Ending the gay marriage drama

I have a plan for putting an end to the gay marriage debate once and for all. A laughably simple plan. I'm not a lawyer so I'm sure there are holes in it, but I think it would be a great start.

Since marriage is rooted in our history and culture as a religious construct, let's just get the state out of the marriage business altogether. Within public law, marriage would be replaced with...I don't know...let's call it "domestic partnership". Any consenting adult would be allowed to enter into a domestic partnership with another one, subject to the following constraints:

• A domestic partnership may consist of no more than two people.
• No party to a domestic partnership can be related by blood to another party of the same partnership.
• Nobody can be party to more than one domestic partnership at a time.
• If a state decides that rules against polygamy constitute unjust intrusion on religious doctrine, it can just drop that first rule.

Within the law, the word "spouse" can be retained as a term describing any party to a domestic partnership, but someone will need to fire up Word and do a global search and replace to change all occurrences of "husband" and "wife" with "spouse". And hey, if the law specifically refers to a husband or wife anywhere, then that section of law probably needs to be reviewed, anyway.

This eliminates the stickiest part of the debate - that of redefining "marriage" - and allows adherents of a given faith to preserve the definition of marriage as their religion sees it, and lets the law provide equal protection to all spouses without regard to sexual orientation.

Yeah, I know...it won't be enough for those activists of no religious affiliation who'll say they want to be married, dammit! They'll say that because for them the issue isn't about legal status, it's about wanting to feel included and accepted. But the law is concerned only with equal protection, it doesn't really give a crap about our feelings.

Having solved that problem, let me go take a look at that national debt thing...

I obviously don't get it

The Daily Caller has an amusing story about a Pennsylvania state house Democratic party primary race in which Gregg Kravitz claims to be bisexual while his opponent, Babette Josephs, counters that Kravitz is a "closeted straight man" trying to curry favor with gay voters.

The part I don't get is a quote from Kravitz:

I want to be completely open with how I am proud of my bisexuality.

Why does one feel the need to express pride in their sexual preference? Isn't that a bit like expressing pride in your preference to, say, brunettes over redheads?

"Don't ask, don't tell" under attack

The "don't ask, don't tell" policy keeping openly gay people from serving in the military since the early days of Bill Clinton's first term (as did the DoD policy prior to that) is under attack by activists seeking to completely eliminate barriers to gays serving in the military.

In an effort to prod the president and Congress to act, activists -- gay, straight, military and civilian -- will converge on Capitol Hill Friday to rally behind an effort in the House to overturn the policy, which has been a continuing source of controversy since it became law 15 years ago.

Bill Clinton's rush to allow gays in the military when he first took office was one of the things that led me to completely turn my back on the Democrats. Not because I was opposed to the idea of gays serving in the military (more on that later), but because I objected to Clinton's (mis-) use of the military as an instrument for achieving social change. I was, and remain convinced, that the military should be a reflection of the society it serves, and in 1993, there weren't very many people who would entertain the notion of openly gay members of the military.

If anybody believes there are no gays in the military because of DA-DT, they're delusional. Gay men (and more recently, gay women) have served honorably in the armed forces since early hunter-gatherers started slinging rocks at each other to compete for hunting grounds. That won't change no matter what policy is in place at any point in time. The question is whether to simply allow openly gay members to serve.

I'm not - and I've never been - personally opposed to serving with gay members of the military. But bear in mind that all my time was served in fixed-based Air Force, which is kind of like working at, say, a bank. I did, however, spend plenty of time in open-bay barracks and even tents a couple of times during deployments and exercises, and here's where things get a bit touchy.

As one might expect, the military provides men's and women's barracks (or tents) as well as men's and women's latrines. More often than not, the latrines include communal showers. You can probably see where I'm going with this. Now consider other branches of the service, or units of the USAF spending more time in the field, or the sea-going Navy, and you see the magnitude of the problem.

Even the most broad-minded heterosexual service member might feel just a little uncomfortable undressing and showering with someone they know (or think) might be looking at him or her that way. As for those who are less accepting of gays (and I'm not being judgmental here), well I can hear the thundering of their feet now heading for the separations office. Despite popular belief, the military's not stupid...they know this.

So, what's the military leadership to do if the will of the most far-left, progressive US president in history is forced upon them? If the military is forced to allow openly gay members to serve - and Obama's relentless far-left agenda gives me cause to believe they will be - then the Defense Department is going to have to go to significant - and very costly - lengths to adapt.

But how does it adapt? At first glance the solution might be to keep men's and women's lodging and latrines, and add gay men's and gay women's lodging and latrines. But wait a second...isn't putting two gay men in the same room like putting a hetero woman and a hetero man in the same room where there could be a mutual attraction, or worse yet, an unreciprocated attraction? OK, scratch that idea.

So, what then? Private lodging and latrine facilities for each individual? Not gonna happen. Completely mixed lodging and latrines where everyone just picks a spot to sleep, change, take a dump and shower? Yeah, right. Just ask any military leader what they think of that idea.

So when taking a position on this, think it through carefully. Obama probably won't.

'Day Without A Gay' day fails

An effort to have workers "call in gay" and not work yesterday didn't get much traction and failed pretty miserably. The idea was to demonstrate the impact gays have on the economy and to protest the vote on Proposition 8 in California, which passed in November by a thin majority and bans gay marriage in the state. It didn't even resonate much with many gays:

In San Francisco's gay Castro district, residents and merchants said they endorsed the message behind "Day Without a Gay" but didn't think a work stoppage was practical given the poor economy and the strike's organization.

"If we are going to make a huge impact and not be laughed at, then we have to take the time and make the time to communicate with all the parties. We could have shut down a lot of the hotels," said David Lang, a gymnastics coach. "In theory it's a great idea, but it's being done wrong and now that it's been done wrong, I don't think it will be done again."

Oddly enough, I probably would have voted against Prop 8 if I were a California voter. I just don't think gay marriage would herald the end of civilization as some claim. At the same time, I don't think most of society is ready for gay marriage (hell, if even a majority of Californians oppose it...), and even people like myself who don't oppose it outright resent having it forced down their throats. The protests in the aftermath of Prop 8's passage didn't do much for the cause. Spewing vitriol at people is not the way to get them to vote your way next time around.