I wish I cared more about gay marriage. I just don’t. I think the whole religious-legal-cultural entanglement that forms the institution of marriage is way overvalued. And I think the special rights issues marriage raises go well beyond heterosexual versus homosexual. Still I love data like this that shows that opponents of same-sex marriage are basically cutting off their, in this case economic, noses.
Category: politics
Marriage=1,138 federal rights
I have put off posting in my blog until I have time to get it set up in WordPress; probably not until after I finish my CS degree later this month. Personally I don’t know why marriage earns a person any rights over an unmarried person, but I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who can take advantage of the benefits. Still this seemed worth recording.
Some heterosexual couples, including Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend, support gay rights by refusing to marry until same-sex couples can. “According to the Government Accountability Office, a marriage license comes with 1,138 federal rights, including the ability to claim a dead spouse’s Social Security benefits and to make medical decisions for a spouse in an emergency.” One person in the article points out that as a heterosexual, he and his partner still enjoy privileges that homosexuals do not. If he is in the hospital no one is going to question his partner’s right to see him or ask for proof if she claims to be his wife. Another man says that he makes an effort to correct people that assume he and his partner are married. “It’s a really important dialogue with people I wouldn’t get to talk to otherwise.”
Nov 2, 2004 – Voting Machines
Back on Nov 2, 2004, “Here We Go Again…”, I posted about an interview I saw on CNN with a woman in Florida whose vote for Kerry was changed to a vote for Bush and her subsequent problems getting her vote corrected. Strangely, I’ve never heard anything about that subject again in the mass media. I just found an article posted Nov 13, 2004, that proposes some explanation.
Bush’s Lies, Our News
The news is starting to sound like Bush’s lies are being absorbed into the national consciousness, that I am seeing history rewritten and those lies are becoming cultural fact. Today’s New York Times has an extensive article about why this is happening. Basically, the Bush administration has been providing the content for “news” broadcasts. Of course, the most disturbing and depressing thing is that a large percentage of voters will never know that much of their evening news is propaganda and their beliefs will continue to be shaped by deception.