Two completely different topics

A bar story and something that has been on my mind for the past week…

Talked to a guy at the bar last night who is doing what has to be one of the most interesting ideas that I have heard of in a long time. The guy lives in Santa Monica, owns a bar, and has just come back from Iraq (where he did two tours of duty along with one in Afghanistan). So what is he doing now that he is back in the states? Every other weekend he is traveling to a city in the U.S. that he has never been to but has always wanted to visit. Started off with Las Vegas and then went to Kansas City. He’s planning on going to Boston, Chicago and pretty much everywhere else that Southwest can take you. That just sounds like the coolest thing ever, just travel to different cities by yourself for a weekend just to see what happens.

(Admittedly, I wouldn’t choose KC as the second city on the list. It really makes you wonder what you’ll be doing for your eleventh city. My guess would be Omaha.)

The second is a local news story that has made the national rounds the last week. During last week’s elections (why there have been four elections in the past year is beyond me but oh well) the residents of Kansas voted 70% - 30% to become the 18th state to ban gay marriage in their constitution. They also became the first state to ban civil unions. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve got the feeling that this isn’t the sort of thing that you want to be first on.

(This isn’t going to be a rip on Kansas. Missouri passed theirs in November by the same margin. This is going to be an equal opportunity complaint.)

I can understand people being against gay marriage. If you take marriage as a religious ceremony then there are definitely different views on the matter and you can respect those. A church is a private organization that operates under its own codes and guidelines. Heck, if a casino can legally bar someone from gambling for no apparent cause I don’t see any legal concern if a church doesn’t want to marry someone.

Civil unions are different though. That’s basically saying that when the founding fathers wrote the constitution they truly believed that a certain portion of the population shouldn’t be allowed medical and insurance benefits for their partners and that they should have a hell of a time doing estate planning. That doesn’t seem right. I’ve worked for several companies that provided benefits to life partners. I’ve been especially happy when my old company extended benefits to include your live-in girlfriend, which I thought was the best thing to ever happen to commitment phobes like myself.

I still don’t see what the big hangup is for people on this issue and I am clearly in the minority. I mean, two elections with two to one margins is a sign. Are people that uptight about decisions that at the end of the day truly do not effect them? Does it matter to anyone who gets extended medical coverage and who gets to be married? I get really upset with people who talk about maintaining the family structure and how gay marriage will hasten the decline of our culture. Not accepting people for who they are hastens the decline of culture. Closing your mind hastens the decline. Writing the laws to ensure that your point of view will always be considered correct hastens the decline. Letting people live the lives they want to live with no harm to anyone else brings us closer to the world we all want to live in.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Cowboy Junkies “Rarities, B-Sides and Slow, Sad Waltzes”
2) Alejandro Escovedo “More Miles Than Money: Live 1994-1996”
3) De La Soul “Three Feet High and Rising”
4) Gillian Welch “Revival”
5) Dave Matthews Band “Before These Crowded Streets”