Having a very political day. [ Which means this has atypical levels of political content. ]

[kiya]

Which I normally try to avoid at most costs.

On the other hand, the SJC's clarifying decision on marriages in the Commonwealth came down today, which means that there's a lot of handwaving and shouting about it going on, and I can't resist putting my oar in occasionally. This has not yet been revealed to be Stupid and engaging me in pointless flamewarage, which . . . sort of surprises me.

It occurs to me that I can probably get good voting information out of how various candidates deal with this one. (I commented the other day that the only way I could feel in good conscience able to vote for someone using "defense of marriage" rhetoric was if the alternative was having civilization wiped out by an asteroid, and I'd need to ask the asteroid some pointed questions about its composition and social policies first.) I should check the news for Statements.


Also, with eerie predictability, I went off on my two Stars-and-Stripes-related rants, one about the meaningfulness of the Flag Code and the other about flag burning. Fortunately, this isn't the sort of subject that comes up a lot in conversation, because I get set off on this one with the predictability of kicking the doctor in the shin when she whacks me on the knee with a hammer.


Okay, that's enough politics for probably a couple of months. We now return you to your regularly scheduled wordcount, semi-philosophical nattering, incoherence, and cat stories.

Comments

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, does either Stars & Stripes rant intersect in any way that ignorant SOB Kid Rock wearing a flag as a poncho the other night? (guess what my Stars & Stripes rant is)

Re:

[kiya]

Rant #1 (caring about the Flag Code) came about because of a discussion of said ignorant SOB's behaviour (though was not immediately prompted by, as I had no grounds to rant about it since I didn't watch the other night's wee festivities).

Rant #2 (flag burning thing) came about in a spin-off thread.

So, sort of yes. :}

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Not to sound like an idiot, but what exactly happened? I keep trying to click on stories about this, but my dialup is seriously acting up today. Anything with as much graphic content as text is simply NOT going to load right now.

*is amused at the mental image of you querying an asteroid*

[kiya]

A few months ago the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (basically the Commonwealth's equivalent of the Supreme Court) responded to about a half-dozen same-sex couples by saying that their being denied marriage certificates violated the Massachusetts Constitution (I think we have an ERA and have major sex-based discrimination statutes). They said to the legislature, basically, "You have six months to fix this in law; otherwise the ruling will just override existing law."

The legistlature hemmed, hawed, and write the SJC a note in I think Devember saying, 'We have this proposed civil unions legislation, will that be acceptable?'

The SJC voted 4-2-1 today to say "Nope. We said marriage. Civil unions are separate-but-equal, and we said the state didn't have any justified reason to distinguish." (The 2 disagreed, and the 1 said, roughly, 'I don't like ruling on things before they're actually law, guys.')

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

Where might one find your flag rants, so as to learn your points of view without triggering another possibly discomfiting bout of verbiage?

[kiya]

Do you read The Cauldron?

If so, in the Superbowl Controversies thread for #1 and, er. A flag-specific thread started after that whose name I disremember.

If you don't read TC, the URL to their message board is http://forums.delphiforums.com/CUSTOM7999/messages.

Your political day

[dalbino83.livejournal.com]

One of my pals suggested that in six months, there will be so many queers moving into Mass in order to marry that we'll skew the vote in our favor when it comes time to vote about changing the constitution. :) Sounds like a great vision to me!

Re:

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Meant to thank you earlier, got distracted. Thank you. :) I really need to get cable internet in here, the dialup burps are driving me crazy.

Good for Mass. :) Going to lead to no end of ideological fratricide in both parties, but people's relationships are really none of the government's darn business.