I don't care who you are [. .]

[. .] that's not funny.

Davezilla.com shares a video cartoon, an animated projection of Margaret Gallagher approaching Peter at the Pearly Gates to Heaven.


Now, Heaven, Saint Peter, and marriage are all religious concepts and teachings, and none are universal. Death itself, is mostly universal, and secular as well as a matter of faith. Other than that, this piece is satire aimed at one specific point of fundamentalist Christian dogma - "defense of marriage".

I thought some of the most potent arguments got left out. The famed biblical "Wedding of Canaan" specifies that there is a wedding - a religious rite - and a groom and a bride. One would have to overlook the rest of the bible to assume that no other wives or brides might be present in that groom's household, and that none would join later. Because the bible clearly states that that marriage - a rite of the Jewish faith adopted by Christian churches - had a bride and a groom.

[Robert Frezza's "McLendon's Syndrome" immortalizes another aspect of that Biblical story, "reminded of the Wedding at Canaan. They served jug wine until someone important showed up."]

The critical fallacies I see in the argument about whether "marriage" is about one man and one woman joining in "holy" matrimony - is projecting the religious rite onto secular governance. In secular - non-religious - context, a marriage creates a legal entity that then exists aside from the adults that make it up. Any intimation or explicit formula for genders and roles of participants is essentially religious, or at most secular whim. Laws of the land ought not to embody on religious interpretation (as the early Mormons in their bloody trail of persecution and violent clashes with other Christians from New England to Utah). Whim should be changed immediately when it is recognized to be wrong or inconvenient.

The right answer is for the state and nation to repeal legislation regarding marriage, or as a minimum, revise all statues to recognize all marriage ceremonies performed by any recognized religious organization. The issue isn't just gender mix - there are families living today in a multiple-adult household, in a just and disciplined fashion, creating loving and supportive homes for themselves, their children, and acting as assets of their communities. The Muslim entering America with several wives - are we to rewrite all our marriage laws to accommodate whatever arrangements exist between such adults, to allow or forbid?

Then there is the criminal side. People want laws against sodomy and "unnatural" sex applied to others - but have stopped prosecuting or reporting for criminal prosecution acts of adultery, fornication, and for the most part, statutory rape. Abandonment of family is seen as grounds for divorce - seldom is anyone leaving their avowed responsibility actually arrested and prosecuted for *gasp* foreswearing them selves. You know - like perjury? When in court you swear to tell the truth, then get caught in a lie? You swear to take this adult to you to have and to hold (a witnessed oath, recorded in a cognizant court) - at least, until you change your mind? In such a society where "the family" is often twisted by lack of discipline and lack of respect - and outright violence, substance abuse - and communities are apathetic or blocked by court rulings from intervening - how is anyone served (except perhaps by publicity-seeking church activists?) attacking a household of disciplined, respectful, loving adults doing their best to raise their children?

Don't criticize the mote in someone else's eye, indeed, until you remove the splinter from your own.

Some activists in San Francisco, a few decades back, agitated to forbid lesbian couples from raising children - because the children couldn't thrive in such an environment. The school board commissioned a couple of studies, and found that on average the children in lesbian homes did better in school, were better adjusted and happier, than the average "couple" parented home could accomplish.

Hate is a four-letter word. The long and bloody history of the Christian Church has proven that hate is still a vicious, double-edged weapon.

A family should be defined as adults agreeing to form a household with the intention of nurturing each other and raising and nurturing progeny. If the point of coming together is *not* to raise children, then calling a couple or group a family doesn't make it one - whatever the gender mix.

At least that is the way I see it. Your view?

The Republican Party vs marriage

Hat/tip to Ryan to 2L at Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest, who points out another young spokesperson for change in the Republican party.

Meghan McCain, daughter of past Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, spoke to a group of Log Cabin Republicans.

Unsurprisingly, Meghan spoke out against the old-school leaders of the Republican Party, and their fears of change.

"Most of the old school Republicans are scared s***less of that future," she told a gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian party members.

On Monday, McCain wrote an opinion piece urging the Republican Party to use more gay-friendly language. "Of all the causes I believe in and speak publicly about, this is one of the ones closest to my heart," she wrote in a blog post on the Daily Beast titled 'Memo to the GOP: Go Gay.' " If the Republican Party has any hope of gaining substantial support from a wider, younger base, we need to get past our anti-gay rhetoric."

I have two issues here. One is religious tolerance - which the US Constitution protects. The other is institutionalizing religious practices.

Marriage is a religious practice.

Ask the Catholic Church and most Protestant Christian churches - one of the sacred rites of the church is that of marriage. Look at Islamic countries, where various practices from buying (and keeping captive) wives, to multiple wives, and other forms of marriage exist - similar to the Biblical Old Testament description of marriage (read about bringing home war brides).

Ask the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, about their history of belief in forms of marriage - and the blood shed over polygamy.

The same religious teachings defile same-sex sexual contact.

Government in Marriage

Marriage licenses are issued and recorded by the individual state. The Constitution clearly and explicitly bars the federal government - the President and Congress - from interfering with powers reserved to the states. On the face of it, Congress violates the Constitution by discussing marriage in any way but proposing a Constitutional Amendment granting Congress authority over marriages of citizens.

Instead, the Republican Party has taken religious precepts - anti-abortion, abhorrence of same-gender sexual contact, and Christian one-man, one-woman marriage - and held their religious views are also "facts" of various provenance.

The argument goes, that even though these are religious teachings, they are valid points of view to hold, and are reasonable long-term goals of the Republican Party on that basis.

Lies and damn lies.

Except this argument is disingenuous. It is deceptive. If elected, a Republican Party member must be ready and able to represent - serve - all the citizens that elect her or him, not just those that voted for her or him. Medical and social consensus seems to prove, at least as solidly as global warming has been "proven", that some of us Americans are naturally left handed. My sister is, and hasn't seemed to be morally or physically handicapped by the condition. Her four kids seem to have grown well, are well adjusted and happy and productive. Her husband of 36 years seems quite happy. Others of us are oriented differently for selecting and living with an intimate companion or mate. Or several mates.

My remedy.

I grew up thinking "the gay nineties" were the economically prosperous times of the 1890's. And the name "gay marriage" for an arrangement or institution just bugs me. All marriages should be happy (happy is a historical synonym for the word "gay").

So. I think the IRS rules that define "marriage" should be recoded to mean "household" - and mean whatever arrangement of taxpayers and dependents are reported.

Employers and insurers today - benefits providers - rely on IRS information to identify recipients (Social Security Number, claimed dependents, etc.). Let this practice continue. Just drop the assumption about how many providers and dependents form a person's close family.

Halfway there.

For all the empty rhetoric, speechifying and Bible thumping politicians do to get votes from religious voters, no one seems to have noticed or cared that most of the laws about the sanctify of marriage have already been devalued.

Christian churches teach that adultery is a sin, that a man can divorce a wife but she isn't allowed to remarry. Coveting a man's wife is a sin. Etc. Yet laws against polygamy, adultery, fornication outside marriage - none of these are regularly enforced. We lament an explosion of teenage births to unwed mothers - and seldom charge either the girl or whoever got her pregnant with statutory rape, let alone fornication. I can remember when a couple had to be married to rent or buy a residence together - but laws were passed prohibiting that simple defense of marriage and the family as "prejudicial".

Hollow posturing.

The Republican Party must restore it's image - limited government, with an emphasis on national security and economic growth. Fiscal responsibility, constraining the budget to collected tax revenues, should be a foregone conclusion. Regulations should be thoughtfully considered for impact and effectiveness - and minimal to achieve the desired objective. Budgets should only be adequate to the needs.

One practice of the Republican National Party has got to stop. Regardless of ability to swing votes and contributions, the party has to first assess the value of the candidate to the office. Bob Dole would never have been the leader America needed. President George W. Bush was merely adequate - and a poor representative of conservative values. John McCain is a nice guy - and has a truly flaky grasp of morality and ethics. This practice of "candidate by reason of seniority" has got to cease. If the party is to have a value, it *must* be to select candidates likely to enhance the office they campaign for. I want a worthy candidate. Each and every time.