Marital strife

Tubthumper just sent me this article from http://www.komotv.com/news/5566451.html


OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced an initiative that would put a whole new twist on traditional unions between men and women: It would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriages annulled.

Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, which was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington's ban on same-sex marriage. In that 5-4 ruling, the court found that state lawmakers were justified in passing the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts marriage to unions between a man and woman.

Under I-957, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriages would be subject to annulment.

All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized" and people in them would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.

"Absurd? Very," the group says on its Web site, which adds it is planning two more initiatives involving marriage and procreation. "But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions" underlying the Supreme Court's ruling.

Gregory Gadow, who filed I-957 last month, said the three-year timeframe was arbitrary.

"We did toy with the idea of (requiring) procreation before marriage," he said. "We didn't want to piss off the fundamentalists too much."

Gadow said that if the group's initiatives were passed, the Supreme Court would be forced to strike them down as unconstitutional, which he believes would weaken the original ruling upholding the Defense of Marriage Act.

But he said he highly doubts any of the initiatives will pass, and that they are being done "in the spirit of political street theater."

"Our intention is not to actually put this into law," he said. "All we want is to get this on the ballot and cause people to talk about it."

The group's Web site gives another reason: "And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric."

Cheryl Haskins, executive director of Allies for Marriage & Children, agreed with Gadow's group on at least one point about the initiative: "It's absurd," she said.

Haskins said opponents of same-sex marriage "have never said that the sole purpose of marriage is procreation."

"When we talk about defending the institution of marriage, we're talking about the union of a man and a woman," she said. "Some of those unions produce children and some of them don't."

With I-957, "you're dictating people's choices in a way that is utterly ridiculous," she said.

However, Gadow noted that the Supreme Court's majority decision specifically mentioned procreation throughout.

The opinion written by Justice Barbara Madsen concluded that "limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the state's interests in procreation and encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both."

Gadow said the argument is unfair when you're dealing with same-sex couples who are unable to have children together.

"What we are trying to do is display the discrimination that is at the heart of last year's ruling," he said.

Even the Legislature's most prominent proponent of same-sex marriage, Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said he thought the initiative was misguided. While the "absurdity" of the Supreme Court decision should be discussed, that discussion needs to take place in the Legislature, he said.

"I don't think the initiative process should be used to determine the rights and protections of marriage," he said.

Murray, one of five openly gay lawmakers in the Legislature, is sponsoring a measure that would create domestic partnerships for same-sex couples and another to allow same-sex marriage. The domestic partnership measure has passed out of committee and a vote on the Senate floor could come within weeks.

The sponsor of the same-sex marriage measure in the House, Rep. Jamie Pedersen, said he supported the effort "to draw attention to the hypocrisy of some of those who oppose marriage equality" but opposed the initiative.

"For the same reason I don't think same-sex couples should be excluded from marriage, I don't think heterosexual married couples should be forced to procreate," said Pedersen, D-Seattle.

Supporters of I-957 must gather at least 224,800 valid signatures by July 6 to put it on the November ballot.

The measure's backers said the two additional initiatives they plan would prohibit divorce or separation when a married couple has children, and would make having a child together the equivalent of marriage.

Gadow said his goal is to raise $300,000 to spend on advertising on the first initiative.


In his e-mail Tubbie refers to the idea as completely insane, a sentiment which I am slightly inclined to echo, although at the same time I find it utterly ingenious. Will it work? Will it force the issue of same-sex marriage and weaken the Defense of Marriage Act? I'd like to hope so.

I am, however, slightly surprised by the negative reactions of Senator Murray and others who are pro-gay marriage. One would hope that they could understand that no-one actually really wants Initiative 957 to succeed, that it is just a way of exposing hypocrisy and bigotry. But then I suppose that as an openly gay Senator he has enough people opposing him and any perceived attack on the institution of marriage could seriously damage him...

Whatever happens I personally think that this is an excellent way of making a point and I urge any of you who can to contribute to the list of signatures so that this issue gets the attention it deserves.

Cheers m'dears!

Valentines Day and the Card Companies...

... can fuck right off 'n' all. Cunts.

Arrrrrggghhh!!! You Motherffff.....

.....fffucker!!!!!!!!

Shitty wank stain bullshit cunting arse part 1:

If anyone ever tells you how wonderful it is to be a teacher, how rewarding it is, then do me a favour - grab the nearest large, angular object and ram it up their fucking arse! I feel like I've sold my fucking soul to the Devil... no, worse - this is a religious school so I must have sold it to Him upstairs instead!!!! Where did my fucking life go?

Shitty wank stain bullshit cunting arse part 2:

Blogger, you cunt. If I wanted a fucking google account I would have got one ages ago. Your dictatorial attitude is more likely to put me off using your shit than exploring it. It was nice and easy signing in with my name only but, no.... that's not enough for you. Now you want my full e-mail address. Well, fuck you, you arse-wipes. I'm using another search-engine from now on. Cunts.

Fire-coming-outta-my-ears, m'dears!

Lost in Translation #01

Slice of Life

So, having eaten Asian food every meal so far this year (not actually that uncommon for me, as I live very close to a very good and ridiculously cheap place that does food from all over South-East Asia) I decided the other night to do something a little more... western. I was, after all, sitting in a bar that pretty much only served bog-standard western bar-fare. But having hummed and hawed at the weighty menu, consisting of the likes of burgers and macaroni cheese, I eventually decided that a nice light plate of cold cuts and salad would be just the ticket.

I'm sure you are all aware that cold cuts do exactly what they say on the tin. They are cuts of meat that are served cold. This, for me, sounded like a refreshing change - but then again, I had forgotten that this is Asia and things are often... well, different.

Five minutes after my dining partner's piping hot, freshly cooked meal had arrived I was beginning to wonder what the fuck was taking so long... were they slaughtering the animals, cooking them and then waiting for them to cool down? Being the kind of man I am - very reasonable up to a point, usually a point accompanied by intense hunger, at which time I become a scowling, growling pain in the arse - I was just about to make a rather sarcastic comment to the waitress when, all of a sudden, a plate appears before me. A plate that looked very like a plate of cold cuts on salad. Except that it was steaming.

Yep. That's right. They had heated up my cold cuts. Worse still, the ham was obviously pre-packaged reconstituted stuff which had probably never been hot in the first place. But the clincher for me, the worst of it all... they had heated it all up together, salad included! Limp warm lettuce leaves... delicious, I don't think!

It dawned on me later that I don't think I have ever seen a local meal in this country which hasn't been piping hot. I'll probably never understand why, in a country so damn warm, folk seem to have an aversion to eating cold dishes.

Cheers m'dears!

Boys will be boys...

It was one of those rare moments during an epic staff meeting where I was not idly singing rude songs in my head, nor thinking up inappropriate anagrammatical names for my work colleagues. In fact, I was not even doodling abstract representations of my own psyche in the margin of my pad. I was actually listening. I don't know how that came about, what breach had occurred in my usually very secure sanity-protection wall, but droning words from the oh-so-disapproving mouth of my Chinese-version Hyacinth Bucket Gruppenführer were somehow managing to embed themselves in my consciousness.

Normally this would be a case for immediate use of my hidden cyanide capsule but, luckily, one small gem of a freudian slip allowed me to rest easy...

"...watch out for the boys behaviour in class when teachers are not around, things like pushing, shoving, frisbee, playing with their balls..."

I caught the eye of one colleague and we telepathically rolled on the floor in hysterics... I'd like to think that the muted reaction of the others indicates a more developed laugh-stifling technique, but they probably just aren't as dirty-minded as me.

It goes to show what a dull, dull life I am currently leading when you find me fervently praying that those last four words make the minutes!

Cheers m'dears!