Joel was looking a little out of shape so I suggested that he ride his bike up to the 1500′ ridge behind Berkeley and Oakland… with 200 lbs. of dead weight on the back of the bike (me). Two guys on a tandem bicycle in the Bay Area it is just about the same as painting “We are gay” on the back of your T-shirt.
What’s it like being gay? Attractive young women on bikes going the opposite direction smiled and waved at us.
What does one talk about when riding a tandem? There are the fabulous views out over all the bridges of San Francisco Bay, of course, but also gay marriage. In this day and age of private contracts it seems that the one truly concrete benefit gay marriage confers is the ability to transfer property, tax-free, upon one’s death to one’s partner. George W., however, has basically eliminated the “death tax”. Thus gay couples, even without the benefit of a civil marriage of some sort, are able to enjoy substantially all of the benefits of being married.
Ergo, George W. Bush is the greatest gay rights activist of the 21st Century (so far).
Interesting point. I think that can be chalked up to Bush loving the wealthy so much that he even loves wealthy gays, though not as much as rich WASPs.
Something similar might be said for large corporations like Intel, I think Cisco, etc. They love tech workers so much they are willing to take strong stands for equal benefits, against harrassment, etc.
Who is Joel?
There are bigger issues to worry about in the USA than to fret about whether gays are marrying and becoming bishops. What affections people choose to share in their private life should not matter to anyone else but those two people.
There are bigger problems in the USA to be worried about, right this moment. For one: we have succeeded in exporting most jobs away. Thus while the cost of goods is falling, we have even fewer dollars to pay for them. Secondly, we are in a fairly big mess in Iraq (of our own making). Thirdly, Osama and his cohorts are still on the loose, eluding the world’s greatest power by hiding in holes in the ground.
Matt: Joel is a physics professor at UC Berkeley. He specializes in fluid dynamics of plasmas, which is tough to get into for the layperson, but http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~fajans/Teaching/bicycles.html shows some fun stuff on the physics of bicycles. Like most scientists, Joel has an incredibly boring and conventional personal life (i.e., he’s not actually gay and the tandem is primarily for him and his wife).
For me, the question isn’t “Why shouldn’t the government marry gays?” Rather, “Why should the government marry anybody?”
A marriage is a bond between individuals, and it exists from the moment those individuals declare it. The government’s opinion on the matter means nothing.
Philip:
I agree with Van. Why must the gov even get involved.
Phil: Funny thing about the gay issue. Recently saw a bad commercial for a bad sitcome in which a homophobe calls a guy “Phil,” only to be corrected and told “Phil-lip!” to which the homophobic father replies, “Aw, you have to gay-up everything, don’t you!” Thought you would have liked that.
The catholic church only got involved in marriage (of laypersons) around the 13th century when church people could no longer get married. Prior to that, marriage was a pagan rite as far as the (catholic, christian actually) church was concerned.
It may be difficult to get a hospital to recognize your “private contract” with your unmarried partner (gay or straight). And when an you die unmarried, your possessions go to your next-of-kin by default, unless you write a very, very specific will — and even then it can be contested.
. In this day and age of private contracts it seems that the one truly concrete benefit gay marriage confers is the ability to transfer property, tax-free, upon one’s death to one’s partner.
Only 1 percent of S O D O M I T E S have any “property” to Xfer upon their deaths, to anybody.
George W., however, has basically eliminated the “death tax”. Thus gay couples, even without the benefit of a civil marriage of some sort, are able to enjoy substantially all of the benefits of being married.
It is obvious that you, Dr Phil , are not married . Marriage , in this country , in this day and age , is an obligation , not a b e n e f i t .
Why a sodomite would choose to enslave “hisself” with a marriage contract only validates their insanity.
russ conner 480-380-7483
The Bush family has several very close family friends (the Mosbachers, the Cheneys, the Huffingtons, etc.) who are gay or lesbian. There were rumors in Texas and in Washington, D.C.that at least one Bush family member is as well.
Russ, that’s not true. Anyone who’s had nonstandard sex qualifies as a sodomite. That means pretty much everyone in America. You’re going to tell me that less than 1% of a wide sampling of Americans have property to transfer? Come on, Buddy! As to the Huffingtons…I would have gone gay too, had I been married to Arianna.
I’ve been told by a couple of people who have worked with the two Bush White Houses that the Bush family generally has no problem with homosexuals, and that they do have plenty of gay friends (of course, who doesn’t these days). As usual, most of the seemingly anti-gay rhetoric that comes out of the current White House is more political posturing than anything else.
– Van, Sodomite and damn proud of it
Well, the truly libertarian position would probably be that the government shouldn’t have “marriage” in its vocabulary. So whether W. likes it or not, the more libertarian he gets, the more pro-gay he gets.