So much for…
being annoyed at friends getting married/having kids all over Facebook. Now they’re getting divorced. O_o Yikes…
BREAKING NEWS: President Obama announces support for what we already knew he supported but also knew he was politically afraid to admit.
A Romney inspired proposal.
I am glad…
… that people are looking into Newt Gingrich’s marital infidelities.
I am not glad, however, that they are using the opportunity to mock and vilify open marriages. Everyone’s talking about it like the idea of an open marriage is a despicable thing. It’s not. It’s a lifestyle choice that two (or more) people can openly and honestly enter into and be happy with.
Gingrich may have wanted an open marriage, but he was never in one. Sleeping around on your wife, and then proposing an open marriage when she finds out about it is not how it works, buddy. Obviously his wife at the time was not interested in it. So he left her.
It’s perfectly fine to criticize Newt Gingrich for attempting to assuage his wife by proposing an open marriage. And it’s perfectly fine to mock him for attempting to live this lifestyle, and succeeding at being a guy who sleeps around and leaves his wife for a new one when he gets bored while at the same time speaking out about how the values traditional marriage are under attack (especially while being the driving force behind the Clinton/Lewinsky investigation). That’s all fine. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy.
But it’s not okay to make a mockery of the idea of open marriage itself.
We’re starting to see a trend where homosexuality is becoming more and more accepted into society (even among conservatives). Some say it’s the last hurdle in the civil rights movement, but there’s another one very close to it, and that’s the world of open relationships, polyamory and the like.
One day it may be perfectly legal for two men or two women to marry anywhere in the country, but the chances of that also including three-person marriages (or four, or five, etc) is highly unlikely. Hopefully after one, the other follows shortly thereafter.
Infidelity does not break marriages up; it is the unreasonable expectation that a marriage must restrict sex that breaks a marriage up. One of the reasons I wrote the book is that I’ve seen so many long-term relationships broken up simply because one had sex outside the relationship. But feeling victimized isn’t a natural outcome of casual sex outside a relationship; it is a socialized victimhood. I’m not advocating cheating; I’m advocating open and equitable sexual relationships. When both in the couple desire this, when both realize that extra-dyadic sex makes their partner happy, and they therefore want their partner to have that sex, a couple will have moved a long ways toward facilitating emotional honesty, while simultaneously withering at jealousy scripts, which can be very damaging to a relationship. But if one can’t achieve this with a partner that’s hostile to the idea, cheating is the reasonable action.
Faster than Driving
- Whitney: Getting married is so dumb.
- Alex: Just cause your parents each got divorced three times doesn't mean that all marriages are bad.
- Whitney: Half of all marriages end. If half of all planes crashed, would you continue to fly?
- Alex: It's just so much faster than driving.
Santorum first implies that there have been no scientific studies showing favorable results for kids raised by same-sex parents, and then when the students in this video produce evidence of the contrary from the American Psychological Association, he then claims that “a lot of psychologists don’t belong to the APA” and that a study from the APA is just “proof that a group of people agree with you”.
Yeah, well, ya know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
By that argument, doesn’t that mean that the “2000 years of teaching and moral theology” he follows as a Catholic is just “proof that a group of people agree with you?” After all, “a lot of people don’t belong” to the Catholic church.
(Via thedailywhat)
Same-Sex Marriage Debate of the Day: During a Q&A session at Penn State, a couple of students who had a bit of a problem with GOP presidential candidate (and Penn State alum) Rick Santorum’s argumentum ad antiquitatem opposition to same-sex marriage challenged him with science.
Santorum’s response? Science doesn’t prove anything.
Christine O’Donnell walks off Piers Morgan because he wants to talk about her views on gay marriage rather than why she thinks Obama is a bad leader. Somehow I missed this…
The bottom line is, we can have a public policy difference about what the proper marriage laws should be in this country and what is in the best interest of society and not hate somebody of feel ill will toward anybody. As I’ve said many times, I have friends who are gay, I accept them as they are, but I disagree with them vehemently about what is in the best interest of society with respect to our marriage laws and what we’re going to teach our children in schools, what the impact of those marriage laws will be on our faith communities and their ability to be able to proclaim the truth as God has laid it out in The Bible. All of those things are ramifications of a public policy debate where I - again, I’m going to stand and be very vocal about, but that doesn’t mean that I dislike anybody or hate anybody because of their sexual orientation. I respect that decision, but you also have to respect me for feeling very differently about trying to take that orientation, and then to try and project an agenda onto the American public that is consistent with that. That is where I’ll draw the line and have a disagreement, but it’s not personal. It’s about policy.
Rick Santorum, pontificating about how he really doesn’t hate gay people. (He just equates homosexuality to pedophilia and beastiality.) But really, it’s not personal!
Santorum is right, we can, in fact, disagree about public policy without hating each other. He has every right to hold his opinion about “what is best for society” in his eyes. But there are a few problems with what he said.
The line “what we’re going to teach our children in schools,” is, I guess, a nod to sexual education. This is a debate that will continue well after the debate about gay marriage is settled (when it is legalized on a national level, because that is what will happen, it’s just a matter of when). There are already people out there against teaching kids anything about sex in school just out of their own opinions about sex in general. Sex is terribly taboo in America, especially among the religious who are more opposed to gay marriage as well. The thing is, educating kids about sex is a good thing, whether it’s straight sex or gay sex, but the people who try not to think about our natural animal urges because they think it’s a sin to do so will not see that for a very long time, if ever. Santorum thinks that if gay marriage is legalized then every kid will have homosexuality shoved on them, which isn’t true.
And then he gets to the heart of the matter: religion. It’s really all about religion. Firstly, Santorum thinks gay marriage is a threat to the faith community’s “ability to be able to proclaim the truth as God has laid it out in The Bible,” which is to say, gay marriage would go against The Bible, thus contradicting religion and God, decreasing its power on society. There’s plenty of other stuff in this world that contradicts what The Bible says, yet Christianity is still thriving. Gay marriage would, unfortunately, not destroy religion.
And secondly, Santorum has introduced religion into a public policy debate, which is unconstitutional. Santorum can practice his religion and believe whatever crazy shit he wants to, but he can’t create public policy based on what he thinks God wants or what the Bible says. He need another reason to ban gay marriage and he doesn’t have it. Every time someone votes to ban gay marriage, they are desecrating the constitution.
Santorum thinks gays are “projecting an agenda onto the American public”. Nope. They’re not the one’s saying what you can and cannot do. They just want to be equal. Christians are the ones projecting their agenda on the American public by saying who can and cannot get married.
He also casually drops in, “I respect that decision.” People who think homosexuality is a decision need to get a grip. As some quote or image I’ve seen floating around the Internet says so well, why would anyone choose to be gay if it means being hated, bullied and prevented from being equals in society? It’s not a choice.
So when Santorum says, “it’s not personal,” he means he doesn’t hate individual gay people. He hates all of them.
Is it adultery if I’m committing it at one end of a guy, and he’s committing it at the other end of that same guy?
[Gay marriage] won’t destroy the democracy; it doesn’t destroy the family; it strengthens the institution of marriage and its principal premise of fidelity; and it increases the number of people living in stable and loving homes. … This is, corny as it seems, not about politics or religion or power or lobbying. It is about love. In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is already yours. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want: a chance to be a little less alone in the world. And your acceptance of their love turns out to be your own expression of love to your fellow human beings.
Keith Olbermann
Amen, sir.
You know how we look back on history and think, “How shameful was it that slavery was once legal?” or “Can you believe women weren’t allowed to vote?”.
That’s what we’ll be saying about this in 50 years. Why people can’t see that is beyond me.
(via anditstartedpouringrain)
