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July 12, 2004
Saturday I said I'm sorry, Sunday came and trashed me out again
Random thoughts: (or as any competent Psychologist would call it, flight of ideas)
Saturday I went out with some friends from the hospital (no not the patients) to some place I had never been before. Some local pub with an underwhelming selection and dirty bogs. It was quite enjoyable. My friends think it is quite amusing that I've become a librarian; even more amusing than their realization that one must have a Masters degree to do that.
My friends after several drinks began to sing Karaoke (Japanese for -for the love of God would you please shut up). Now since I had to pilot the car home I could not partake of the libations and ended up drinking diet soda that some woman refilled over and over with iced tea. So with a few under their belts these people began to irritate me to sing. They choose a Jimmy Buffett song, "Love in the Library". Well unbeknownst to them I had been listening to the Fruitcakes CD for the past several days in the car. (lack of motivation to find the CD holder) so I was fairly familiar with the words. Buffett is generally easy to sing, as it is remains in one octave. So I won the Karaoke singing competition. Being that I was the only one sober enough to read the lyrics as they passed by on the screen this was no great feat. There was a fantastic prize, deep fried stuff and wings.
The only 2 songs I can sing on Karaoke are Masquerade and the above Buffett tune. If I never have to do that again I will be quite happy, however if there are deep fried mushrooms and cheese sticks at stake, hand me the microphone.
On the way home I noticed a blue Ford Explorer (Ford Prefect's older and larger cousin) stopped at a traffic signal. The odd thing was that the signal was green and it was annoying the other drunks on the road. I stopped behind the SUV (sort-of unwieldy vehicle) and got out (I love to walk in the road, I have the scars and screws in my bones to prove it). I walked up to see if perhaps they needed help. Four Oprah clones were asleep, including the driver. I returned to my car and called the cops. Of course just as I got through, the sleeping land whales awoke and drove off. I didn't bother pressing 1 (or was 1 for 'if you're being murdered') or whatever I just gave up thinking they would soon crash into something and render themselves permanently asleep. I did follow them a bit and when they began driving off the road and making right turns from the left lane I decided it would be wise to ring the local gendarmes again. Just as I finished a description of the car and where we were, a deputy sheriff happened along and I told her about the drunks and she stopped them for the requisite formalities. I gave my name and address as a witness (a move I am certain I will regret when the subpoena arrives). One down.
Not five minutes later at an intersection very close to our county jail I spied another car stopped at a green light, with another car behind it honking the horn so much as to be annoying. Of course there were 2 other traffic lanes, one on each side of the stopped car, and no other traffic besides we 3 cars, but the honker just had to let the world know how displeased he was that he would have to change lanes.
So the honker finally changed lanes and I put on my hazard lights and again decided to walk in the road. As I walked up to the car, imagine my surprise to see that the occupants were awake. They were having a bit of a late night snack. I asked if they were having car trouble and the driver looked at me and said "Shmeating". I think that means I am eating, because he was attempting to put fries in his nose and mouth simultaneously - the same fry in fact. To make this more entertaining he had the straw wrapper dangling from the left corner of his mouth. The passenger was quite engrossed in her meal as well.
I told the man to turn the car off, so of course he began to creep through the intersection on a red light. I encouraged him a bit more forcefully to turn off the car and I made him give me the keys, which I placed on the roof, far from his drunken reach. I walked back to my car to ring the coppers yet again when a nice Florida Highway Patrol trooper pulled out of a nearby gas station and noticed my signal to come over. He promptly arrested the driver who insisted he hadn't been drinking. Yeah and I'm six three with a full head of hair.
So that's two drunks in a span of 15 minutes. If you drive after midnight in Florida you take your life in your hands. Riding the bus in Israel is safer. Selling American flags in Iraq is safer.
Why do they still call MTV MTV? Should they drop the M. I think they stopped playing music videos in about 1989.
I've changed my position on gay marriage. I think gay people should be allowed to get married. Just not to other gay people, well other gay people of the same gender. There, now we all have the same right to marry. Oh, wait that's how it always was.
As the push for an amendment to clarify the definition of marriage as being between two people of the differing genders moves along it reminds me of Utah's decision to become a state. Utah of course has a large Mormon population. Now I won't get into my opinion of LDS but I know that at one time having more than one wife was OK. (Why anyone would want to do that is beyond me.) However to conform to the moral consciousness of the nation they nixed that to become a state. Why do some people want to go backward to marriage rules that don't foster a sense of family, backward to marriage laws that make one gender superfluous, back to marriage laws that fail to signify the permanent commitment to permanence and raising children that traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage have? I'll never know.
Gay people can get married in all 50 states, just not to people of the same sex. There is no discrimination. This has become an "I'll do whatever I want that pleases me" culture and it will be our albatross until we can see beyond our selfish wants to the needs of society, our children, and others. Children need a mother and a father not some artificially concocted notarized amalgamation sharing an apartment. Children need the love and stability that comes from a two parent home, not the transient ejaculatory entertainment unnatural sexual couplings provide. Children need an environment in which to learn and grow. Contrary to Hillary Clinton's pseudo-Communist it takes a village philosophy, it takes a mother and father who love one another and are committed to one another. Marriage by any other name is just a farce, and we are kidding ourselves if we think that by being inclusive and letting homosexuals marry we are bettering society. We are destroying the moral fabric on which our society is based.
This is not a condemnation of homosexuality. It is said that no one chooses to be homosexual and that may be true, but one chooses to act on those feeling and that is something with which they must reconcile themselves. Don't hate the sinner hate the sin is often uttered when discussion homosexuality and that is of course true. All of us are the sinner at some point, but making same sex marriage legal only multiplies and legitimizes the sin, a scandal we can ill afford.
Posted by Matthew at July 12, 2004 07:45 AM
Comments
"They are preserving the sanctity of marriage, so that two gay men who've been together for twenty-five years can't get married, but a guy can still get drunk in Vegas and marry a hooker at the Elvis chapel! The sanctity of marriage is saved!"
Lea DeLaria
I think that about sums it up. Oh, don't let gays marry other gays, but hey, Britney can have a 55 hour marriage and that's okay because she married a guy.
Marriage is sacred whether it's between people of the opposite sex or people of the same sex.
s/
Posted by: slashgirl at July 14, 2004 03:27 PM
Marriage is for having children.
Britney is a cheap bimbo.
If people want to be committed gay partners that is just dandy with me. It is their life. If they want to make laws that say they can have visiting rights at the hospital, inheretence rights, or frankly any other rights, but the right to marry a person of the same gender, that is OK with me.
Marriage is for procreation. If you can't procreate as a couple you can't marry.
Posted by: Matthew at July 14, 2004 11:36 PM
I just love the procreation arguement. So then people who are physically incapable of conceiving children (and I mean straight people) shouldn't be allowed to get married. So god "blights" them so to speak and they can't get married. Or do they have to get the marriage annulled if they find out after they're married?
People who chose NOT to have children, even tho' they're capable of doing so, shouldn't be allowed to get married either? So much for God's love.
The Jesus and God that I learned about growing up in a Christian (but not Catholic) home wouldn't be so petty to the people that one created and the other one died for. But that's just the view of this Christian raised, now pagan woman.
s/
Posted by: slashgirl at July 15, 2004 09:56 PM
People who are physically incapable of married sexual union are not to be married in the Catholic Church. However since the sex act is to be confined to marriage one should not know prior to marriage if they are incapable unless there were some horrible disfiguring accident or malformation.
Please note that sterility is not the same as incapability. Of course you would not know that you were sterile until you tried to have children.
All marriages should be open to children, and those that decide before marriage that they will not have children are not to be married in the Catholic Church. However that does not mean that people who cannot have children because of advanced age cannot get married, they can as long as they are open to children should God bless them with children even at their advanced age.
Marriage is a design of God Himself which insures the bond between man and wife and the propagation of children who will be cherished and educated.
However people who find out after they are married that they are physically unable to complete the marriage act (have sexual intercourse) need not seek an annulment. While this is very sad, it does not mean an end to the marriage. Prayer and faith have cured much worse than that. Similarly the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: (2379) The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord's Cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others.
It is remarkably unfortunate that people are homosexual, just as we realize that these feelings they have are psychologically unexplained they are most certainly not something that these people choose. The teachings of the Church affirm that homosexuality is indeed a trial for those that suffer from this condition. It also teaches (2358) They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
While Church law forbids the marriage that is not open to the possible gift of children, the Church also realizes that this will not be possible for everyone. We must face our trials here so that we may live forever in union with God.
Just as homosexual acts are a sin (but homosexuals who heed the call to chastity are not by their mere makeup sinners) discrimination against homosexuals or mistreatment of homosexuals is too a sin.
I'm sorry homosexuals can't marry and I have great sympathy for their predicament but their souls are more important than their desires.
Posted by: Matthew at July 16, 2004 10:59 AM