Odds 'n' Ends

So I’m currently in a race against time. See, I got a job (and a good one, no more selling my body on street corners!), but I’m waiting for a background check before I can start. Meanwhile, I developed the flu/a fever/west nile/the screaming gibblies over the weekend and every day I think, “Okay, today has to be the day this ends. But, um, it isn’t. So hopefully my background check will come in today and I’ll be healthy tomorrow and ready to get on with life. Anyway, I’ve got some thoughts to wrap up on my last series and I’ve still got two more installments of “The End of the World” over at Right Behind, but I’m just not feeling like it. Still, I feel like writing something, so here’s a nice odds ‘n’ ends entry. Let’s start with something that’s got my blood a boilin’ with a game I like to call Current Events Multiple Choice. Over the weekend John McCain said this was “one of the worst decisions in history.” Was he talking about: A. The Dred Scot case. B. Plessy v. Ferguson C. The Supreme Court’s decision to allow Gitmo detainees civil rights. D. Gallipoli E. Three more seasons of The Simpsons. Okay, to start off, to the best of my knowledge he didn’t call it one of the worst Supreme Court decisions. He called it one of the worst decisions. Period. I could have gotten a truncated version without the words Supreme Court. Let’s pretend, for a moment, that he did actually refer to Supreme Court decisions and I missed it. If not, well, I don’t need to tell you how frightening the idea is of having a President with that limited of a vision... Anyway, for those who don’t know, Dred Scot basically said that black people were property and had no rights. It kinda-sorta helped set up that whole American Civil War thing. Plessy v. Ferguson gave us the words “separate but equal,” one of the worst phrases in American Supreme Court judgment history. I say it’s “one of the worst” because it’s possible to imagine a world where “equal” was explicitly passed down to mean quantity and quality and strictly enforced. It still would have been a horrid idea, but there would have been less room for exploitation of the system. Gitmo, meanwhile, has been a giant step back in America’s history. Ever since the Declaration of Independence, America has been about extending the principles of freedom to more people and extending the protection of the government to ever more downtrodden folk. Gitmo might be the worst thing we’ve ever done, worse even than the treatment of West Coast Japanese in World War II (they, at least, were treated like human beings). Now, there is one point that must be made. Releasing Gitmo detainees might be a really bad thing. I imagine that if I were a Muslim back in ‘03 who really like America, wanted to move to So-Cal, attend USC, marry a Song Girl, and make my fortune, but then, due to accident of location or last name was rounded up and unjustly imprisoned in a tiny cage for five years, I might come out of it just a little bit pissed off. This, of course, is no excuse to not shut down Gitmo. The bigger the stupidity and the longer it lasts, the bigger the cost when its actually admitted. But being afraid to admit and fix mistakes is a lousy reason to avoid doing something that’s difficult. There’s no justifiable reason not to fix this massive mistake. And it would go a long way toward helping polish a little tarnish off the ol’ international image... On another note: Go California. As I’m sure most people know, folks who like other folks with the same-shaped genitalia are officially allowed to get married out on the Left Coast now. I heard a news report that some religious group tried to get a stall until November for a ballot measure. The powers that be (in the State Supreme Court, I think. I know it wasn’t Ah-nold) basically said, “Hey, we’ll put a referendum on the ballot in November, but there’s no reason not to let people get started now.” I like that attitude. Meanwhile, I heard one of those, “Don’t you read the Bible?” arguments in response to the law yesterday. This is a fun little trick of certain, shall we say, conservative Christian elements to re-frame the argument in their favor. For anybody who reads this and runs in to the argument, the best response is to shrug and say, “Have you read the Constitution?” See, and this is something I hated long before I gave up on Christianity, we live in a nation governed not by Biblical law, but by the Constitution. We have a Bill of Rights that contains something called the Establishment Clause that specifically forbids the creation of a state-religion and, therefore, religious laws for the nation. Yet there are plenty of people who just don’t get that. They also don’t get, as I’ve literally been arguing since high school, that this is a good thing. Theocracies are crappy places to live, even if you are in with the elite. They have this tendency to persecute outsiders until the insiders start to look suspicious too and just kind of make life a living hell for every one. So next time someone asks if you know what the Bible says about homosexuality, ask them if they know what the Constitution says about it (um, there may still be some places where the State Constitution will work against you on this comeback. I forget, but I think the sodomy laws were all overturned about four years ago). Furthermore, there’s a neat little rhetorical trick you can try. People all over the country are trying to get Constitutional Amendments passed making gay marriage illegal. Now, I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s a tacit admission that, as things stand, gay marriage isn’t actually illegal. Even if I’m wrong, I’ll bet it’s fun to watch heads explode in the face of that one... I also love the counties that are saying they won’t issue ANY marriage licenses. Watch the rhetoric on that one, too. See, it kind of goes like this. “They’re letting the gays get married and now they aren’t letting the good Christians do it.” I’ve never really been impressed with this sort of argument. It’s pretty easy to deal with, too. Alcohol, for instance, is legal in much of this nation. However, no one forces churches to open bars (although, really, I love the ones that do). Churches, meanwhile, are totally different organizations from County Clerk Offices. Hell, the church I used to attend wouldn’t let my sister and brother-in-law get married in its sanctuary and it sure as hell wouldn’t let me right now, either, no matter who I was marrying, woman, man, or horse. Churches actually have a great deal more power within their walls than the Christian right wants anyone to realize. Admitting it would take away their ability to act persecuted...