It’s no contest.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Marriage And Government Need A Divorce
John Fund weighs in. Ultimately, I really think that this is the only solution.
Racist Democrats
…and the ongoing Big Lie.
NPR
…is lamenting that kids aren’t being properly indoctrinated in the green climate religion.
The Low-Info Hipster Morons Who Voted For Obama
…learn that elections have consequences:
That mean old company won’t throw extra cash at them so that they can live the New York City lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed! Dear Dudes: Companies are in business to stay in business and employ people. Obamacare regulations are making that increasingly more difficult; the costs are staggering and burdensome. That whole “you can keep your plan” deal? Obama lied.
And anyone with half a brain would have known that. But they’re products of the public educational system, and universities.
Jeffrey Toobin
If you find yourself in bed with him, get out.
And along those lines, I could watch this all day.
So what do I think about all of this same-sex marriage business? Despite the fact that for as long as I’ve given the matter any thought, it has been quite clear to me that homosexuals are born, not made, it’s a bad idea to redefine a multi-millenia-old institution. As Frank J. noted the other day, the problem is that government and marriage need a divorce. Let them have civil unions so they can get the same legal benefits that heterosexual couples have, and leave marriage to the church. If they find a church that will marry them, more power to them.
And please, spare me the idiotic straw-man arguments about how it won’t really cause heterosexual couples to divorce and go find a new squeeze with the same genital configuration as themselves, and the ban on gay marriage was the only thing preventing this. No one believes that, no one argues that. The people who will be affected by this aren’t currently married couples, but confused kids on the fence. If you really do have a choice, at least in this society, choosing het generally makes for a better life, and we shouldn’t be encouraging the opposite. I don’t believe that not allowing same-sex marriages is discrimination against homosexuals. They continue to have the same rights as everyone else — to marry someone of the opposite sex, regardless of how unsatisfactory they might find such a union. It is, however, admittedly, gender discrimination. That is, Sue is allowed to marry Phil, but Bob isn’t. That to me is a much stronger argument. And that is one that can only be resolved by divorcing marriage from government.
On the legal issues, I’ve always thought that DOMA was unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment — I’m no fair-weather federalist. But the full faith and credit problem isn’t going to go away. It may very well be that “married” gay couples won’t be able to move to some states and have their marriage recognized. I’m surprised that it wasn’t more of an issue in argument.
On Prop 8, I think that it stinks that the government of California won’t defend its own duly-passed-by-the-people law before the Supreme Court, leaving the people of the state in dubious standing. Regardless of what one thinks of the issue, this is a terrible precedent, giving the government an effective veto over any law it doesn’t like and disenfranchising the voters. That in itself should be challenged in court, though obviously, even if they were forced to defend it, there would be nothing to prevent them from doing a crummy job of it. That, I think, is actually a bigger issue than whether or not gay marriage should be legal in California.
[Update a while later]
As always, a lot of interesting legal discussion over at Volokh’s place.
[Update late morning]
“My gay-marriage dilemma“:
In actuality, I support neither side in this debate. The radical identitarian Left is all of a sudden pretending to be Constitutionalists, citing the 14th Amendment as if they actually gave a sh*t about equal protection under the law — this canard after decades of shilling for affirmative action, PC campus speech codes, reparations, anti-male divorce courts, the subsidization of contraception by religious objectors, “abortion on demand,” etc. I have no time for this gang of phonies and tyrants; I don’t believe a word they say.
An analogous, if exaggerated, situation would be if I lived under a fascist military junta and were scheduled for execution the following week, the only way to stop this being to support the planned communist coup of the underground demagogue. I would know what was coming: I would trade one set of executioners for another. There’s no room for pure principle in a case like this.
Yes, that’s my problem, too. Many of the proponents of this do not do it in good faith.
[Early afternoon update]
“Same-sex marriage is not the same as opposite-sex marriage.”
[Update a while later]
Thoughts on being dissed by Rush Limbaugh.
[Bumped]
“Progressive” Education
Has it turned us into a nation of obedient sheep?
That was the goal, of course. Obedient sheep, many of whom can’t even read and write. But they vote.
Mocking Meghan McCain
Treacher has his rhetorical way with the ditz. Media Matters whines about it. Film at eleven.
[Afternoon update]
OK, this is just mean.
Colorado’s Stupid New Gun Laws
…may impact their hunting revenues.
Obesity, Diet And Calories
Another blow to the mindless thermodynamic theory, and hope for a breakthrough:
Slimming bacteria work their magic in either of two ways, studies of gut microbiota show. They seem to raise metabolism, allowing people to burn off a 630-calorie chocolate chip muffin more easily.
They also extract fewer calories from the muffin in the first place. In contrast, fattening bacteria wrest every last calorie from food.
Transferring slimming bacteria into obese people might be one way to give them the benefits of weight-loss surgery without an operation. It might also be possible to devise a menu that encourages the proliferation of slimming bacteria and reduces the population of fattening bacteria.
I’ve always been thin, regardless of what I ate (though as I got older, I did put on a few pounds, which came back off when I went paleo), and have never felt particularly virtuous about it. I don’t have much patience for thin people who lecture fat ones about their caloric intake. People do have different metabolisms, and what you eat can affect it, but the “diet and exercise” nazis don’t want to believe it.