Miscellany on a tired day

Why do the people of a state vote about whether two people can get married? This is one of those ponderous questions that keep me up at night. It's not like anyone is talking about group marriage, although, frankly, in this day of disintegrating extended families, I can see a place even for a group of people commiting to share living quarters, financial resources, and time. The only reason that there are referenda on the marriage question is that the two people involved are of the same gender. So? I often feel that I would like to have a wife, not because my intimate preferences lean that way, but because in my current living situation, I cannot seem to juggle all the hats that have been thrown my way, and it would be nice to have someone I know, care about, and can rely on, to be at home keeping house and handling some of the child care responsibilities. Of course, given my current living situation, we are edging closer to that group marriage thing. Ah, if only I could afford an au pair.

Domestic partnership in the public sector! Leave marriage as a religious sacrament, subject to religious canons. If a same-sex couple wants to commit, let them. They are not asking everyone into their bedroom. If they want to be married, they should join a religious community that accepts same-sex marriage. If two people want to dissolve their partnership, homosexual or heterosexual, they should get a divorce. There! Problem solved! Now, let's move on.....

Chris Christie was elected governor. I don't much care for Jon Corzine, but I dread having Crispie at the helm. I just hope the legislature has the will to keep him in check. I really don't want to have to start wearing a burka, literally or figuratively.


The priest who celebrated at church this week used the phrase "God of our fathers (stop)", as if our mothers didn't (and still don't) count. I was criticized for pointing this out, for being too sensitive, but it's easy for men to call women overly sensitive about being ignored. I expect non-whites have the same or similar feelings. A student of theology once commented that goddess-worship, or, as I prefer, acknowledging the divine within the feminine, was a step backward. I disagree, plain and simple. To me, if I believe that the Holy Spirit is in all the people, and that all Christians are called to ministry, then it is completely inappropriate to engender God as solely male.

In an interesting juxtaposition, I watched "Sicko" last night on TV. MM has a tendency to kill the horse, and then stand over it and beat on it vigorously, but under the overblown rhetoric, he is generally making a valid point. Why does this country not have public health care? We have Social Security, so why not a national health service? I just don't get it, and I never have. No one has ever come close to convincing me that medicine is better handled in the private sector. If everyone with a job paid as much for a national health service as an average health care premium deduction, it could work. One of the biggest failings of the Social Security Administration is that only the working poor and middle class pay for virtually the whole thing. The salary cap should be abolished with people making hundreds of thousands of dollars (even millions) paying a percentage on their whole salary. Major windfall for the system. Likewise, a national health service should have no salary cap. I'm tired of wildly overpaid executives, politicians, attorneys, celebrities griping about their taxes.

It's getting late, and I'm feeling discouraged. Down with Republicans! Down with Democrats! Government of the people, by the people, FOR the people!