Okay, so the last post before this is more than a year old. I've been meaning to get back to blogging, but, clearly, haven't done so (until now). Why now? Two reasons:
1. Josh linked to this blog today, and on the off chance that he has readers that follow that link, I wanted my blog to be less pathetic than a year old post about which serenity character I am most like would suggest it is.
2. I've gotten back into the habit of reading Pharyngula, and there was a silly thing written there today.
Specifically, PZ Myers wrote, in support of a new law in California making gay marriage legal, that "if you want to do something more substantive, promote equal rights legislation in your state, so that all 50 states someday offer this basic privilege to everyone."
The silliness resides in the idea that government can (and should) be offering a 'basic privilege' to everyone.
Privilege, by definition, does not get offered to everyone. This may simply be a semantic nit to pick, but it caught my attention because it is typical of left-leaning gay marriage advocates to discuss gay marriage in terms of rights, not privileges.
In any case, the government should only be in the marriage business insofar as marriage is a form of contract and the legal system may be called upon to protect one or another party's property interests. It is clear to me that pairs of gay adults, like pairs of any adults, should be allowed to enter into any contract, as long as they do so by choice.
That's all for now. I hope to blog more regularly in the (near) future, though it's almost certain I won't be doing so as prolifically as Josh has been lately.
1 comment:
Left you a hello on TOWM. Good you're blogging again.
As for the substance of the post, I find it refreshing to hear anyone - left or right - talk about legal sanction of marriage as a privilege rather than a right. So yeah, I guess PZ Myers' take on it is semantically "silly," but it's still more accurate than most.
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