Marriage isn't what they think it is

This is a political post. 

Kim Davis is not being persecuted for her beliefs. She's being persecuted because she doesn't understand what she actually does.

First, you have to realize that their are two kinds of marriage in America. There is religious marriage, and then there is legal marriage. We all know religious marriage - it involves months of planning, ugly bridesmaid dresses, flowers, arguments over colors and seating arrangements, culminating with a white clad woman walking slowly down an aisle because it's "HER" day. And then there is legal marriage. That's the one with all the tax benefits and legal rights. And I think it's because the government has co-opted that term, marriage, that people get all flustered.

It has been my experience that words get people all mad. If you changed the term, but kept all the same circumstances I don't' think we'd have any argument here. Everybody gets civil unions from the government, hooray! But then someone would claim they'd "won" which is whole other argument, so forget it. Where was I? Co-opted, right.

The government has co-opted the term Marriage for it's own purposes. But under the law, just like two heterosexual people who agree to a certain social condition receive beneficial government treatment it makes sense that it is discriminatory to tell two people who are homosexual that they cannot receive beneficial government treatment if they are willing to assume the same social condition. To Huckabee's credit, the court didn't write new law. But then if you look at it, they didn't have to. They only applied what we already have. 

Now Ms. Davis seems to believe that granting a marriage license means the bearer can walk into any church and demand a ceremony. Well, a lot of her supporters do as well, why I don't know, but this isn't the case. (By the way, most people get both a religious AND a legal marriage, which may contribute to the confusion, but I digress.) Her argument that she cannot in good conscience grant the license because it offends her belief is misguided, unless her belief is that two homosexual people should not receive treatment from the government equal to that of two heterosexual people in a similar condition. Her act does not grant a marriage in the eyes of God, that position belongs to the church. Her act grants a marriage in the eyes of the government, a wholly less than spiritual organization. There should be no issue here, but maybe she's confused God and the government, or somehow fused the two together in her mind, which is a whole other discussion.

And by the way, the analogy to the Muslim cashier at Target not handling pork, which my very Christian friend on Facebook (and Kim Davis supporter) bandied about as evidence that this is Christian persecution, is an extremely weak one. First, as much as hate to admit this public....access to bacon is not really a Right. And at Target, you can always go to another cashier. But in her county Ms. Davis was the only place to get a marriage license, something that is a Right. And it the issue of pork handling became a real issue for a capitalist venture like Target, those affected workers could always be re-assigned to other positions (provided of course there was no loss of pay.)

Still, the civil unions thing? Anybody? Anybody? Pfft, whatever, so, who wants to discuss climate change?

With a capital M

Ramblings Post #167
Because the period between when I got finished my first round of education and the part when I start raising kids is using the term "decade" as a measure (and still isn't over yet) there are a great many stories I've seen, heard or know of. Most of them are true. This because in the Spades game of life truth has all the trump and fiction may have to renege just hoping to get to board.

Chicken plucking does strange things to people.

One of my coworkers got just got married. He let our manager know by informing her in passing that he had to leave early, because he was getting married later that day. That was it. Then he went and got married. Now, he's from Europe originally, so maybe its the cavalier attitude of the continent, but that seems just a little too casual for me.

But it also reminds me of another interesting story of a guy who got married while working at Le olde Chicken Plucker...

He wasn't a great chicken plucker. He was more a journeyman plucker, someone who could do the job and for the most part make those things that needed to happen go on and happen. He once lied to a client that you couldn't pluck a chicken after hours because the heat in the building turned off promptly right after the evening whistle blew. Like many of us working there at the time, he was usually bereft of serious funds, lived for the weekend and stayed with a roommate in a apartment for which he claimed the combined rent was $400 a month. But what made really made him interesting was his approach to dating and women.

He was looking for a woman with three specific qualities: she needed to overweight, have low esteem, and possess good credit.

That is not a joke.

Now he wasn't a pretty boy type. And admittedly, myself nor none of the guys I hang out with resemble male models, and as such we usually understand that supermodel types are not the kind of women who would normally jump at the chance to be with us. I mean, you have to realize what league you're in if you're going to play the game. A guy like me is more prone to use good conversation, an exciting personality, memory, and this thing I do with my....um...er, nothing. Not to say that we don't occasionally end up with all aces, but reality is what it is.

However, in his situation, when your requirements are...um, particular, you have to wonder about the motivation. I mean, you have to. He was dead serious about this, and would dutifully report back failures and follies of the Friday and Saturdays looking for the "perfect" woman.

In any case, as luck would have it and because Atlanta has ALL types, he met a woman who apparently met those qualifications. And then in the space of say...three WEEKS, talked her into a Wednesday afternoon courthouse wedding.

I know it was three weeks, because he met her the last week of March and they got married in mid-April. I know it was a Wednesday because it HAD been planned for that Friday. I know it was to have been a Friday, because that Thursday we were going to go out to the poor man's bootleg gentleman's club - Hooter's - and give him a thrown together bachelor-ish gatheration type party thing. And then he took Wednesday off that week to "take care of the some wedding details" and came in Thursday and said he'd just go on ahead the done it Wednesday.

Now, I've met her and she's nice. She did fit the physical requirement, but had a lovely bubbly personality, at least when I was around, and she surely was affectionate towards him. But I have to ask the question of a what appeared to a reasonably intelligent woman: why would marry a man you just met?

She moved him into her house, she eventually found him a better job, and they're apparently very happy together years later. Go figure. But at the outset, let's just say there were a whole lotta ways the whole shebang could have taken a wrong turn.

Ah, the life of a chicken plucker.

And women say they can't meet anybody. Apparently they just aren't trying hard enough.

Barkeep, because I just remembered this story....light me up!

What I Learned This Year - 2007

With apologies to Esquire, from whom I shamelessly have "paraphrased" this concept I'm going to start annually listing what I learned from the previous years here. Hopefully you'll read them and gain a modicum of knowledge, insight and understanding...and in a slow moment or two I'll re-read them and not repeat the same mistake twice.

I'm fairly certain that in a few years when I'm chronicled in that august periodical, i can refer back to this entry as my first baby steps at philosophy.

Good isn't the same as popular.
God has a really weird sense of humor. Sometimes it's the only explanation.
People who care are concerned all the time, not just when you're in trouble, or it's convenient.
Love is funny. If I didn't think it was funny I'd be dead by now.
I'm surprised at the things that hurt me. Sometimes it's as little as the wrong word at the wrong time, or a bad concept, and those pains are few and far between. But when things hurt I need the world to stop for while, because they hurt bad.
I'm normally a very private person.
People tell me I'm a good listener, but that's usually so I don't have to talk about me.
I'm responsible for 95% of things that fuck up in my life. The other 5% is fate, but I'm working on that.
I've have three women propose marriage to me on four occasions. I should said yes to one them.
I don't like to give advice, because I then feel responsible. I prefer to ask you the questions you should be asking yourself, then you can reach your own decision.
Nothing is more painful loving someone who doesn't love you back...but then still wants to be friends.
It's not what you said, it's what they heard. It's not what you did, it's what they saw.
The secret to life is to finish what you started. I must have a half dozen half finished projects. If I can get one done I will have beat the world.
Real love doesn't' stop. It can't end. It can suppressed, ignored, subverted, denied...but it's always going to be there.
Sometimes you need to choose the next best option.
Some of my happiest moments of late have been sitting with my grandmother.


Barkeep...a Bookers. No ice.