Midlife Meditation

I've been using gender-neutral restrooms all my life. Mostly it's been a matter of necessity: growing up as part of a large family in houses that rarely had more than one bathroom, we took turns using said bathroom. Come to think of it, that's been true of every home I've ever been in, no matter whose house it was: the bathrooms are for everyone, regardless of gender. There are times, of course, when it's clear that a bathroom is primarily used by family members of a particular gender (this one's got one bottle of shampoo and a can of shaving cream on the counter, that one is equipped with a full line of skin and hair care products), but even so, there's no question but that the toilet works and is available for anyone who needs it, no matter how that person is plumbed. It must also be noted that these bathrooms were all "one hole" facilities, with just a single toilet making it unlikely there would ever be two adults in the room at the same t...

"Could it be...SATAN?" Nope; it's all on you, well-meaning church lady. I knew it was just a matter of days. In fact, it was more like hours: I put the Facebook "rainbow filter" on my profile picture (as did at least two-thirds of my Facebook friends), and then a non-rainbowed friend from Oklahoma posted a link to this post by conservative blogger Kevin DeYoung : "40 Questions for Christians Who Made Their Profile Pictures into a Rainbow."  I don't advise clicking the link; chances are good that, if you're reading this, what you find there will make your blood boil (though it's not as if I can stop you--and I did embed the link, didn't I?). I did take a look at the 40 questions, thought seriously about responding to the damned thing by answering everyone of them (including the loaded and redundant ones), but then thought better of it. A few days later, I saw the link again on Facebook, this time with a helpful comment linking to ...

No, these are not actually the colors of their robes. Except for the black ones; those are real. The sad part of the decision is that it was so close. This one should have been a no-brainer. The vote was 5-4, a complete liberal-conservative split, with Justice Kennedy, author of the two previous decisions expanding basic rights to include gay and lesbian people, being the swing, deciding, vote, as well as author of this decision. All three decisions arrived on June 26, and human dignity was the common theme in each. The opposing justices were nearly apoplectic in their dissents, stooping in Scalia's case to critiquing Kennedy's prose, while Roberts fretted that marriage equality opens the door to the normalization of polygamy, and Thomas grumbled that dignity is not something that can be either granted or taken away by a government, citing slavery and internment camps as cases of human beings remaining dignified even as they were legally treated as subhuman by the United...

Good news for atheists wanting to preside over weddings in Indiana: you no longer have to get ordained in a fake internet church before you can sign the papers! I'm thrilled by this development for a variety of reasons, which I will tick off with bullet points: Contrary to popular belief, weddings have not always been the province of the church. Prior to the middle ages, in fact, weddings in the Roman Empire and its successor states were civil events. In ancient Judaism, there was no priestly role at all: the wedding was consummated--made official--in the marriage bed. Only with the decline of literacy did marriage come into the church, and it did so literally through the back door. Typically the only person in town who could read and write, and thus keep records, was the parish priest. This led to the back door of the church being a place where announcements were made, contracts sealed, and any other business else requiring a notary was conducted. Once marriage vows had been...

"We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history." --Judge John E. Jones III, in his opinion striking down Pennsylvania's version of the Defense of Marriage Act I started my last post with this quote, but didn't really address it. The occasion of its writing was a cause for great celebration, as marriage equality is now the law of the land in nineteen states. Of the remaining 31, discriminatory marriage legislation has been challenged in court in all but one, and given the perfect victory record of every previous challenge, it is just a matter of time--months, perhaps--until gay and lesbian couples can enter into civilly recognized marriage contracts throughout the United States. (It might take a little longer in North Dakota, the only state without such a lawsuit in progress.) This is, as I just said, cause for celebration. It's been a long time coming, and now it's happening so quickly!...

"We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history." --Judge John E. Jones III, in his opinion striking down Pennsylvania's version of the Defense of Marriage Act. These powerful words sum up a cascade of judicial decisions that will, once they have weathered the inevitable ineffective appeals, make marriage equality the law in more than half the fifty states. They could have been written for the Oregon decision, but it is perhaps more significant, more telling, that they came from the pen of a conservative Republican judge who, at the time of his nomination to the federal bench, was endorsed by Rick Santorum. I learned of the ruling from Facebook, which was flooded with happy posts yesterday afternoon, including several versions of "Now I can finally marry my true love!" Amy, Sarah, and I were headed downtown for a heterosexual wedding celebration at Voicebox, a karaoke bar that was, we disc...