Yeah, and…?
Two heterosexual Canadian men are to tie the knot to enjoy the tax benefits of being a married couple.
Bill Dalrymple, 56, and best friend Bryan Pinn, 65, are taking advantage of Canada's new same-sex marriage legislation.
"I think it's a hoot," Mr Pinn told the Ottawa Sun.
But the two, both previously married to women, insist there is a serious issue behind the stunt.
"There are significant tax implications that we don't think the government has thought through," Mr Pinn said.
Mr Dalrymple has been to see a lawyer already and there are no laws in marriage that define sexual preference.
The 'couple' have still to set the date.
What serious issue? Do these guys really think they are clever? This is somehow new? I've heard talk of a local gay porn actor and his lesbian friend having gotten "married" for the same reason. And I personally know of one gay man who married a lady friend because she was in desperate need of health insurance. It's not like straight couples have never gotten married (or stayed married) for tax purposes.
Big, fat, hairy deal.
Hattip: buggery.org
Deviants
I belong to an artist community found at deviantart.com. One of the features of this web site is the ability to watch or bookmark particular artists. I have about two dozen I keep an eye on. You also have the ability to add specific works to a favorites list. My favorites can be found here.
Today one of the photographers I keep an eye on posted a photograph that I found quite powerful.
With art two people can look at the same work and walk away having had an entirely different experience. When giving me permission to use a thumbnail of his work on my site, the author asked that I explain that he intends no religious message, "just the strength of a place and a special mood."
With such a strong religious icon, I'm not sure he can expect people not to bring their religious experiences/biases to this work. I'm also one who believes the artist's intent is less important than the experience each individual has when viewing a work of art.
I still have not made a decision about sharing what I see here.
Not every favorite I find is as laden with subtext as is this one, but I may start listing my favorites here as I find new ones.
Reliable Rick
I read in a blog that Senator Rick Santorum had stated in an interview that gay sex is never consensual. Wanting to hear such blinding stupidity with my own ears, I listened to the interview. Unfortunately the blog was wildly inaccurate about both the content and the tenor of the interview. This is unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of which is I was really looking forward to berating the Senator for that one.
Fortunately, the Senator can't open his mouth without saying something stupid.
The right's view of freedom is ... traditionally oriented, traditional freedom as our founders understood it, which is a freedom with responsibility to something beyond yourself, a freedom to do not what you want to do, not simply choice, but the freedom to do what you ought to do. And I would argue that the freedom on the left has been devolved down to a word: choice. That choice is an autonomy, personal autonomy is really the rule of how the left understand the view of freedom.
I use a quote...which I think is the motto, if you will, of the understanding of liberty on the left, and it comes from the United States Supreme Court. I'll quote it. "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." That comes from Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It is the liberal view of freedom. If I have that right to define my own concept of existence, of what's right, of what's wrong it is personal autonomy, and it is not how society functions well. ...I don't think that is a healthy view of freedom.
And who exactly decides what one ought to be doing? I'll bet Kim Jong Il, Hu Jintao and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would love that definition of freedom. Idiot. Where does it end, Senator? It's easy to pontificate about the democratic process when you are a part of the majority. You would be singing a completely different tune if you lived in a land where Christianity and Catholicism were in the minority. I guarantee it.
Listen to the interview. I'm curious what rights he thinks Lawrence v. Texas bestowed on homosexuals. His whine about being forced to live in a secular society is priceless. "You don't think that people going around doing whatever they think is right is imposing a moral view on me?" Somebody call the waaaaaaambulance.
Dangers of Moral Certitude
I have been trying for days to assemble my thoughts on this article on the greatest failing of Bush's foreign policy. Reading this article has had a profound affect on me and I am having a hard time articulating exactly how.
I tend to believe in the premise that democracy has a pacifying effect on a nation. However, I've always had reservations about that belief as policy. For one, it is such a long term endeavor what does one do in the mean time?
The war on terrorism is, at some level, a war of ideas: To the extent that we can substitute democracy and liberal values for autocracy and Islamic fundamentalism, we will probably improve our security--and we should therefore try to do so. But freedom--as Richard Haass, Bush's former director of policy planning at the State Department, has written--is not a doctrine. That is, the spread of freedom cannot be our guiding principle in the war on terrorism, because the spread of freedom cannot protect us from all terrorist threats, particularly the immediate ones.
Another shortcoming in this belief-cum-policy is it is based on a more traditional definition of war: two armies beating the hell out of each other in a conflict of attrition, the last man standing being the winner. Such wars require large commitment of resources, not the least of which is human life. While today's modern warfare requirements of tens of thousands of troops is an improvement over the days of WWII which required closer to millions, it is still a heavy investment of life and resources to which a nation must commit. But that is not the kind of war the enemy is waging. Have terrorists invested thousands of lives in their cause? I can't find actual numbers, but I suspect they're doing good to be pushing the hundreds. How many terrorists died on 9/11? A dozen?
What then is the cost for "new democracies" such as Indonesia where jihad is part of popular culture? With an "army" of a few hundred they can wreak great havoc on the rest of the world and, with promises of eternal orgies to those who give their lives for the cause, recruits are not hard to find. And what about "old democracies" where terrorists find safe haven in an environment of tolerance and multiculturalism? It seems that a sound policy would adapt itself to new and changing definitions of conflict.
However, dogma, by definition, is not adaptable. The greatest weakness of the religiously fervent is their inability to adapt to changing ideas and definitions. The belief that God is unchanging, constant and eternal leaves no room for the concept that man's understanding of God will change over time. The idea that man learned in the first few hundred years all that there is to know about God and His relationship with Creation seems patently absurd to me. However, it is in just such an environment that ideas such as "an ideology of hope and compassion that will overwhelm their ideology of hate" become dangerous. Unable to see beyond narrow definitions of Truth, those inspired or motivated by religious belief leave themselves open to disaster by focusing on grandiose archetypes and broadly defined ideologies and refusing to acknowledge the untidy reality of the human condition, including the harsh reality that some people are going to hate you no matter how nice you are.
I grow more and more disturbed that this is exactly the kind of man we have leading our country. I have no issues with a man of faith leading this country. However, in my view, true faith imbues a man with a sense of humility, a sense of his own insignificance in the universe, as sense that, no matter how smart he may be, he does not and cannot know everything. Faith that imbues a man with an over developed sense of his own importance and superiority is, to my mind, counterfeit.
[Democrats] will need to learn something about telling stories to the American people. Only then will the public comprehend the danger that the Bush administration has left us in and do something about it.
Democrats need to transcend technocracy and articulate a worldview centered on our security. They need to describe America's immediate antagonist not as ideological, as the president has, but as technological. They must explain that nuclear weapons--not simply abstractions like tyranny or hate or evil--pose the greatest threat to the United States. And they must explain that, in contrast to Bush's fantasy, in which the earth is cleansed of evil, theirs is a story--all the more optimistic because of its realism--in which the concrete goal of securing and destroying fissile material can be accomplished through concrete steps. The themes are simple. The war on terrorism may be a war of ideas, but it is first a war of means. It is a war of intentions, but it is first a war of capabilities. It is a war against all terrorists, but it is first a war against nuclear terrorists. After all, the best stories are the ones in which the hero survives.
Hat tip: Frank Foer via AndrewSullivan.com