33 states had amended their constitutions and passed these acts (as written by B.A. Robinson of Religious Tolerance.org).
DOMA bills are extremely important to the straight community because being gay is just so much fun that if same-sex marriage was legal all of you heterosexuals would say “To hell with opposite-sex marriage, I think I’m going to go out and do that!” (Not that I can blame you with a divorce rate of something like 50% and celebrities like Brittany Spears getting married and then getting it anoled the next day, if that was my choice would probably explore my other options as well). It’s a good thing we have DOMA bills to uphold the sanctity of marriage and keep all you frivoulous, lechers, nymphos, and machines of procreation on track. Otherwise the human race would die out like the dinosaurs. Of course, we could focus on teens who have babies in bathrooms and throw them in trash cans but hey, we have more important things to think about, like stopping homosexual marriage which is threatening the children and the straight people of the world.
(age 18)
(256 votes, average: 3.02 out of 5)
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August 2nd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Well, as a straight married man, let me say this.
I really have no idea how legalizing same-sex marriage would influence my own marriage one way or the other.
I simply don’t understand how these “Defense of Marriage” acts are actually going to positively affect my relationship with my wife.
Maybe I just haven’t clued into the nefarious mechanisms by which the gay agenda is subtly plotting against me, and the glorious secret means by which the American Ayatollahs have been defending my family all along.
Assuming you are part of the gay agenda, maybe you could explain to me how gay people are attacking marriage by getting married. Maybe then I could do more to defend myself.
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:21 am
There’s nothing to defend, Greg.
Marriage isn’t under attack, these homophobes just don’t want to have gay people lumped into the same category as themselves.
~Damen
August 5th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
I couldn’t agree more.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:24 am
C’mon y’all. It’s about the MONEY. Elevating gay relationships to the status of “marraige” will require companies to provide benefits as they do to traditionally married couples and families. While some progressive companies have acknowledged “domestic partnerships” and provide benefits - most don’t. Do you know how much health care costs for dependents?? Too much to let gay marriage happen - all other things being equal.
August 10th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
And how many of those domestic partners will have some expensive, long term medical condition like AIDS? I bet someone somewhere knows exactly what percentage and how much it would cost. Maybe this is an angle for separating the legal aspect of gay marriage from the social aspect. Isn’t the social aspect–being publicly recognized as a couple–more important? Or is that just about the money too?
August 10th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
So it’s not that giving gay people equal rights in America isn’t a good idea, it would just cost too much. Interesting argument, Hector.
Question is, will we save enough money by just discriminating against gays to pay for all those juicy tax cuts for the rich?
I mean, if we’re going to cash out people’s equality for a little money, why stop with the gays?
Let’s roll back some of this pesky civil rights legislation and that darned equal rights amendment (oh wait, that never passed, yay!) and go for the big fish:
Over the last few decades, black people have finally, slowly begun to close the income gap with whites. Let’s take that money back!
And let’s not forget women. 50% of the population, with some rich widows out there. Mo’ money!
Asian Americans? Mo’ money!
Jews? Mo’ money, mo’ money!
Heck, while we’re discriminating for cash, let’s just round up everything everybody except a few super-rich straight white Christian men own and just have it delivered to their doorstep.
August 13th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
But what about all those pesky gays and their high-risk behavior? We all know they’re busy in those men’s clubs with the hot tub room down the hall from the bondage room and all that action going on in the steam room. (Actually I don’t know that first hand, I googled it, except the part about the steam room which I heard from a friend of a friend who was trying to bulk up for a part in a play as a gangster.) Is it fair to all the straight people who support the condom industry to be in the same insurance pool with those who don’t?
If you recognize gay couples socially as ‘domestic partners’ without the insurance issues tacked on, is that just the nose of the camel in the tent?
August 14th, 2006 at 2:50 am
Great plan, Alan!
Deny people the right to get married because of risky behavior cutting into insurance company profits. Just what America needs!
Needless to say, we yank the marriage licenses of intravenous drug users, and never let them marry again. I’m sure we could squeeze some money out of that.
But why stop there?
I mean, let’s prevent all the straight people who have risky sex from ever getting married.
Into skydiving? Can’t get married.
Bungee jumping? Can’t get married.
How about all the millions of Americans who drive around without a seat belt on. Have we ever stopped as a society to think just how much their marriages are costing the insurance industry?
It’s an outrage!
August 14th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Uh, skydiving isn’t covered by regular insurance plans, or by the drop zone. They don’t let you jump without signing waivers, but last time I checked State Farm would write a special policy for it.
But what about babies? Do you have any idea how expensive they are? And that’s just if they’re healthy. Why should us single people pay for that?
And what about heart attacks? It costs something like fifty thousand dollars to have a heart attack. Why should the rest of us pay for red meat eaters to have heart attacks?
August 14th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
You’re right!
Let’s not allow people to get married if they eat red meat.
That’ll fix what’s wrong with America!
August 14th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Oh Oh I got one,
Why ban marriage? Why not ban children?
Steralization of those that refuse to take care of or supervise their children, or those that keep having children out of wedlock! Why should those
of us upstanding parents that have raised decent kids pay for idiots that cant keep in their pants! (or skirts). Or druggies automatically be
steralized be cause they will only have crack babies costing states millions.
Okay, as sarcastic as that was, it still was very hard to write. I just sounded like some of the people from my home town, it scared me.
August 15th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
It’s not sarcastic, Laurie, it has really happened. People who have fallen into the System have indeed been sterilized, particularly developmentally disabled in institutions. Before my time though. There was a film back in the 70’s of a woman who was functional enough to live on her own, although she had been sterilized when she lived in an institution. Her hobby was buying dolls–her place was full of them, and the documentary followed her buying another doll.
By the time I worked in a state hospital, well, there were underground tunnels connnecting all the buildings and some romantic couples liked to explore the unused tunnels leading to closed buildings ….but by that time The Pill had been invented so anyone who wanted Tunnel Therapy could also get a prescription for The Pill.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:43 am
Were you an HST? Human Services Technician? That’s what I was trained as. I worked for a year an a half at 2 local state hosp. Yes, I know about
the sterilization, I also know about the secret cemetaries with just a metal numbered tag. I also worked in the library, and took the tunnels back
to the dormatory where 6 of us lived. Scary place but the rent was cheap, food was free, and we got paid. But it came to an abrupt end when some
one neglected to tell me they put me in with the “violent tendencies” ward and one resident just didn’t like me for some reason and made me part of
all 4 walls the ceiling and the floor. Oh, along with the steralization there were also the test labatomy’s, “brain therapy”, and alike.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:05 am
We were called Psychiatric Aides in those days, I’m sure there is a more PC job title now. We did pass medications, and if we were to be in charge of a ward, we had to be checked off on that, and count the narcotics and sharps on every shift change. There was one patient with old lobotomy scars, they stopped doing lobotomies and chaining the patients to benches after psychotropic drugs were invented. Good old Captain Thorazine and his sister Stela. (stelazine)They did electroshock therapy there and I witnessed it, pretty disgusting, but ECT is still considered to be a respectable therapy in places like Minneapolis and Chicago.
The cemetary wasn’t secret, but the road to it was remote and it was a drug drop where patients on the inside could receive pot from their friends on the outside.
Yes, Hammer Therapy the aides joked about. No matter what the patients did you couldn’t hit them of course, but the patients could clop an aide, what could anyone do to them, lock them up? I suppose for the short-term wards, they would lose their off-ward privelges and not be able to go to cemetary or tunnel for a few weeks. I didn’t particulary like the maximum security wards for the criminally insane, but supposedly they were okay as long as everyone got their thorazine, fortunately I didn’t work those on a regular basis.
I think the people who used to be in these places are now out living on the street.