This past Tuesday the state of Maine voted against same sex marriage. So far 31 states have voiced their opinion, and based on popular vote, all 31 states have voted against same sex marriage. This means that the majority of Americans are not in favor of same sex marriage. Yet, when I go to research the topic of why traditional marriage is such a strong force in America still when it seems everywhere else they are changing their views, I thought I could find some fired up debates on both ends to help me learn more about why people stand their ground.
When I went online to research both sides of the debate, however, I find there are many one sided sites out there supporting gay marriage, and surprisingly very few in favor of traditional marriage. The sites that I do see that support traditional marriage are usually a crappy religious site that starts ranting about Jesus and how gay people are "sinners." People who do try to put on a good front and defend traditional marriage are continuously bashed for their views. When I see one good post about traditional marriage and why it is still valued in today's society, there are at least a dozen comments following the statement that do nothing but bash that view and criticize the person for their statement. If I see a statement supporting gay marriage, all I see after it are dozens of comments supporting that view, and hardly a thing against it. Something is not right.
One thing that annoys me in the gay rights debate that I see posted on a lot of sites are the "10 reasons gay marriage is wrong" or the "50 reasons gay marriage is wrong" (which is basically someone so overly excited about the first 10 they had to keep going). These reasons are basically someone taking the main debates against gay rights and putting a gay rights spin on them. Har har har, so clever you are.
Now before I go any further, I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not in any way hate gay people. I do not want to wish them away to the corn field, and I do not think they should be discriminated against any more than anyone else. Nobody should. But the topic of gay marriage to me is a political topic such as people would consider abortion, education, health care, the war, and our varied views of the government. So with that said, I am now going to take the "sarcastic" reasons gay marriage is wrong and be sarcastic right back at them. Ha!
1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. Also apparently those homosexual animals have picked up some unnatural behavier
Oh yes, the great "natural" debate. Just because a dog got a little too feisty one time and humped another male dog, or there is a homosexual sea slug in the bottom of the ocean somewhere does not make homosexuality natural. There is no stork that delivers babies. In order to reproduce and continue the survival of the species, nature requires a male and a female. Especially for humans. (by the way, you forgot to mention other unnatural things such as fast food and drugs)
2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
A child's greatest influence in life is his or her friends - the people they have "hanging around." So yes, even though they are trying to be sarcastic here, this one is true.
3) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
Oh we would adapt to it in society, I have no question about that. But just because we would adapt doesn't mean it is something we would want to do. That is why gay marriage has lost the popular vote. We would also adapt to global warming, but you don't see us just shrugging that one off.
4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
Hey now, who ever wrote that one is racist. We're talking about gay marriage here. All that other stuff is between a man and a woman which is not under question in this debate. This statement shouldn't even be in this list.
5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
Yes it's true, some people are just plain stupid. Gay or straight, marriage would still be treated as a game to some people. Gay marriage wouldn't prevent the 55 hour marriages from happening, it would just create more chances for it to happen. Marriage is losing it's meaningfulness though, even without gay marriage. Everyone sees that - we should do something about it.
6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
I agree, children are one big motivation for keeping marriage traditional between a man and a woman. Children are the future of our country, and eventually we are going to need them. Even though it doesn't always happen, a child really benefits from having a mother and a father to educate them and help them become well-rounded individuals. Older couples and infertile couples could still adopt and give that mother and father bond to someone who needs it.
7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
Obviously gay parents would have a higher chance of raising gay children as I doubt they are going to say to their children that homosexuality wrong.
8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
Oh we have a lot of religions in America as we are all aware of. I don't remember hearing of any religion that supported homosexuality as the norm though.
9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
No, children can succeed quite well with one parent - granted that parent is a good one. I've seen it done. But the numbers of children with problems at home with only one parent are quite high. There is a great benefit to having both a mother and a father. I admire the ones who get by without a mother and father, but a lot of people miss out by not having that.
10) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
Yes, I believe it would.
the world is small
I'm just cruising around life, looking at stuff, pointing out what I see. Making note of things that are interesting. I don't know all the answers. I see things. I report them. We make our own decisions based on evidence. My life is my evidence.
10 reasons gay marriage is wrong
death psychic
Lately since I've been working my new job, which requires driving an hour to work both ways, I've taken up tuning in to hear Mancow's Morning Madhouse on the radio. I haven't been listening to him for long, and some things he says aren't always on par with what I'd like to hear, but overall it is an entertaining show and it keeps me listening on the way into work.
A couple of times now, he's had a guest on who is a death psychic. Now, I don't believe her predictions are true, but it did get the gears turning in my head. I know it's all in fun, but with her eerie predictions, combined with it being dark on my way to work and rumors that her fortune telling has been reported true on several occasions, I found myself listening extra closely to what she had to say to the callers.
One thing that Mancow kept saying on the programs was about how he didn't think people should know their time of death, and it was something they shouldn't mess with. Of course he was kind of joking about it since he obviously kept the psychic on to interest the listeners and saying "do not call" was a subtle way of getting the phone lines to light up. A part of him didn't believe in it, but a part of him must have - enough to be cautious about it and not want to have his own death foretold at least. He kept asking why someone would want to know how and when they were going to die.
I for one, even though I am skeptical and cautious about these things at the same time, I would like to know for myself. If such people could predict futures and the fate of people, I would like to know. Part of it is my everlong goal of finding signs of something on the supernatural level. I am facinated by ghost stories, aliens, mythical creatures, fairy tales, religion, the afterlife, astrology, psychics, astronomy, prophecies, and things of the sort. I've found more times than not that most of these "myths" turn out to be scams or not exist at all, so for a part of me to find out some deeper meaning behind life, even if it was to find out at the time of death that a prediction had come true, it would be at least in some way satisfying. Not that I want to die mind you.
Another reason I wouldn't mind finding out a prediction of my own death is taken from the movie "Big Fish" which is one of my favorites. The main character, Edward Bloom, when he was a child and was offered a chance to look into the eye of a witch to see how he was going to die. He said the following:
"I was thinking about death and all. About seeing how you're gonna die. I mean, on one hand, if dying was all you thought about, it could kind of screw you up. But it could kind of help you, couldn't it? Because you'd know that everything else you can survive."
So on one hand, knowing your death could be a bad thing, especially if you knew you couldn't avoid it. But on the other hand, like Edward put it, everything else, you at least know you could survive. Nobody knows how much time they have on this earth. We could all be gone tomorrow. To know how much time you have left - I think it would be a blessing. Many people would argue that it is more enjoyable not to know how a story ends, but sometimes peeking into how the story ends can help you piece together and appreciate more how the story unfolds.
09/09/09
Yes yes, it's one of those dates where all the numbers line up. Last year it was 08/08/08, and the year before that we had a 07/07/07 and so on and so forth all the way back to 00/00/00 which was the start of the new millennium. And I remember the new millennium hype pretty well. Everyone was thinking the world was going to come to an end, or everything was going to change. People were prepared for the worst with the y2k bug. But nothing really happened, did it? No.
So 09/09/09 really doesn't mean anything either. Why? Because time really has no reality. Time, or the measurement of it, is really just a way of visualizing the world around us. We took a constant, which was the earth's rotation around the sun, divided it up into months, and from there to days, hours, and minutes. We can measure or days better, plan what we want to do in the future, and categorize events that happened in the past. It makes it easier to grasp the concept of what has and will happen based on time, but time itself does not exist.
Time is like a ruler or a thermometer. Eventually on the scale of measurement numbers will repeat themselves. Soon you're getting 22, 50505050, and yes, even 666. In number's terms, these mean nothing. But people get nervous because they resemble something in reality. They feel it must mean something. Because people want it to mean something.
Now take using letters to categorize something. You have A, B, C, and so on until you get to Z. Then you have to start repeating letters: AA, AB, AC, and so on until you're coming up with things like ABE and CAR - I am sure if we used letters to categorize large quantities we'd come up with some crazy combination that spells out a word now and then, but it's still just a measurement.
Finding meanings in numbers is like looking for shapes in the clouds. One might look like a dragon to someone, while another person sees it as a duck. One cloud might look like a boat or a monkey. But in the end, they are just clouds. They might look like one thing or another, but they're just random shapes. Eventually if you have enough randomness you're going to get things that resemble something else in reality, but in reality it means nothing. But we are human. We want to find a deeper meaning in life, and jump at any chance we can to try and make a little more sense of who we are and where we come from.
So this year we have 09/09/09. Next year we will have 10/10/10, and then we will have 11/11/11, and finally we will end this craziness at 12/12/12. Until the year 2100 when we start all over again and some other jerk takes my idea and blogs this same topic again. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't see people try to make a big deal of it. You can be sure people will market off it with store wide sales or the promotion of some movie or event. But in the end, it's still all just numbers.
the corner station
So there is this Kwik Trip gas station right on the corner of a busy intersection in town. It's a small intersection too, so that means when traffic is heavy, it gets backed up pretty bad. For some reason, people decide at this time to really have to use that gas station, and it upsets me every time I have to drive by. It is dangerous for people and it leads to a lot of reckless driving by those trying to get in and out. There is always someone who thinks they have to use that gas station at that exact moment. It's annoying to have someone want to stop right there and want to get into the station. There are no gaps in traffic for blocks, and they assume someone will just let them in. Then there is always someone wanting to leave the station who decides to cut people off or speed out at their first half chance. One time, I even saw someone drive the lane in the opposite direction into oncoming traffic because they had enough room to squeeze down the side. There are two other gas stations just down the road that are basically deserted, good gas stations mind you, and people won't go there.
There's also this McDonald's near the local college, right on the corner. And like this gas station, as soon as you make your turn at the intersection, you have to turn right into the McDonald's. So people lined up to turn, will usually have to hit their breaks right after turning because someone wants their McDonald's. I find this kind of annoying, and also dangerous for people. There should be a rule about building places on intersections with heavy traffic - such as only allowing access from the back or have a separate turn lane or something. Some of these places are just too dangerous to have out there.
Speaking of McDonald's, what's the deal with them? Or rather, what is the deal with people and them? I mean, sure their food is good, but it's not the only thing out there. I have been to many different malls, and did so again just recently. You know how they have the food court, right? With all the restaurants? Well, why is it that every booth might have one or two people at any given time, but McDonald's has a massively long line at all times? Do people honestly need McDonald's so bad that they have to get it everywhere they go? Is it because they market to the kids so much that the parents have to take them to McDonald's? I don't know, I just find it odd. I used to live next to a Walmart and a K-Mart right next to each other, and K-Mart was always deserted, when most times they had things just as good or better. At the same time Walmart was packed with people down every aisle and it was miserable shopping there. But people want Walmart for some reason.
I think people are just slaves to marketing. I know I'm guilty of it at times. If something doesn't have a good label that I like, or is a brand I prefer, I won't buy it. I just broke down and bought these IGA brand Cheerios, the cheaper kind. I didn't want to, but I was just crazy enough to do it. It tastes just the same as Cheerios, if not better. But I was afraid to buy it because it wasn't on TV, and didn't cost as much. I thought it must not be good because I never had it before. Or soft drinks - how many times would someone buy Mountain Dew, as opposed to Mountain Fury (the generic brand)? It tastes the same. Or bottled water for example. People say they can taste a difference in name brand water as compared to generic water. How on earth can water taste like anything other than water? But people are picky like that. They go where it's popular.
