My Medicare card arrived yesterday. I spent my limited recourses of energy starting to get health care squared away after going virtually without for years. Thus I didn’t even reply to comments here, let alone visit.
I’m not going to dedicate an article to election coverage. I anticipated the results in NJ and Virginia. I was pleased with the 23rd of NY. I was saddened over Maine’s proposition one. While I agree with the right that people don’t deserve special right just because they are LGBT, I also recognize the statement as the smoke screen that it is. Permission to marry the consenting adult of your choice is not a special right. It is equal protection under the law. Maine became the 31st state to vote to deny a basic Constitutional right to LBGT Americans. Shame!
Today’s Jig Zone puzzle took me 4:44. To do it, Click Here. How did you do?
Here’s your cartoon:
Happy hump day to all!
5 Responses to “Open Thread – 11/4/2009”
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at the risk of opening a real can of worms, im going to ask someone to clue me in as to what is so important about the "right to marry"?
(i dont believe a church or the state has any right to confirm or affirm a personal relationship…)
RJ, In my opinion I could marry someone by the spoken word with no paper involved whatsoever. However, there are certain rights and privileges our culture associates with marriage. Furthermore, it's the right to be treated like everyone else, and not to be set aside for discrimination.
tom; i agree that the rights and privileges associated with marriage should be available to any couple regardless of sexual orientation, and the law should address that…but to insist on "marriage" just gives fodder to the right and ends up skewering other issues; for instance, when it was on the ballot in ohio, there was a right wing sweep…
Tom, my mom is a wizard at getting whatever is due to her and my father in health care, prescriptions, etc. She works like a dog getting all the paperwork together. Not many folks in their 80s (she'll be 86 this month) have the ability to do this. I totally admire her ability to find every freaking loophole to help her and my father (88 this month) to get along on social security and a modest military pension.
Note to retired military. Check into a pension that you may not even know you're eligible to receive. A couple of years ago, I saw an article in AARP about it. I helped Mom get the documentation together, and they're now getting a very modest, yet extremely helpful pension for my father.
RJ, from a purely practical perspective I agree with you. I used to share your view. However, anything less than marriage is less than equal protection under the law. A close friend, who also happens to be gay, asked me, "Tom, can you look me in the eye and honestly tell me that I deserve less freedom than you do, because I'm gay?" I couldn't, and that was the day my position changed.
Thanks Marva. No pension for me. The wounds I sustained during the Vietnam War were from attacks by police and guardsmen. I did choose a plan from Providence. It's a much better deal that the one they are providing to state pensioners.