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I’m against gay marriage because I’m against the legal recognition of marriage. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? I don’t see why gay people should be forced to adopt a religiously-entrenched expression when those very religions have rejected them for so long, either.
Obviously there’s a legal need in terms of inheritance, adoption and custody law for people to associate themselves in this way, so I think there should be a form of legally recognised union, called, I dunno. The term Civil Partnership works prety well. And that’ll be the only legally recognised form of partnership, available to any consenting adults of any gender and any number. (Yep, polygamy. If people want to do it, I don’t see any reason why not.) The CP initiation just consists of the involved parties signing a registry and being issued with a document, whilst in the presense of a governmental non-religious witness. People could add their own agreements of inheritance or custody exemption at this point if they want to (such as, exempting all pre 2009 earnings from dissolution (divorce) proceeds). This can be done anywhere, and people can build their religious ceremonies around that if they wish to. If people still want a big church wedding, then that’s fine, nothing changes for them. But by and large this system would be hugely fairer (a current Civil Partnership between same-sex couples is NOT the same as getting married, legally speaking, it affords less rights in several areas), free of the regrettable Judeo-Christian religious entrenchment in our legal system, and would be a beacon of freedom and equality.

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I’ve always had a strong personal impression of what ‘marriage’ meant (big thing in a church, white dress, cake) and the people I’ve asked about it (because I have done a bit of research into this) have as well.

Anyway, my main point about all this is that all people who want to be joined in legal partnership should get the same rights. That’s not the case at the moment, a Civil Partnership as it exists isn’t the same as getting married, and that’s not fair. There should be no difference, which would require legal revision, and I just think an overhaul would be easier and clearer. I don’t think that religion should have any legal say in partnerships between people beyond what they specifically choose, and I don’t think that can be the case until marriage as it currently exists ceases to, legally speaking. Marriage is a word with a lot of connotations and I don’t think that they are necessary or relevant. This is all I’m trying to say.

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BASED ON the understanding that the US Constitution declares absolutely and above all else that all are equal,
that ‘marriage’ in its’ current form is between a man and woman as recognized by law,
that ‘gay marriage’ is between two people of the same gender, and that as such would require a change in marriage law to be legally recognized as a ‘marriage’,
that all people deserve equality in whom they choose as a legally recognized life partner,
that religious objection by traditional/non-progressive religious sects of the use of the word ‘marriage’ as they define it, that is, as a religious event sanctified by god (it’s in all the Abrahamic (‘Old Testament’) texts, and religions based on these texts, as we are all aware, make up the vast majority of the gamut of religious followers in the world today) is a significant issue in the obtaining of equal partnership rights for members of the LGBT community,
WE PROPOSE that two forms of union cannot without identical legal wording be truly equal,
that a gender-neutral single partnership law would better address the rightful demands of the LGBT community for equality in terms of inheritance, custody and adoption law, as is their constitutional right,
that this one form of partnership law would therefore be more constitutional,
that having non-religious arbitration is constitutionally necessary,
that neglecting usage of the term ‘marriage’ as a legally recognized expression would eliminate unconstitutional religious intrusion and objection to it,
that the new partnership law would change little in the religious ceremonies people may or may not choose to follow then as they do now,
that the new partnership law would follow at a minimum at least the same package of rights as current marriage law, aside to references to gender, or any other possible form of discrimination between legal participants so as to proactively make further revision of law due to the desire of groups already in existence or that may arise in the unforseen future unnecessary,
that subject to religious customs or a lack of, people should be free to waive or supplement these rights as they see fit, as long as both parties are willing signatories (I’m second guessing what the other guys think here a bit, but I think they’d agree)

It’s not just the people in this thread who believe this arrangement would work better. It’s called marriage privatisation, and there are a fairly wide range of advocates, from libertarians to conservatives to liberals. Here are some relevant clippings.

Michael Kinsley, political commentator and journalist, speaking in 2003 to Slate wrote:If marriage were an entirely private affair, all the disputes over gay marriage would become irrelevant. Gay marriage would not have the official sanction of government, but neither would straight marriage. There would be official equality between the two, which is the essence of what gays want and are entitled to. And if the other side is sincere in saying that its concern is not what people do in private, but government endorsement of a gay “lifestyle” or “agenda,” that problem goes away, too

Alan Dershowitz, legal scholar, 2003 wrote:Not only would this solution be good for gays and for those who oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, it would also strengthen the wall of separation between church and state by placing a sacred institution entirely in the hands of the church while placing a secular institution under state control.

Lawrence Torchello, issue philosopher wrote:No religious model that rejects same-sex marriage would be required to perform same-sex marriages under this privatized model. Under this model a couple, either heterosexual or homosexual, would obtain a civil union in order to have public and legal recognition of their partnership; they would have a private marriage ceremony if they so chose in order to honor their private religious or philosophical concept of marriage.

Sorry if it seems like I’m harping on about this, and doubly sorry if all I’m doing is saying exactly the same as I did previously. Just thought someone might find it interesting.

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Band Name : Army Navy

Album Name: Army Navy

Pleasant listening.

But hardly ground breaking stuff.

Replays will be rare.

6/10

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I think I’ll do one per post, in line with the music I’m currently listening to. Meanwhile, the issue of the hour is the expenses issue that is shaking UK parliament. Personally, I support MP dormitories, so that they do not need a second house and therefore can’t claim expenses on the maintenance of one. The whole theory behind the expenses system is that MPs typically come from their constituencies (not always the case) and probably have their family home there, but because of the amount of time they must spend in parliament, they often have to have a second house in the london area. A career that requires someone to buy a house is a somewhat unfair one, the system argues.  The problem with this is that in financially assisting with the second house, a huge amount of potential for abuse is opened. Many MPs are wealthy upper-class sorts who already own several houses (and I’m not saying ‘many’ without assurance. One MP owned 7 houses AND was claiming expenses.) The ‘primary residence’ can be changed at will, and mortgage, repair costs, and even things like food, are paid if claimed for. By offering MPs modest dormitories, free of charge, they would not need the expenses system, making the abuse of it impossible. All maintainence costs could be overseen by a government appointed burser directly.

The second expenses issue lies in that all an MP has to do to claim their wage is ‘sign in’ and then they can leave and do what they please whilst recieving their wage. This way they can avoid being in session at all. The solution is simple and has been in place for decades for every other employee in the country. Clocking-in and out.

Expenses crisis solved. Parliament reformed. Next?

(Oh, all the MPs are claiming that they haven’t broken any rules. This is true. ‘Exploitation of loopholes for personal gain’ should be introduced as a retroactive statute of parliament immediately, penalty: exclusion. That’s the ‘parliamentary reform’ bit. It’ll certainly dispatch bunches of the exploitative bastards. And I wouldn’t expect anything less in my workplace, either.)

I’m listening to the Decemberists’ new album, which so far (on track 8 of 17) has been alright, but perhaps less distinctive than their other albums. It’ll probably grow on me though. It goes like that with music for me. I’m pretty much cool on every new release until I listen to it a few times and it grows on me.

I’ve been watching quite a lot of comedy recently, not least Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, which is both hilarious and interesting.  Stewart Lee’s new program on the BBC, ‘Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle’ is also good, as is a lot of his other work, and he’s quickly risen to being one of my favorite comedians.

A few notable issues have been floating around my mind recently. it’s difficult to decide what to talk about, which is the reason I’ve lapsed into this kind of ranting. I might broaden my horisons with this blog. Review some books and music and tv and films and stuff.

I had a disturbing dream last night. It’s difficult to remember it completely. My dreams feel like epic and surreal explorations of horror, though as someone intelligent said, in dreams the surreal is mundane and telling someone you had a surreal dream is blatantly obvious and rather tedious.

There was some kind of horrific arena. Animals were introduced to it and torn to pieces, the crowds cheering at the spilt blood. I worked at this place, or was somehow backstage, anyway. I was trying to, after watching the slaughter of several animals in disgust, trying to steal a chimpanzee to protect it. The arena was square, surrounded by tiered metal grandstands in a dank burgundy windowless room. It was a kind of coliseum-come-horror-circus. The sawdust started spotless and as the various animals came, destroyed their predecessor and were in turn destroyed by the creature that followed them, gradually became more and more soaked with fresh animal blood. I managed to sneak this chimpanzee out and back upstairs, where it was kept. It was wearing lipstick and its’ nipples were painted with animal blood.

All of this took place in the course of three or four minutes. The actual dream was much longer but is mostly forgotten, unfortunately.

I am going to begin reading Freud, I think.

Oh! The title of this post is a reference to an oncoming rant about political correctness and, more specifically, why I’m in favour of it.

Nothing much ever happened in Brume. That’s not to say the town didn’t have its share of peculiarity and grotesquery, because it did.  But the town itself sat in a fairly steady and unchanging state. It was peculiar that Brume pier was on fire, but it had been steadily so for as long as anyone living there could remember. No-one really seemed to know why or how, but nevertheless the pier continued to burn, most days just smouldering, other days fiercly and with tongues of flame licking the charred ironwork until it glowed red. There had been calls to demolish it before it collapsed and buried the beach in hot rust, but a general antipathy towards the cause and lack of malevolent action on the behalf of the pier meant that it just stood knee deep in the sea, releasing wisps of smoke to blacken the rainclouds overhead.

Off the bat, I’m against gay marriage.

:O What?!

A liberal like you?

Yep. Though, not for the reasons you might think. My rationale is mostly to do with the meaning of ‘marriage’ . According to the Wikipedia entry on marriage, the custom predates reliable written record, and so its actual origin cannot be discerned exactly. But what is very clear, and what immediately comes to mind when one thinks of a ‘marriage’, is some kind of religious ceremony. * Religions have a lot to say about marriage, and have variously been the chief bodies in various parts of the world for ordaining the act, sometimes legally so. It depends largely on where in the world you look. What comes up time and time again, regardless of culture and religion is that people think it natural to be tied to a partner, which is interesting to say the least. I suppose people find the restriction affirming in a sense. Some evidence seems to suggest that at points in history, notably before the 1500s, when legal changes started to be made, there didn’s seem to be a lot of religious involvement in marriage. I quote Wikipedia:

In medieval Europe, marriage came under the jurisdiction of canon law, which recognised as a valid marriage one where the parties stated that they took one another as wife and husband, even in absence of any witnesses.

The Council of Trent (convened 1545–1563) ruled that in future a marriage was only valid in Roman Catholic countries if it was witnessed by a priest of the Roman Catholic Church or, if obtaining a priest were impractical, by other witnesses. [...]

Common law marriages were abolished in England and Wales by the Marriage Act 1753. The Act required marriages to be performed by a priest of the Church of England – unless if the participants in the marriage were Jews or Quakers. The Act applied to Ireland after the Act of Union 1800, but the requirement for a valid marriage to be performed by a Church of England priest created special problems in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland. The law did not provide an exception.

So begins, in the UK at least, the imposement of religious values on the act of marriage. Common-law marriage, a simple affirmation with no legal meaning, was replaced by church-sanctioned marriage, depending on which religion was predominant in the country at the time (Which in turn was largely due to the ruling monarch).

In my opinion, the same values hold more-or-less true today. I think that the mass majority of people consider marriage as a religious affair. And as the world becomes increasingly less religious, I don’t believe that legal rights can be based on religious values.

Look at this page.

There you see the contrasting opinions of various religions on ‘gay marriage’. A government which aims to be non-discriminative in terms of faith surely cannot restrict the rights of the people in the religions that permit gay marriage from doing so as a part of their faith? By the very same token, to forbid religions from having criteria over what constitutes a marriage in accordance with their faith is discrimination also? If marriage is to be a religious process, which it certainly seems to be, then a society which tries to treat all religions equally can’t discriminate against those with one set of beliefs or the other. I’m not saying anything new here. The more formal term is ‘separation of church and state’. America as a law against it, namely the First Amendment. (Lot of good that has done, clearly a collossal effect.)

Recognising the necessity of the separation of church and state, (probably)  Civil Ceremonies were permitted (though I have no freakin’ idea when cause there’s no information about it anywhere). This, of course, opens the doors for partnerships of all sorts. Now anyone can marry anyone in accordance with any faith in any manner they please, and be afforded the same legal benefits. Right?

Not quite.

Though this is what introduction of Civil Unions and Civil Partnerships variously has in essense allowed, there are still some differences in law. In fact, the Uk government information directory, Directgov says so.

Civil partners have equal treatment to married couples in a wide range of legal matters, including:

A wide range? So, not all? Cries of bias ring from the towers.

My proposal? The words of genius you have come to expect and adore from me?

The concept of a partnership with legal implications needs to be rebuild from the ground up. I propose a simple legal requirement such as the signing of a register by both parties as witnessed by an authorised person. This act affords the legal rights of marriage to whomsoever partakes in it. Everything else about the ceremony is completely customisable. it can take place in a Church, a Gurdwara, a Mosque, a country club, a hotel, a zoo, or anywhere. Any religious ceremonies can precede or follow the signing, or none at all if preferred. Any two consenting parties can enter the partnership, so long as they are of an appropriate age (probably as is currently permitted) and meet citizenship rules. This would satisfy all religious parties as could easily be integrated into their present practices (the signing of a register often already is) and would afford the same legal rights to all couples.

In short, the legal concept of marriage should be abolished. All ‘married’ couples would be civil partners. Those that wanted to, could be husband and wife. Or husband and husband, or wife and wife if they preferred.

*Maybe not! My boyfriend said that he doesn’t necessarily. Do you? Vote:

Story. More.

There have been 9 official complaints made against Cerrie’s presence on childrens’ television, as well as, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post, complaints on the BBC forum which have been so offensive as to have to be removed by moderators.

The conspicuous absence of a hand on the Discover and Do slot of a kid’s TV programme, they argued, was forcing them to discuss disability before their children were ready.

Is there really ever a time in which it is TOO EARLY to teach children about how everyone is different but equal? Is any hesitation anything other than fuel to the persistant fire of bigotry in the country? The FIRST THING children need to learn about people is that whilst people are different to each other in millions of ways, none of it matters. Letting kids develop an idea of what is ‘normal’ and then trying to dismiss it is irrational and detrimental, as well as less likely to be successful. If your child finds seeing someone with one arm ‘scary’, teach them it is nothing to be scared about, don’t pull the wool over their eyes.

I think it’s appalling how this irrational fear of what is different is being targeted at the talented and pleasant Cerrie, who really seems to have a way with children, because I’ve seen her on TV. And suggesting such talent is discarded because of a disability is as offensive as saying someone can’t be on TV because they’re black. Another comment suggested that she shouldn’t have her sleeve pulled up, hiding her disability. (I’d link you to it but I can’t fine it. I know, that makes it as good as a lie, but I’m being truthful). Why should she? Why should she hide one of the things that makes her a unique individual? Covering up aspects of our individuality? Why is that any better than the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on gay people in the US military?

Significantly, her defining feature is not her disability. No-one has a ‘defining feature’, one aspect of them that sums up their entire being. Cerrie isn’t just a disabled person, she’s an individual, and a talented one, and deserves to be treated as such.

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In other news, 250 views! Thanks people.

We talked about them in tutorial today, and were asked to give our opinions. It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time talking about in the past, in essays, conversation, and debate. As is always good to do before writing an essay of any length, I suppose you first have to identify what the key terms mean. In my eyes, censorship is the omission of part or banning of all of a publication on grounds ideological, ethical, moral, religious, political, social, or one of any number of others. Which, as I’m sure all you lovely liberal people will agree, is not really a very good thing. 1984, I hear the cries. Newspeak! Doubleplusbad!

Of course, it’s significant to note that censorship is NOT the same as regulation. Regulation is control. Regulation is a pile of sieves so to speak. Giving a film an 18 certificate is regulation, forcing cuts on it is censorship. Both matters are equally contentious, and there is much debate over both of them. There’s also overlap. Who should be doing the regulation? From what I could find, no country releases films that are restricted to anyone older than 21 (Singapore). So, is the theory behind restriction solely for the benefit of children? Who has the right to decide what our kids can and can’t watch? Personally, I think ideally all parents SHOULD be responsible for their childrens’ entertainment consumption, but it’s simply not the case. Few parents seem to give the rating much credence. My brother has seen every film in the house, and is 14. We have a good two-dozen films that are fifteens. Does that make my mum a bad parent?

To me it all seems to be down to parenting style. I watched Titanic with my dad when I was 8. It was a 12. My dad explained the reasoning behind the categorisation and asked if I wanted to watch the nudey bit or not. I chose not to, perhaps a forecast of the things to come. But then, my dad has always been a liberal sort of person. The scenes in films that portray violent or sexual content are something which, I’ve always been taught, are something to be taken with a pinch of salt. It’s not real, it’s there for the purposes of the film only, and it means nothing outside of the context of the film itself. Do many people hold this opinion? And, does the interatctive element of video games make them different? Can media incite people to violence?

Some people say yes. They give examples.

Myself, I have a theory which can only be expressed through the wonderful format of the mighty Venn Diagram.

It’s the people in the black spot in the middle section that are the ones who commit crimes such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, I theorise. Far too many people are mentally ill for that to be the sole cause, and far too many people view violent media for that to be the sole cause too. I have slaughtered what must be thousands of Stormtroopers on Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds and seen plenty of violent films like Sweeney Todd, and am a medicated mentally-ill person. The gradient feature indicates the intensity of exposure to the particular category. So according to my theory, it takes severe exposure to violence, ie. obsessive exposure to graphic violence, severe inclination to mental illness (as has been suggested the case by professionals about the people who have committed school shootings in the past) and extreme impressionability, to absorb the violence and translate it into a real-world situation.

I’m no expert, but that’s what I think.

Is it right to regulate violent/explicit material? Yes, I think so. Removing one of the categories in my theory would make the black spot non-existent, and as it turns out controlling the media would be the easier option. Though school shootings are thankfully rare, I think there’ll be other lesser-reported crimes based on the same rationale. Pulling the carpet out from under the feet of the perpetrators is the only way I can see to restrict the occurrence. Some will always slip through the net. But it can be minimised. I’m sure it can.

Part II: Censorship: Soon!

Secondly is the affair about this outrageous pension that Sir Fred Goodwin wants. Yes, it’s more money than anyone ever needs and that anyone who seemingly drove a bank into the ground should get after running away from his mess. However, a CHANGE IN LAW? Doesn’t that question the integrity of the legal system? I mean, exploiting a loophole is one thing. Changing the law to punish one person inparticular, retroactively to their controvertial action, in this case the approval of this pension? That sounds terribly scary. A new government is introduced and decides to retroactively punish all individuals who XYZed between # and *. The nation panics.