Don't know when I'll be back again

[cyrano]

It has beeen brought to my attention that I have not posted the itinerary for my latest venture.
Tentative plans are:
30 Jul UA889 SFO-LAX 1955-2119
31 Jul UA6911 LAX-TUS 0915-1040
02 Aug UA6982 TUS-LAX 1733-1900
02 Aug UA1420 LAX-SFO 2000-2114

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So there's more fuss from the pope about gay marriage. Which once *again* causes me to ask what the hell is the US government involved in religious ceremonies for?
The big blow up here is, from my understanding, that many strongly Christian folks feel that extending the ceremony of marriage to anybody who is not a single unmarried man and a single unmarried woman degrades the sanctity of the union.
If this civil contract which is sanctioned by the government had no legal aspects, there would be no conflict.
Here's the game plan: Let there be no more marriages. At least legally speaking. If people still want to go to a church and perform the ceremony, more happy they. Legally speaking, we don't get married any more. We form some sort of civil union, and establish legal rights by contract. There'd be some sort of romantic name for the process, like 'civilly bound' or 'legally joined' or something, and insurance/inheritance/visitation rights would be bestowed by a state that is no longer tied to the church.

Comments

[katchoo-too.livejournal.com]

It isn't just the pope. It is the President too. Here is part of an article on the whole WMD claim in the State of the Union.
I love that it was thrown in.

On one simmering domestic issue, the president said he opposes gay marriage, and suggested his administration might propose legislation on the subject.


"I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman. And I think we ought to codify that one way or the other. And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that," he said.

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

The result would be the creation of a new series of objections to gay people getting "civil unioned" or whatever. People come up with the things they don't like first and the reasons why second.

Marriage isn't a church thing, you know -- or at least not a Christian thing. People were getting married long before the Jeebus came along and stuck his nose into it. So it's not so much that the state needs to get out of the marriage business as that the church does; or at least needs to stop pretending that anyone cares what it (they) think.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it's a Christian ceremony, although Christians seem to be the largest group who thinks gay marriage is a bad thing due to religious reasons.
Marriage, even before the Jeebus, was still a spiritual union of souls. Even if it was more than two souls. Even if it was only for a year. At its heart, it's still a religious ceremony. N'est c'est pas?
(And it seems that there are a vocal handful of folks who do care what the Church thinks. Whichever church they end up siding with. Even if they only care what the church thinks when it thinks what they think.)
I dunno. I'm at work and I'll try to craft some thought-provoking response when I'm not 'in the shit'.

[miss-friday.livejournal.com]

FYI, that's "n'est-ce pas."

[drastic.livejournal.com]

In the reading and replying-to another journal just now, I found myself going bamboozled-crosseyed at being emphatically told that morals in society are good! Good!

Now, yeah, they sure are. But I always get a little nervous about being told that sort of thing--because it's the sort of thing that also gets connected to nonsense like marriage-sanctity, or family-sanctity, or some poor bobbleheaded group's right to vote when they're not properly pigmentally challenged or convex-wabbily-bit equipped, or or or.

I think society and especially politics could do with a lot less jawing about morals and a whole lot more leaving-other-people-in-peace. I guess I draw some pleasure from occasionally thinking of myself as at least a little unique in terms of views and such, but why the fuck can't that one be one that everyone else has?

[wilson-lizard.livejournal.com]

AAaaaymen!

Have a good trip!

[tersa.livejournal.com]

30 Jul UA889 SFO-LAX 1955-2119
31 Jul UA6911 LAX-TUS 0915-1040

AHHHH. That explains the discrepency. I hadn't realized you were doing a hella layover.