Texas Proposition 2

I owe the kids a quarter. I sat down at the table to eat a late dinner. My wife had just gotten back with sandwiches from Subway. It's about 7:30 PM on Friday and I decide to pull up the Secretary Of State's web site and get the returns on Proposition 2. Before I can even navigate to the site, the msnbc home page pops up with a big bar across the top - "Breaking News: Texans approve ban on 'same-sex' marriage" or something to that effect. That's when I said it. The 'D' word, and not quietly under my breath, but in a loud exclamation that shocked my wife and kids.

I am not gay. You might have gathered this from the mention of my wife above. I do have gay friends, but that isn't why I oppose this proposition. Quite simply, it is wrong. It is hate.

When I was growing up, my parents tried very hard to instill in me a sense of right and wrong. At times I could see that it was very hard for them, because the racism that they did not want me to learn had been such a prevalent part of society when they grew up. I once overheard my dad chastising my mom when the merest hint of a racial stereotype had crept into something she had said or done. I was so proud of my parents. For many many years after that I would swell up with pride when I thought of that. My parents loved me so much that they fought to raise me better then they had been raised, to become an adult without that evil seed of hate for someone different from myself.

It's 11:09 now. With 82.42% of the precincts reporting, Proposition 2 has passed by 76.14% to 23.86%. Over 3 to 1. My state, the state that I was born and raised in, has decided that hate is the right way to go. And my parents, those divinely inspired people who taught me that hate is wrong, sit there with the majority. And I don't know which is worse. The disappointment from hoping, expecting even, to win, or the loss of something that you hold dear. Something that you have cherished throughout your adult life.

Maybe I do know which is worse.

Wilderness Site May See Oil Drilling

Unbelievable: "The memo also made it clear that energy companies would no longer be automatically required to provide the park service with a formal drilling plan. That exemption has the potential to save companies time and money. It allows them to avoid being specific about drilling methods and cleanup procedures, and excuses them from filing a costly federal bond that pays for land remediation after wells are abandoned or stop producing, according the park service's geology office in Denver."(emphasis added)

Poll: U.S. divided on same-sex marriage - Politics - MSNBC.com

Poll: U.S. divided on same-sex marriage - Politics - MSNBC.com

Reading through this artile, I was still depressed to see that so few support gay marriage. But what caught my eye was a quote listed most of the way down:

46 percent of those surveyed said they support civil unions that would provide gay couples with “some, but not all of the legal rights of married couples.”




So I wonder what legal rights they support only for heterosexual married couples?

StopLandmines.org - Video

Wow. And apparently, the networks don't think the advertisement should play here. While I would not want my kids to see this, I do think it should be seen. Stick it in as a commercial during Nightline, or the 10 PM news. The audience would be about right, and it would be outside of the safe harbor.

Pope in Persistent Vegetative State

I look at this and it causes me to wonder. If the Pope entered into the same Persistent Vegetative State that Mrs. Schiavo was in, how would this effect the world in general, and Catholicism specifically? Undoubtedly it would lead to a more thorough study of what is a Persistent Vegetative State. At the very least it would probably result in a change in terminology, as the linguistic connection between vegetative and vegetable would cause people to seek to describe the Pope's condition differently.

Schiavo vs Schiavo

I've looked at the history of the case in the federal ourt system and the case comes up as Schiavo vs Schiavo. See Schiavo-v-Schiavo-OrderDenyingTRO . I am not a lawyer, so one of the things that I want to know is if Micheal Schiavo is her guardian, then how do the Schindlers have standing to put her name as one of the plaintiffs? What I am trying to understand is why this is not Schindler vs Schiavo ?

The only thing that comes to mind is that only the aggrieved party has a right to bring suit, and since they are contesting that Terri is the aggrieved party (She's the one being denied her religious freedom, etc...), either she, through her guardian, or the state need to bring the suit.