your a policy

I've been thinking of writing up a comment policy. There is ample evidence that such a policy is unnecessary. I can count up all the posts that have no comments, and add in the ones with comments numbering in the single digit, but it is easier to simply add up the ones with a significant number of comments; I can do that on one hand. So there is nothing in the numbers forcing me to create a comment policy.

I like the numbers on this blog. I get thousands of hits each month; over 175,000 since I started it. The first year I think I got only 175 hits...ok maybe a couple more, but the growth has been explosive. Two posts account for 20% of the hits. The first is the viral “Burqa” post about AYD's dress-code violation, and the second is a “This Day In History” post about Karla Faye Tucker's execution.

The post about Karla has been gaining in popularity. From the new comments it appears as if the Karla post has been luring in a bunch of evangelical Christians. It was the act of deleting a comment on that which has had me questioning the need for a comment policy.

The comment was:

 “Aoa your a dick -anonymous”

I've got really good spam filters, and they caught this one. They often catch things that are not spam.  I flush them out, and post real comments every once in a while.

I don't think a comment policy is needed for spam messages. If you need to tell me how sexy you think I am there is no need to include links to pornography sites, and I don't appreciate it when you tell me how amazing my boobs are; Hey! my posts are up here!  I love it when people say they enjoy my writing, but there is no need to link to “cheep generic viagra” in order to stroke my ego. A friend who does not filter spam in his comments has an unusable comment section; it has been overrun. I delete spam with impunity, and I don't need a comment policy to justify this.

In the ongoing brouhaha surrounding the FSB-thunderf00t schism the charge of “ creating an echo chamber” in online comments has been levied. I've got about as effective an echo chamber as you could hope for due to the empty nature of my comment section; I don't need to work to create one.

When I saw Mr Anonymous's comment I immediately wanted to corect his use of “your”. I ran a couple ways of running down the typo. Each of them was essentially a variation on the “you're right, I'm a dick” theme. However, I don't think I'm a dick, so I did not find that sort of response satisfactory. When I tried other ways of targeting the “your” issue they all began to sound like I was trying to hide the fact that I should really be saying “you're right, I'm a dick”.

I then hit upon the idea of simply posting a message like:

“A comment has been received that was deleted as per this blog's comment policy. If you believe this was your comment, and was deleted in error, please reference the comment policy and resubmit your comment.”

Then I could simply write a comment policy that was something like:

“This is my blog, and I can be a dick about it if I want. I will delete comments for whatever reason I wish, and if you do not like that go suck an egg”

However, I will try and come up with something a little more productive.

Is 55 the new gay?

1- Since the Supreme court is hearing a case considering the constitutionality of California's proposition 8.

2-   And since major fiduciary proponents of proposition 8 (as well as their money) came from Utah.

3-  And since those moneys were invested in California's proposition 8 instead of local improvements.

4-  I decided it was worthwhile to look over the oral arguments in favor of proposition 8.

One element of the whole marriage issue that has always puzzled me is what harm can possibly come solely as a result of the generic marriage of two people.  There are most certainly many cases of two specific people who should not get married, but those are often matters of taste, and are not addressed by proposition 8.  

It is not until page 18 of the transcripts that the attorney for the proponents of proposition 8 gets down to detailing what harm same-sex marriage will cause.  Here is the section of the transcript where Mr. Cooper explains:

"The first one is this: The Plaintiffs' expert acknowledged that redefining marriage will have real-world consequences, and that it is impossible for anyone to foresee the future accurately enough to know exactly what those real-world consequences would be. And among those real-world consequences, Your Honor, we would suggest are adverse consequences. But consider the California voter, in 2008, in the ballot booth, with the question before her whether or not this age-old bedrock social institution should be fundamentally redefined, and knowing that there's no way that she or anyone else could possibly know what the long-term implications of -- of profound redefinition of a bedrock social institution would be. That is reason enough, Your Honor, that would hardly be irrational for that voter to say, I believe that this experiment, which is now only fairly four years old, even in Massachusetts, the oldest State that is conducting it, to say, I think it better for California to hit the pause button and await additional information from the jurisdictions where this experiment is still maturing."

And on page 20 he explains what the standard for knowing there is no harm should be:

"it is the Respondents' responsibility to prove, under rational basis review, not only that -- that there clearly will be no harm, but that it's beyond debate that there will be no harm." 

So we can debate issues on the basis of not accurately knowing exacly what the future will be, and we cannot responsably prove that there will be no harm from something as long as we can debate it, and that is enough proof of harm for something to be defined as something that will produce harm.  This logical scatology is the best reasoning the opponents of same sex marriage could come up with.  Once one strips the "The Bible Says" out of the arguments there is absolutely no substance.

In an interesting exchange during the proponent's arguments it is suggested that the state supports marriage because of it's link to procreation, and that without the possibility of procreation the state is harmed by supporting marriage.  Should the state be allowed to issue marriage liscenses to persons too old to responsibly procreate?  No marriages for people over the age of 80, or maybe 70, or 65, or 60?

Maybe 55 will be the new gay?

DOMA Ask, DOMA Tell

With California’s Proposition 8 and the “Defense Of Marriage Act” (DOMA) finally before the supreme court the ossified sedimentary filth that has passed as the reasoning behind these laws is dredged again to the surface; muddying water and blocking out clarity and illumination. The thing about airing out dirty laundry is that, while it may make the laundry smell nicer, it tends to pollute the air with unpleasantries. The figurative place where the collision of these unfortunate metaphors takes place is dark and smelly; worse than the unpaired metaphors themselves.

The thing that elevates these issues to the Nation’s highest Supreme Court is our inability as a society to simply handle them like people should. This is a legal question, and so, by definition, everybody has lost. Law hides moral questions rather than addressing them. We will be disappointed.

There are moral questions associated with marriage. Questions that should loom large, but are clouded by the posturing that faith groups undertake to establish their superiority in our society; a superiority that is in this case their belief that they should have any say in who can get married. We ignore the real moral questions like: “is he really wearing white?” or “How could anyone create a wedding registry at WalMart?”.

Thought there are numerous self-identifying faith groups that support overturning Prop 8 and the DOMA the genesis of these laws was entirely a mission of faith. Many people of faith who support the elimination of these laws willfully ignore or disregard undeniable aspects of their theology. I hope they feel the human “just- righteousness ” of the partial elimination of iron-age foolishness. Eliminating the rest is also good; even better perhaps. Come over to the dark-roast side, sit down for a cuppa coffee, and stay a while; we will talk of love and lovers, cabbages and kings.

This week I have been told that supporting same-sex marriage is actually attacking mixed-sex marriages, but I’ve not gotten a real explanation as to how or why. I’ve been reminded of “gay” Mormons who marry women, have robust sex lives, and happily create many children; it is not my place to say whether that sort of behavior is right or wrong, but it is not.

It may be true that many homosexuals have lived long happy lives while in the closet, but many of those who have come out have grown things in the light of day that my life is all the better for.

The Mormons of Utah spent many-many dollars fighting to get California’s proposition 8 on the ballot, and then spent many more supporting the passage of that law. Proposition 8 represents a major investment to the people of Utah. We could have spent all that money on a sizable park where lovers met to stroll hand-in-hand through pleasantly scented foliage; sunlight bouncing off their smiling teeth and warming their skin. Instead we invested in a part of the future that will best be shredded and forgotten.

I should go on at length describing how fertilizer is made and the metaphorical compost of Prop 8 and the DOMA will nurture a better world, but those metaphors are not worth the lies. These laws are toxic with hate, and the foul womb they spewed from should be entombed until the prejudice needed to understand them is forgotten.