Simply Marriage

Joshua Topolsky, in a pitch-perfect tweet yesterday reflecting on the Supreme Court’s historic ruling that gives same-sex couples the right to marry in all 50 states:

I guess I just feel like, deep down, if you don't think today is worth celebrating, you suck as a person.

A perfect example of one of those people: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and was recently featured on these pages.  His reaction to the ruling:

If accepted by Congress and this president, this decision will be a serious blow to religious liberty, which is the heart of the First Amendment.

No surprise there.  Politicians like Mr. Huckabee (also Marco Rubio, Jeb (Jeb!) Bush, Ted Cruz, and many others) are using religion and, more specifically, “religious liberty” to attack the SCOTUS ruling and thus justify senseless, shameful discrimination, just like their like-minded predecessors have, in the past, used similar arguments to justify slavery, racism, bans on interracial marriage, etc.

I find it shocking, though, that they don’t see the self-contradiction in their specious argument.

Religious liberty means that people should be free to live their lives as dictated by their faith (or lack thereof).  Mr. Huckabee is free to practice his religion, and follow his beliefs.  How is his freedom impacted if others are allowed to live their own lives in accordance to their own beliefs?  Obviously, it is not impacted at all.  Mr. Huckabee and those of his ilk are not content to “live and let live” as true religious liberty dictates.  They would rather impose their own religious beliefs on everyone else.  That is not religious freedom; it is the opposite.  And to use the guise of religious freedom to advocate its exact opposite is grossly hypocritical, and insulting to us all.

The problem is that people like Mr. Huckabee do not view their religious beliefs as such.  They view them as “the truth.”  Before the SCOTUS ruling, Mr. Huckabee said, “when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, the court cannot change what God has created.”  Not “what I happen to believe God has created.”  Just plain “what God has created.”  He states it not as a belief, but as a fact.  How can anyone who thinks his faith-based belief is fact be taken seriously when speaking the words “freedom of religion”?

To Mr. Huckabee, religious freedom is fine as long as everyone shares his particular beliefs.   And that applies to anyone else who speaks of “religious liberty” when attacking the Supreme Court ruling.  SCOTUS is not forcing you to marry another man, Mr. Huckabee.  No one is messing with your rights.  You’re the one that wants to mess with the rights of others.  You’re the one stunningly arrogant enough to advocate molding the laws of this nation around your own beliefs, Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers be damned.  You’re the one who would like the United States to become a Christian theocracy, in the tradition of Iran, an Islamist theocracy, with the only difference being which fairy tale its laws are based on.

From now on, Mr. Huckabee, your marriage is legally equivalent to any other marriage, same sex or otherwise. Because, in the words of lead plaintiff James Obergefell:

From this day forward, it will simply be marriage.

Assault on the Wall

Former Baptist pastor, former Arkansas governor, and potential 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, speaking at the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in Houston last week, regarding the possibility that the Supreme Court legalize same-sex marriage nationwide:

I respect the courts, but the Supreme Court is only that -- the supreme of the courts. It is not the supreme being. It cannot overrule God.  When it comes to prayer, when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, the court cannot change what God has created.

Let’s get this straight, Mr. Huckabee.  You, a Southern Baptist, believe in God.  You also apparently believe that God created marriage.  Therefore, if the only form of marriage recognized by your particular faith is between one man and one woman, then that should be its legal definition, regardless of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution and of the applicable laws.  Doesn’t that position, Mr. Huckabee, represent the “establishment of religion,” in clear violation of the 1st amendment?  Of course it does!  But then, in the words of  Michael Stone, your “good-natured manner masks a dangerous yearning for an America that never was, but could be: a Christian theocracy built on ignorance and religious superstition.”

But let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that we accept your absurd premise that a religion’s definition of marriage should determine its legal definition.  Why should it be your particular religion?  What would you say to the over 2 million members of the Episcopal Church, who believe that same sex marriage is well within their religion’s definition of marriage?  Would you tell them that your beliefs supercede theirs?  How about the 1 million members of the United Church of Christ?  Your fairy tale is better than theirs?  Or what would you say to non believers, such as myself?  Never mind, in your view we don’t really count for anything, since we don’t have a prayer, and should even be fired from working for the government.

So you see, Mr. Huckabee, the only way to truly respect our freedom, our diversity, and our religions (including yours), is to separate them from government.  Our founding fathers, men of vision and foresight, realized how dangerous you and your ilk were to the Republic.   Thomas Jefferson:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

Mr. Huckabee, your assault on that precious wall of separation is stunningly offensive to all Americans.  Your statement was shockingly absurd, and richly deserving of outrage and ridicule.  And I believe (and fervently hope) that the reason it didn’t generate the storm of controversy that it should have is not that people didn’t find the statement objectionable, but that they did, but dismiss you as a charlatan with no shot as a candidate and whose pronouncements are not worthy of further discussion.

Fairy Tales

My views on lying to children about such things as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are well documented.  To present inane fabrication as fact is problematic on many levels.  Imparting preposterous notions that contradict children’s evolving worldview results in confusion.  Even worse, eventually children realize that the most important authority figures in their lives have been shamelessly lying to them.  What possible valid explanation can a parent have for a child who discovers she’s been lied to for years?

So at the time the lies are told, they are confusing.  And when they are revealed as such, trust issues ensue.

Ironically, the truth would be instructive and valuable.  Wouldn’t it be great for a child to understand that his parents know him well, and work hard all year to get him presents he will enjoy at Christmas time?  Or that her parents recognize that losing a tooth can be painful and traumatic, and take the time and expense to slip a few dollars under her pillow so she can feel better about the whole thing?  Instead, lies, confusion, and eventual betrayal.  Makes no sense at all.

But Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, as detrimental as they are to a child’s development, pale in comparison to other non-factual information commonly imparted as fact by parents to their children.  This information is not debunked over time, but is instead continually reinforced through adulthood by other authority figures.  And this information, when misrepresented as fact, only serves to differentiate people from each other and create a culture of division, exclusion and, in many cases, hatred.

The non-factual information I refer to, of course, is religious belief.

As I have mentioned before, I respect religious beliefs even though I don’t have any myself.  Everyone has the right to believe whatever they choose to, but your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins, or, in this context, your right to a belief ends when it disrespects, belittles, or in any way harms others.  If we all agree that when it comes to anything other than scientific fact, everything is an opinion, then any belief is as valid and worthy of respect as any other belief, and in that light beliefs become harmless.  When people hold up their beliefs as facts and truths, however, they are implicitly disrespecting all other beliefs, since other beliefs are, in their view, untrue and not worthy of respect. And if what you believe is not worthy of respect, well, then neither are you.

We live in a world where, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom, religious belief and even fervent devotion are considered positive traits.  But how can anyone fervently believe something that is not in evidence, and is instead a purely artificial construct?  The answer, of course, is faith.  And the more faith you have in what you happen to believe, the less you will respect what others believe.  The less you respect what others believe, the more likely you will be to consider yourself superior to them.  So you will want to foist your beliefs on others, and you will want your beliefs to become law.  The ludicrous notion that one religion is somehow superior to another spawns such things as religious fanaticism, terrorism, wars, and other horrific events that have plagued our history.

Religion is, no doubt, valuable and comforting for some.  Religions generally provide structure and guidance that many people find helpful, even critical, in their lives.  But if we would all keep in mind that, at their core, religions are nothing more than elaborate, glorified fairy tales, and that everyone has the right to believe in the fairy tale of their choosing, the one that works for them, then the swinging arms of belief would end far before others’ noses begin.

After all, one fairy tale cannot be “better” than another since neither purports to be the truth.  

No Matter How You Look At It

Consider the following events:

President Eisenhower severs diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba, as Fidel Castro announces that he is a Marxist-Leninist, and that Cuba would adopt socialism.

President Kennedy delivers the first ever live presidential news conference.

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins (and ends, in shambles, two days later).

Astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.

President Kennedy announces to Congress his goal to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.

Construction of the Berlin Wall begins.

New York Yankee Roger Maris hits his 61st home run on the last game of the season, beating Babe Ruth’s 34-year-old record.

Neil Armstrong, at the time an experimental research test pilot, records a new world record speed piloting an X-15 rocket plane.

Joseph Heller publishes Catch-22.  

All of those events took place the same year the following people were born:

Barack Obama, Meg Ryan,  Lea Thompson, Dan Marino, George Clooney, the late Princess Diana, Michael J. Fox,  Eddie Murphy,  Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Heather Locklear, Nadia Comaneci, the late James Gandolfini, Dennis Rodman, Ralph Macchio, Forest Whitaker, Wayne Gretzky, Ricky Gervais, Toby Keith, Woody Harrelson, yours truly.

The year: 1961.  But honored as I am to share my birth year with such luminaries, I will choose to brag about this:  as Mad Magazine pointed out on it’s cover in March of that year,  1961 was the first “upside-up” year (the number looks the same upside down as it does right side up) since 1881.  The next one will be 6009.  So, all of my living 1961 brethren and I can say, with absolute certainty, that we are the only human beings currently alive that were born during an “upside-up” year.

And no one else will be able to say that for the next 3,995 years.

The Bet

“OK, let’s go over the rules of our bet.  We each pick the species we think will last the longest.  We look in on the planet 100 million years from now.  If one of the species we picked is still around and the other isn’t, whoever picked the one that’s around wins.  If both species are gone, we figure out which one lasted longer, and whoever picked that one wins.  If both species are still around, we take a look in another 100 million years.”

“You’re on.  So, this time we’re using the third planet from that star in the Milky Way’s Orion arm, right?”

“Yeah.  That planet’s particularly interesting, since the species are so varied there.  There’s even a space-faring species, homo sapiens (Latin for “wise man”; a bit arrogant, don’t you think?)  They’ve done some exploration outside their planet, built habitats in planetary orbit, sent out probes, even landed on their moon a few times.  But they’ve only been around for about 200,000 years, and seem ill equipped for long term survival.  Mind you, there are animal species on that same planet that have been around for 580 million years!”

“I know.  I considered homo sapiens at first.  But after analyzing them a bit I agree with you.  They have no shot.  Even though their brain is relatively large, and in many cases species survival is correlated to brain size, in their specific case the size of their brain and their incrementally higher intelligence don’t compensate for their tendencies toward short-term thinking, aggressiveness and self-destruction.  Actually, it’s pretty amazing that they’ve lasted as long as they have.  They’ve come close to obliterating themselves on several occasions, but even if they don’t destroy themselves all at once, they are doing it gradually by making the planet inhospitable, at least to themselves.  It’s shocking how they continuously (and knowingly) take actions that reduce the ability of their own environment to support them, always thinking in the short term.  Homo sapiens is also a physically fragile species, not equipped to survive any external catastrophic event, should one of those occur.  There've been 5 of them in the last 450 million years.”  

“I know what you mean.  It’s difficult to understand their priorities.  The general well being of their species and its long-term survival are certainly not among them.  They kill each other for the most absurd reasons and are indifferent to the fact that so many of them live in deplorable conditions.  They seem to have evolved into a dead end.  They are intelligent enough to achieve limited space exploration, yet irrational enough to consistently allow short-term greed to trump long-term survival, both on an individual basis and in the collective.”

“Indeed.   Who knows, maybe in a few million years another species will evolve from homo sapiens that will use its intelligence in ways that will foster it’s long term survival.”

“If they make it that far!”

“Exactly.  So, let’s pick our species.  Which one would you like to bet on?”

“OK, I’m going with the Tardigrade.  It’s been around for 530 million years already, but, more importantly, it seems well equipped to survive almost any kind of planetary event, whether brought on by homo sapiens or external.”

“Good choice.  I’ll go with the Lingula, for similar reasons.  It’s also been around for a while, and survived various mass extinctions (like your Tardigrade).”

“OK, bet’s on.  By the way, it seems like the humans agree with us.  One of their websites lists the Tardigrade and Lingula as species number 1 and 2, respectively, as most likely to “survive the apocalypse”.  Of course, they foolishly list themselves as number 3, so that brings their credibility into serious question.”

And Here's to You

You will probably never understand how much joy you bring to the lives of so many, or what a pleasure it is to simply be in your company.  But I do.  So please allow me to, for a change, serve you.  This word cocktail.

Upon seeing me you smile with your eyes as well as your mouth.  You are warm, and kind, and genuinely interested in the goings on of my life.  Although deep down I know that you have the same type of arms-length yet somehow intimate relationship with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others, my disbelief is easily suspended and I feel like what you and I share is special, and unique.  You make me feel like I’m the only one.

Your craft is difficult and requires considerable mental acuity and skill, yet you handle it with such finesse and aplomb it seems effortless.  I love to watch you seamlessly blend the technical and social aspects of your job, not letting either interfere with the other but, on the contrary, combining the two into an elegant, alluring dance.  You handle everything that’s thrown at you with the grace of a soft-handed infielder.  You know what the right thing to do is in every situation, and you do it.  Every time.

When asked by a reporter why he always played hard, Joe DiMaggio said, "There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best."  You go one better than Joltin’ Joe.  You feel you owe everyone your best all the time.  You don’t let the crassly unreasonable, the shockingly stingy, or the lecherously offensive faze you.  You laugh them all off.  Your sunny disposition is immutable.  You light up the room with your smile.  You make the room comfortable with your presence.

“And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson”, Simon and Garfunkel said, “Jesus loves you more than you will know.”  Well, here’s to you, my amazing neighborhood bartender.  Your fortunate guests love you more than you will know.  

Bullying the Wrong Bully

This post on Google + was widely celebrated.  The post’s author, Chris Blasko, is an IT Administrator who received a typical unwanted telemarketing call.  Blasko proceeded to use his considerable IT skills (as well as his guile)  to convince the hapless telemarketer on the line that he (Blasko) worked for the IT department of the telemarketing company and intercepted the call in order to fix a problem with the telemarketer’s phone.  Blasko then walked the telemarketer through a procedure which ostensibly would resolve the “issue,” but instead reset the phone to factory condition, rendering it useless until reconfigured by the telemarketing company’s real IT department.

Blasko, on the aforementioned post:

That's right. I made a telemarketer unwittingly factory reset his phone which means he will be unable to make anymore [sic] calls until someone is able to reconfigure his phone and that will take at least an hour or longer if they can't do it right away!

Most people commenting on the post lauded Blasko’s actions, as did many others who linked to the post on their blogs.  People are so fed up with telemarketers and their sleazy tactics that to put one of them out of commission, even for a short while, feels like a satisfying victory of some sort; a “Revenge of the Nerds” moment.  I had a different impression.

No doubt, telemarketing is despicable in general, and the techniques employed by many telemarketing companies are repulsive.  Here’s the thing though.  I don’t think anyone actually enjoys being a telemarketer.  The evil is in the boardrooms of companies that design misleading telemarketing strategies that prey on the gullible or uninformed, not in the person who, due to circumstances we are not privy to, decided to take a job at one of these companies, probably as a last resort or out of desperation.

Blasko’s post may initially feel like an example of the bullied overcoming the bully, but that is simply not the case.  The true bullies, the people who call the shots at the telemarketing company, were unaffected.  The telemarketer who Blasko tricked into unwittingly resetting his phone is actually much more of a victim than Blasko.  If we are annoyed and exasperated from receiving a few calls like these every day, imagine how it must feel to be the guy (or gal) that makes those calls, non-stop, for 8-hour shifts day after day.  And, thanks to Blasko, on top of all that this guy now has to make an embarrassing call to his own IT department.  Who knows, maybe the idle time caused by the reset will have an impact on his livelihood, or could even cost him his job.

I don’t blame Blasko one bit for feeling frustrated with telemarketers, and I’m sure he felt that putting this one out of commission for a while was the only way he could somehow “get back” at these people who invade our privacy and try to scam us out of our hard earned money.  However, unfortunately all Blasko accomplished was to make some unfortunate guy’s already awful day just a bit more awful.  

I don’t know Chris Blasko, but I have no reason to believe he is anything but a kind and decent guy.  And judging from my own experiences when being rude to telemarketers, I’m sure the initial joy Blasko felt after the phone call was quickly replaced by guilt and empathy toward the docile telemarketer who so obediently followed his instructions.

My humble suggestion: next time, Chris, just hang up the phone.

Hostile Media

Clay Waters, of newsbusters.org, referring to the New York Times’ coverage of the situation in Gaza:

The paper's coverage of the ongoing situation has been marked by intense anti-Israel bias in tone and labeling, and a false moral equivalence between the behavior of "extremist" Israelis and merely "militant" Palestinian terrorists.

Steve Lendman, of OpEdNews.com, referring to the New York Times:

NYT pro-Israeli bias is palpable. It's longstanding. It's distorted and one-sided. It blames Palestinians for Israeli crimes.

Obviously neither Mr. Waters nor Mr. Lendman is an objective observer.  Both are biased, and therefore susceptible to the hostile media effect.  Wikipedia:

The hostile media effect, originally deemed the hostile media phenomenon and sometimes called hostile media perception, is a perceptual theory of mass communication that refers to the finding that people with strong biases toward an issue (partisans) perceive media coverage as biased against their opinions, regardless of the reality.

Those who express concern over media bias believe that people’s opinions will be swayed in nefarious ways by the supposed slanted reporting.  The evidence, though, clearly shows that, at least in the U.S., public opinion regarding Israel and the Palestinians has changed very little over the past five years.  PollingReport.com has a fascinating collection of surveys on the subject from reputable sources.  Among their findings:

- According to a series of Pew Research Center surveys, in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, sympathy toward Israel has hovered between 48% and 53% of respondents from 2009 to 2014, while sympathy toward the Palestinians has fluctuated between 11% and 16%.   (The balance of respondents were either sympathetic to neither, or unsure.)  The differences in the numbers from different time periods are close to the polls’ margins of error, suggesting that the actual figures for the entire population are even more constant than those indicated by the surveys.

- A series of CNN / ORC polls taken from 2006 to 2013 indicate that an average of 80.5% of Americans consider Israel to be either “an ally of the U.S.” or “friendly to the U.S.”  The high was 82% in 2006 and the low 79% in 2013.  The difference between the high and the low is exactly the poll’s margin of error.

- A plurality of Americans, most recently 45%, believe that President Obama is striking the right balance, i.e. he is not favoring either Israel or the Palestinians too much.  However, twice as many of those who believe he favors one side too much believe he favors the Palestinians as believe he favors Israel.  (This from another Pew Research Center series of surveys.)  The numbers are remarkably consistent over the five years covered by the surveys.

Given a topic as contentious as the Middle East, the hostile media effect assures that most observers will consider the media biased against their position.  Yet the same contentiousness suggests that few opinions will be swayed, as the polls clearly bear out.  No doubt, many media outlets are biased one way or another, and reporting is often plagued by the oversimplification of nuanced issues and sensationalism.  But as long as freedom of speech is guaranteed and people have access to content from all outlets and their differing points of view, they will have the opportunity to sift through the morass of information, arrive at their own conclusions, and find the objective reporting and thoughtful analysis that are also out there.  That is, of course, if they choose to do so.