Here is a fantastic video by one of my favorite speakers, Neil deGrasse Tyson. He delivers a very concise and informative speech on why we need to train future generations in science and math, even though most of the people who are part of those generations will never become scientists. Definitely worth a watch.
-That is all.
This past weekend, my parents celebrated their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. This is an amazing milestone, especially because it has been so strong and stable over the years. They managed to raise five kids, while still maintaining an identity for themselves. Both of my parents held the delicate balance between home life and work as we were growing up, keeping us healthy, well-feed, and well-clothed all those years.
It is thus not surprising that marriage has continued strong into our generation. My brother and his wife celebrate their wedding anniversary later this month. Michelle and I reach four years at the beginning of August. My sister starts her married life in October. The other two siblings might not be too far behind.
We are lucky for this. There is a population of couples in this country who do not get to celebrate their own weddings and anniversaries. For most of them, there will be no silver anniversaries, no wedding cakes, no tuxes and gowns. There will be no joint custody of children, no hospital visitation rights, no sharing of benefits. For those outside our heteronormative marriage structure, they can only stand outside and watch.
But that is changing. This past weekend we had a major victory for marriage equality. New York has passed a law allowing people of all genders to marry the partner of their choice. More importantly, this bill passed through a Republican held senate, a first in this country. It shows that even Republicans can see the writing on the wall: now is the time for equality.
My hope is that this is just the one of many, that other states join New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire. I also hope that we see change at a federal level, granting equality for that level as well.
Everyone should have the right to pick the partner of their choice. Marriage is right we should extend to all people, regardless of their orientation. Everyone should have a chance to reach that thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.
-That is all.
Friday, I showed off the outside. Today I’ll give you a few photos of the inside.
Here is our living room. While Michelle isn’t super hot
on the green, I love the contrast with the red wall.
The kitchen is fantastic. Good space, nice appliances, and plenty of light.
An actual dining room. A first for us.
The upstairs hallway, with doors to the master bedroom and the office. Note the
excellent use of space with the integration of drawers into the knee wall.
The two dormers create neat little nooks. This is in the master bedroom.
The cats seem pretty happy with the new place, making themselves right at home.
Just as we will in the coming days.
-That is all.
I am still dealing with the aftermath of buying a house. To hold you over until a real post goes up, here is a video of a kitty.
Instead of writing an interesting or elaborate post for today, I spent yesterday buying a house. So you’ll get pretty pictures of it, and you’ll like it.
The front is relatively unassuming. A nice story & half cape cod.
The back of the house has a beautiful wooden deck, with a nicely detailed trellis.
Everyone wave at Michelle!
This is part of why we fell in love with the place. A beautiful yard with great potential.
Look! It even has a white picket fence. We’re living the American dream.
-That is all.
The other day I discussed authoritative morality. As I stated in that post, authoritative morality is dictated by an authority figure and the receiver is expected to accept and obey without question. Today we address another problem with this model of morality: personal responsibility.
Authoritative morality dictates absolute rules to follow. By its nature, there is no room for questioning or adjustment. There are no fringe cases, no exceptions that prove the rule. Everything is black and white, requiring no input except obedience. A follower of an authoritative model has no agency in their own morality.
Without personal agency, an individual becomes divorced from the impact of their own moral choices. When your morality is given to you by an outside authority, it is easy to rationalize doing terrible things. If god wants you to murder homosexuals, that is no skin off your back. Your conscious is clear because your act is morally right. You are, after all, merely following the moral code dictated to you by god.
In the United States, the current “hot button” issues in politics are dominated by discussion of morality. Those who deny the rights of others rationalize this by evoking their authoritative morality. Abortion, sexual education, and homosexual marriage are all like this. If you ask an anti-homosexual marriage politician their reasoning, it always is an authoritative moral argument. “My god says that marriage is only between a man and a woman; anything else is immoral.” There is no rational thought here, no actual argument. It is simply repeating a rote explanation.
This is not to say that it is impossible to create position that is opposed to homosexual marriage. With the proper evidence, there is a potential to build that argument without evoking a moral authority. Unfortunately for those espousing that particular view, the science tends to support the view that homosexual marriages have all the same strengths and weaknesses that heterosexual ones. But in general, it is perfectly acceptable to build rational arguments for positions traditionally dominated by appeals to authoritative morality.
Evoking authoritative morality to support a position is cowardly, and we should call out those who do so. Every single individual must be responsible for the impact their positions have on others around them. We can not let someone evade responsibility for hir actions. If a person take a position that a certain segment of the population is inherently inferior and thus deserves fewer rights, ze is a bigot, regardless of what moral authority ze evoked to support that position. By tolerating those who do harm in this way, we only empower them to continue doing so. That can not continue.
-That is all.