New Design and Marriage

Hopefully if you're here (and not blind) you've noticed that I changed the design. Thanks go to a good friend of mine who found the awesome new background picture. Isn't it fabulous? Credit for the new fonts, colors, etc go to me myself and I. Do you like it? Send compliments to startrekkev@aol.com, and criticisms to someone who will care. Hint, that's nobody.

If you're interested in my Monday morning commentary, then continue reading.

As I was eating my healthy breakfast of cheerios, yogurt, and a banana this morning, I read the recent gay news that I get delivered to my phone. I was a little surprised to read more than one story about marriage equality. If you didn't know, Iowa's legislature is working towards REPEALING their gay-inclusive marriage law. Damn it, and here I thought I could just go to Bufunowhere, Iowa to get married. Not for much longer if they have their way!

Iowa's governor had several choice comments to make, which I shall now pick apart like that outfit you're wearing this morning. Note that I took this from Queerty:

Well, I think the court made a mistake… Well, I want to treat everybody with fairness and equity, but I don't think that includes meaning that people of the same sex should be able to be married. I don't want to discriminate or treat people in an unfair manner, but this is something that is a new right, that never existed before and one certainly that a vast majority of Iowans don't think was appropriate to be done the way it was done....

And so on in the same vein. Well I'll start out by agreeing with him that courts can make a mistake. Did Iowa's court make a mistake by ruling gay marriage is a civil right? Legally no, because we're all human beings and we're supposed to be equal. Politically yes, because a few of them lost their jobs and the others are being targeted. So much for a judiciary that isn't under the iron fist of a few special interest groups. I thought the courts weren't supposed to be influenced by public opinion (that's why Supreme Court Justices are appointed for LIFE and can't be fired), but I guess that doesn't apply when we gays might get some justice.

At least he doesn't want to treat us unfairly. Taking away our civil rights isn't UNFAIR or anything. I just got a headache from the stupid inherent in that statement. And new right? It's not a new right. It's a right that straights have had for quite a long time. That makes it an old right. You're just interested in excluding us. So don't talk some bullshit about "new rights." And it doesn't particularly matter what a vast majority of Iowans think. The rights of a minority shouldn't come under the purview of majority opinion. That's why they're called rights, dumbass.

Other than that, the only interesting marriage-y news I've seen today is that Indiana's GOP senators are (WHAT A SHOCKER!) pushing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Government by the people and for the people apparently doesn't include gays. At least there are 7 out lawmakers in Maryland working to make marriage equality a reality in that state.