Sad Days in California

Everything about the arguments about Prop 8 in front of the California Supreme Court is making me grouchy today. Let me enumerate:

1. It's a reminder that 52% of voters decided to take away the right to gay marriage, after 5 months of couples getting married and society not collapsing.
   
2. It seems so freaking obvious that Proposition 8 is a revision to the state constitution, and not an amendment.
   
3. So just maybe this court case should have happened before the damn election, but the No on 8 people were useless, and I don't know where Equality California was before the election.
   
4. Some of the signs carried by the Yes on 8 people are depressing. How cold-hearted do you have to be to draw a red circle and slash through a picture of two people kissing, because both people happen to be men?
   

At this point we just have to wait. At least it looks like the 18,000 marriages from that 5-month window won't be invalidated.

Does the religious right also not get that the Colbert Report is a parody?

Even if you didn't watch Tuesday's Daily Show, you probably saw the second half of Jon Stewart's interview with Mike Huckabee linked on one of the million liberal blogs out there. I was curious as to what the conservative blogs were saying, though. What did they think of Huckabee's performance? Or about Stewart's line, "Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality."?

I googled "jon stewart" "mike huckabee" and scrolled through eight pages of links to blog posts on the interview. Not a single one of those blogs was a conservative blog. So what's the deal? Was no one happy with Huckabee's performance? Is Mike Huckabee just not on the conservative radar right now? Or is The Daily Show itself not on the conservative radar? Among the religious right, Newt Gingrich, Ralph Reed, and Bill Bennett* have all been on the show multiple times. So they're not ignoring the show.

However, there are no results when searching for mentions of the Daily Show on the websites of the AFA, Focus on the Family, the FRC, or the Concerned Women for America. These are groups that send out weekly alerts on the latest "pro-homosexual" and "anti-Christian" content in pop culture. I wasn't expecting them all to have found something to be offended by in the program, but I thought at least one of them might have mentioned the show in the past ten years. It's not like basic cable is beneath their notice.

I'm just surprised that a show that is a staple of the left's culture, and that has been a steadfast supporter of gay marriage for years, has been completely ignored by the religious right. Is the religious right really unaware of the influence of the Daily Show? Or am I the one who's missing something?


* That two-part interview with Bill Bennett might be my favorite Daily Show moment ever. What? Like you don't all have similar mental lists.

Sometimes, putting family first means putting it off

This article on red state and blue state attitudes towards sex didn't really tell me anything new. But this jumped out at me:

Maybe these choices weren’t originally about values—maybe they were about maximizing education and careers—yet the result is a more stable family system. Not only do couples who marry later stay married longer; children born to older couples fare better on a variety of measures, including educational attainment, regardless of their parents’ economic circumstances.

I think the choice to wait to marry and start a family is about values. It's about valuing family so that you wait to marry the right person, not just the one you're with when you're 18. Building a family because you want to, not out of obligation, makes it stronger.

I'm pro-family, which is why I'm voting against Proposition 8. I want everyone to have the chance to put together the family they want.

Presenting Mr. and Mr. Sulu

Among the many gay couples that can now legally marry in California are George Takei and his long-term partner! Congrats to everyone!

I've never seen an episode of Star Trek, so my only exposure to Takei has been from one of my favorite Daily Show clips ever:



Now I know why he sounds so startled when Samantha Bee asks him about "Young Wet Bitches".