America's Language

Today, I saw a bumper sticker depicting a snarling, finger-pointing Uncle Sam, with the caption: "If you can't speak English, get the HELL out of America!"  Ironically enough, the vehicle this was plastered on was a Suzuki hatchback.

(RantOn)

There is no official language of the United States.  According to the most recent census data, nearly 20% of American citizens speak some language other than English as their primary language.  That's about 1 in 5, and that only refers to citizens of the U.S. - not immigrants.  No less than 20 different languages (including English) have at least 250,000 native speakers in the United States.  English never has been, and never will be, the only language spoken by Americans, no matter how badly ignorant xenophobes want it to be otherwise.

The fact is, in the United States today, there is virtually no one who doesn't have an ancestor somewhere in their family tree who didn't arrive in this country unable to speak English.  Even families like mine, who have mostly British Isles extraction, almost always have non-English speaking ancestry in some branch somewhere.  So rather than pointing your finger and lamenting about all the people who don't speak English, just thank your lucky stars that your family arrived here long enough before you were born that you never had to worry about learning a new language.

There's a reason that the U.S. Constitution doesn't include any wording about English, or any other language, being the official language of the United States - it's because the United States was founded on the principle of the melting pot, open to anyone who wants to come here and live and work and be a productive member of society.  Multi-lingualism has been part and parcel of the American way since before Day 1.  Martin Van Buren, our nation's eighth president, was not only the very first American president born a U.S. citizen (that is, born in America after the Revolutionary War), but he was also a native Dutch speaker who spoke English as a second language, and with a heavy Dutch accent, until the day he died.  And guess what?  Nobody gave a damn.

In the modern world, the only countries that legally name just one official language are island nations, military and Communist dictatorships, and Muslim theocracies.  Want to join that crowd, O patriotic Lover of Freedom?

On any given day, when you encounter people who don't speak English, or don't speak it well, in 9 out of 10 cases, you are encountering people who have probably not been in this country for very long.  The fact is, 96% of Americans, regardless of what their native language is, say they speak and understand English "well" or "very well."  Give newcomers a chance to learn the damn language before you go around getting your unwashed, skid-marked panties in a wad.

In numerous regional areas in the United States, English is a second language.  This includes huge swaths of places like Louisiana and Texas, among others.  If you're so concerned about what languages people are speaking, why don't you march your pretentious little ass down into the bayous of the Creole country, or the drug-smuggling cities of the Chicano regions, and preach about it to some of the passers-by.  I'm sure they'd LOVE to hear your opinions.

Numerous immigrants come to this country every year, and the vast majority of them are hardworking, diligent individuals whose industry is a enormous economic boon to the cities and counties and states they are working in.  Many of those people go on to become active citizens of the United States.  Others work for a few years and then return home.  In any case, scores of those same people work tirelessly to learn English, while also raising families and working, in many cases, 15 or 18 hours a day.

So instead of sitting there on your NASCAR-watching, fat American ass, too goddamn lazy to press "1" on your touch-tone phone, and criticizing people who make up a vital segment of this population, why don't you instead just give a simple thank-you to those folks who make your life a little bit better?  Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

(RantOff)

(Sorry, I segued into a line from A Few Good Men there at the end.  But it somehow seemed appropriate.)

Understanding Weight Loss

A strange topic for me to be writing about,  eh?  I've recently been trying to lose weight, having gained a considerable amount over the last 6 or 7 years, and so it's had me thinking about the dynamics of weight loss and why certain diets seem to work, but others don't.

I've always been a big carbohydrate eater.  Breads, sugary foods and drinks, cereals, pastas - these have always been the most significant parts of my diet.  I also have tended over the years to overeat on a magnificent scale.  I'm one of those people that can put others in awe of my eating prowess.  

So in order to lose weight, I decided to go on a low-carb diet for a few weeks to get the ball rolling on weight loss, then readjust later to a normal diet with a reduced overall caloric intake.  I haven't yet gotten to phase 2 - that will begin in a week.  I don't own a scale, so I can't say how much weight I've lost, but I can tell I have trimmed down.

In any case, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the things I am learning about the dynamics of weight loss.

To begin with, it might be instructive to provide some basics about human energy and nutrition.  When people talk about losing weight, the first thing they always mention is that dreaded word "calories."  It seems as though a lot of folks imagine calories to be these little particles in food that enter your body and determine whether you lose weight or gain weight.

A calorie is simply a unit of energy, in the same way that a centimeter is a unit of distance.  Quite literally, a nutritional calorie (also called a kilocalorie) is the amount of energy required to heat one liter of water by one degree Celsius.  Therefore, if you have one liter of water, with a temperature of 45 degrees Celsius, how much heat energy would be required to make it 46 degrees?  Answer: one calorie.

So a nutritional calorie is simply a unit of measurement that tells us how much energy we are consuming.  

The human body, of course, requires energy to stay alive.  Your muscles, bones, and organs all require energy in order to function.  We get that energy from the foods we eat, because our bodies convert those foods into calories - units of energy to fuel our bodies.  A car won't run without gasoline; it burns gasoline as energy.  Similarly, our bodies won't run without food because our bodies burn food as energy.  And we measure that energy in calories.

The human body is able to convert three types of food into energy - carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.  The number of calories (i.e., the amount of energy) the body can get from these sources depends on the amount of food eaten and the type of food.  Generally-speaking, one gram of fat will provide nine calories, while one gram of carbs or protein will equal about four calories.  Anything else you eat provides 0 calories - that is, no nutritional or metabolic benefit.  It just passes right on through.  

Most people understand what fat and protein are - fat is, well, fat, and protein is the stuff that builds muscle tissue and plays a role in numerous chemical processes in the body.  Carbohydrates are a little more confusing, because there are so many different kinds.  As a general rule, carbohydrates can essentially be thought of as sugars.  That doesn't mean, of course, that foods high in carbs will necessarily be sweet (see bread, pasta, and potatoes), but when you ingest carbs, they end up functioning like sugar in your body.

We've seen that the human body turns nutrients in food (carbs, fats, and proteins) into energy (calories) in order to keep itself alive and healthy.  So how many calories does your body actually use on a day-to-day basis?  This number is referred to as the "base metabolic rate," and it refers to how many calories your body uses each day simply keeping itself alive.  Imagine that you lay in bed from midnight to 11:59 p.m. - 24 hours - and do nothing but sleep or read or watch TV.  How many calories would your body burn in that 24-hour time period?  The answer is your base metabolic rate, and that will vary depending on your age, height, and weight, as well as several other factors.  There are common formulas you can use to figure out your own personal rate; mine is about 2300 calories per day.  So if I did nothing at all but lay in bed or sit on the couch for 24 hours, I would burn about 2300 calories.  That's how much energy my body would require to keep my heart beating, my lungs working, my neurons firing, etc.  Now, I am 6-foot, 3-inches tall, and weigh about 250 pounds.  Someone much smaller than me will, of course, have a much lower base metabolic rate. I have a big body, so it takes a lot more energy to keep me going.  

If I get up off the couch and engage myself in some kind of physical activity (washing the dishes, going up the stairs, blogging, running a mile, climbing a mountain), then I will burn even more calories, depending on how much activity I am actually engaging in.  This is why exercising is regarded as a way to "burn calories."  You use up more energy (more calories) if you actually get up and do something.  I've been able to determine that because of the physically-active nature of my job, I may burn as many as 3500-4000 calories per day (which would be the sum of my base metabolic rate plus my daily activities).  I should have no problem at all losing weight, but this just goes to show you how much I tend to overeat.  

The human body's preferred source of energy is carbohydrates.  (Some low-carb diet gurus dispute this, suggesting that because the earliest humans were hunter-gatherers, and thus had meat-based diets, the most "natural" form of human metabolism comes from fats and proteins.  Most nutritionists, however, don't buy that argument, but to explain why would involve a very long and boring discussion of human biochemistry and physiology, and I don't want to get into that here.  Suffice it to say, the prevailing belief is that carbohydrates are the body's preferred source of energy).

As a result of this, the human body will always burn carbohydrates for energy before touching fat or protein. Therefore, if you eat a diet high in carbohydrates, your body will tend to simply use those carbs for energy, and whatever fat you eat will, quite literally, go to your gut.  I can testify personally to this phenomenon.  This is one of the reasons why low-carb diets work so well for quick weight-loss.  If you cut out your body's preferred source of energy - carbs - you effectively force it to burn fat instead.  And since you probably won't consume enough fat on any given day for your body to meet its nutritional needs, you will end up burning fat stores (adipose tissue) from your body to get energy.  Thus, you trim down quickly, even without adding any new exercise routines.

This is also the reason why low-fat diets so frequently fail for people.  When you eat a low-fat diet, you are, by necessity, eating a lot of carbs (low fat foods tend to be high in carbohydrates, and vice versa).  Thus, your body burns those carbs for energy, and even though you aren't adding much new fat, your body never gets through all the carbs in order to get to the fat.  So you may diet for weeks and never lose much weight.  You have to dramatically increase your activity level in order to burn enough calories on any given day to burn through all the carbs and get down to the fat.  This is why exercise routines almost always accompany low-fat diets.  This is also why low-carb diets are so alluring.  You don't have to change your level of physical activity: you just burn fat - and lose weight - because you've taken away the carbohydrate source.  

While most nutritionists agree that low-carb diets can help a person lose weight quickly, they also warn against eating a low-carb diet for a long period of time.  There are several reasons for this.  First, the kinds of foods you eat on a low-carb diet tend to be foods that are not so good for your heart, brain, and other organs.  Secondly, when you force your body to burn fat instead of carbs, it releases fatty acids into your blood stream, and if this happens to a great enough degree, it can actually cause a very serious medical condition known as ketoacidosis.  This is where the pH balance of your blood gets off-kilter because of high acidity.  Now, it is unlikely that this condition would occur in a healthy person with a normally-functioning liver and pancreas, but it's not outside the realm of possibility, depending on just how "low-carb" you take your diet.  That's why many low-carb diet gurus suggest a carbohydrate intake of 60 grams or so per day (as opposed to the famous Atkins diet, which, in its first phase, limits the dieter to a mere 20 grams per day). 

I read about a study recently that took a group of dieters who were all roughly the same age, height, and weight, and who all had similar levels of daily physical activity, put them into three groups, and gave them different diets to try.  All groups were limited to 1500 calories per day.  The first group was put on a 1500 calorie low-carb diet.  The second, a 1500 calorie low-fat diet.  And the third was put on a 1500 calorie low-glycemic diet (this is a diet that primarily limits sugary food - a typical diabetic diet).  

After thirty days, they found that the low-carb dieters lost weight more quickly.  How could that be?  All had similar metabolic rates and daily levels of activity.  All were the same weight at the beginning of the study.  And all were limited to 1500 calories.  One would assume that they would all have lost about the same amount of weight.  And yet the low-carb group lost significantly more.  It would appear, for whatever reason, that the human body simply burns carbohydrate calories more efficiently.

Let me explain that.  The group eating a low-fat/high-carb diet lost weight more slowly than the group eating a low-carb/high-fat diet.  This must imply that when the human body is getting the majority of its calories from carbs (a low-fat diet) it does not require as many calories to do the same amount of work.  In other words, the human body doesn't use fat calories nearly as efficiently, and thus requires MORE calories to do the same amount of work, if those calories are coming primarily from fat.  It's sort of how Gasoline A might give your car 25 miles per gallon, but with Gasoline B, you get 30 miles to the gallon.  Your car burns Gasoline B more efficiently.  If you use Gasoline A, you need MORE gas to go the same distance.  Similarly, if you are burning mostly fat for calories (a low-carb diet), your body has to burn MORE of it to do the same amount of work.

Now, that's my own take on the study.  The people who performed the study actually said they weren't sure why the low-carb dieters lost more weight.  But it seems to me that perhaps a carb calorie is not equal to a fat calorie in practice, even though in theory it should be.

I have read some criticisms of low-carb diets that suggest that the real reason people lose weight is not because of the lower carbs, but because of a phenomenon known as "spontaneous reduction in food intake."  Put simply, when you go on a low-carb diet, you are more likely to dramatically lower your total caloric intake than when you go on a low-fat diet.  The reason why is simply because low-carb diets are far more restrictive on the types of foods you can eat than low-fat diets are.  On a low-fat diet, you can still eat a significant number of overall calories, and you are more likely to do so simply because you have removed high-fat foods that tend to be filling.  On a low-carb diet, however, you cut out a significant number of foods that dramatically limit what you can actually eat.  Furthermore, you tend to eat high-fat, high-protein foods that are very filling.  So in the end, you end up spontaneously eating far fewer calories, even though you aren't actually counting calories as part of your diet.  I can also personally attest to this.  While I have been eating low-carb, I haven't been counting calories.  But I know, based on my own past eating habits, that I am eating far fewer total daily calories, because the meat-based diet I am eating fills me up quicker, and I also skip all those high-carb snacks that I used to eat between meals.

Of course, there's still that study I read about recently that DID count calories, and yet still found that low-carb dieters lost weight faster than low-fat dieters.

In any case, I am convinced that a low-carb diet is a fantastic way to shed pounds quickly, if you are significantly overweight (I am just inside the "obese" category on the Body Mass Index scale).  It's also good if, like me, you have a tendency to binge on carbs.  But once you've lost that initial weight and have reached the point of maintaining a healthy weight, I am equally convinced that carefully watching your total caloric intake is the best way to go.  The body needs carbs, it needs fat, and it needs protein.  It works best, I believe, when it has a healthy combination of all three.  If you know what your base metabolic rate is (and it's easy to find out), then you can figure out very easily how much food you need to be eating on a day-to-day basis to maintain your weight.  In the long-term, the healthiest choice is simply to cut back on how much food you eat and stay active, but keep your diet varied and allow yourself to eat the foods you like, so that you can avoid feeling deprived.  Deprivation of your favorite foods is a sure road to binge-eating and weight gain.            

10 Fun Facts About Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the United States

1. Benjamin Harrison was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1833, to a prominent political dynasty with American roots stretching back to Jamestown in the 1630's.  Harrison's great-grandfather had been governor of Virginia and a member of the Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  His grandfather was the war hero and eventual 9th president of the United States, William Henry Harrison.  His father was a member of the House of Representatives.

2. In the late 1840's, Harrison attended a small Presbyterian prep school in Cincinnati, where he began dating the president's daughter, Caroline Scott.  They married in 1853 and had two children, a son and a daughter.  Harrison also attended Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, and graduated in 1852.

3. Following his marriage, Harrison moved to Indianapolis to begin practicing law.  One of his first jobs there was as a "crier" for the federal courthouse, responsible for walking the streets of Indianapolis and announcing decisions passed by the judges.  He eventually opened his own law firm and also served as a public attorney and law reporter for the Indiana Supreme Court.

4. After the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Harrison offered his services to the governor of Indiana, and was asked to assist in recruiting a regiment of volunteers.  The regiment became known as the 70th Indiana Infantry, and despite turning down the offer initially, he was given command of the unit and commissioned a colonel.  His unit played a front-line role in the final push through the South in 1864 and 1865, and Harrison was eventually promoted to brigadier general.

5. Following the war, Harrison returned to his law practice, and also continued working for the Indiana Supreme Court.  Having joined the Republican Party at its inception in the 1850's, he began gaining prominence in the local party, but resisted calls to run for public office, preferring instead to campaign for others.  This changed in 1872, however, when Harrison made a failed run for governor of Indiana.  He ran again in 1876, and again lost.  In 1878, after one of Indiana's U.S. senators died, Harrison was nominated to replace him, but lost yet again.

6. Harrison's luck finally began to change in 1880, when, after chairing the Indiana delegation to the Republican National Convention, he was again nominated for the U.S. Senate, and finally managed to secure the seat (at this time, prior to the 1913 passage of the 17th Amendment, U.S. senators from each state were chosen by the state legislature, rather than popular vote).  Harrison was also offered a position in the cabinet of newly elected Republican president James Garfield, but opted to take his seat in the Senate instead.

7. Harrison served only one term in the Senate, before losing his re-election bid in 1886.  He returned briefly to his law practice, but announced his intention to run for president in 1888.  A dark-horse candidate, he ended up winning his party's nomination when the delegates to the Republican National Convention could not agree on the two front-runners.  The general election was very close, and was almost completely divided between North and South - Harrison won virtually every northern state, and Grover Cleveland, the incumbent president, won every southern state.  Cleveland actually won the popular vote, but Harrison won by a comfortable margin in electoral votes.

8. Harrison is the first president in U.S. history whose voice exists on an audio recording - a 36-second clip of Harrison reading from one of his speeches.  Harrison was also the first president to install electricity in the White House, though he and his wife were terrified to use the light switches.  

9. In 1892, with the U.S. economy faltering, Harrison ran for re-election, pitted again with former president Grover Cleveland.  This time, Cleveland won by a comfortable margin in both popular and electoral votes.  Just a few weeks before the election, Harrison's wife died of tuberculosis, and his daughter took over the official responsibilities of the First Lady for the remainder of his term - the last time a non-spouse served as U.S. First Lady.

10. In 1896, Harrison married again, to a woman who was not only 25 years younger than him, but who was actually his own niece by marriage.  Mary Dimmick was the daughter of his deceased wife's sister, meaning she was not a blood relation to Harrison, but was a first cousin to Harrison's children.  His children refused to attend the wedding, and the union caused an estrangement between Harrison and his daughter and they never spoke again.  Harrison contracted pneumonia and died in March, 1901.  

15 Facts About the Fourth of July

1) Despite being “unofficially” celebrated almost since the beginning, the 4th of July was not officially made America’s national holiday until the 1940’s.

2) Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Harrison was the father and great-grandfather of presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison.

3) Although “Uncle Sam” came to be associated with the U.S. government, and specifically the 4th of July, as early as the 1810’s, Uncle Sam did not become America’s national symbol until the 1960’s.

4) There is no legitimate evidence to suggest that Betsy Ross actually sewed the first American flag.

5) “America the Beautiful” was composed on the 4th of July in 1895 by a college professor named Katharine Lee.

6) July 2, 1776, was actually the day that independence was declared from Great Britain, as part of a resolution passed by Congress on that day. On that day, John Adams declared that July 2nd would go down in history as America’s day of independence.

7) Only John Hancock, who was President of the Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The others did not sign until the following month.

8) 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, representing leaders from all 13 colonies. Pennsylvania had the most representatives with 10; Rhode Island had the fewest, with only 2.

9) Six men named William signed the Declaration of Independence; there were also six Johns, six Thomases, and six Georges. Other first names of signers included Lyman, Button, and Caesar.

10) “The Star Spangled Banner” is set to a tune that was originally a British drinking song, sung in pubs throughout England.

11) A committee selected the eagle as the national bird of the United States. Benjamin Franklin served on this committee (along with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson) and is notable because he argued fiercely for the national bird to be the turkey.

12) On July 4, 1054 – some 700 years before the Declaration of Independence – Chinese and Arab astronomers recorded the explosion of a bright supernova in the sky, which continued to be visible for several months.

13) The United States Military Academy at West Point opened its doors on July 4, 1802.

14) Folk writer Stephen Foster, famous for his songs of Americana, was born on the Fourth of July, 1826.

15) Two signers of the Declaration of Independence later became president: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Strangely enough, both these statesmen died on July 4, 1826, within hours of each other (this was the same day Stephen Foster was born). 1826 was also the 50th anniversary of the document’s adoption, and thus a major historical milestone. A third president, James Monroe (who was not a signer of the Declaration of Independence) also died on July 4th, in 1831.

10 Fun Facts About Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States

1. Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., in Nebraska in 1913, in the home of his wealthy grandfather, who was a prominent Omaha businessman.  His parents separated just a few weeks after his birth, however, due to his father's alcoholism and abusiveness.  Taken to Michigan, his mother gained full custody of her child and remarried in 1916 to salesman Gerald Rudolff Ford.  Though he was never adopted by his step-father, the couple almost immediately began calling their child Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr.  His name was not officially changed, however, until 1935, at which time he altered the spelling of the middle name to "Rudolph."

2. A Boy Scout and later captain of his high school football team, Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he became a star defensive lineman and won two national championships in the 1930's.  He would later specifically request the Michigan fight song to be played at his funeral.  After graduating with a degree in Economics, he attended Yale Law School before setting up a law practice in Michigan.

3. Ford served in the Navy on an aircraft carrier during World War II, before returning home to his law practice in 1946.  Shortly thereafter, he married Elizabeth Warren, a former model and dancer who had already been married and divorced once.  By this time, Ford had decided to run for Congress, and the couple decided to put off their marriage until just before the election, fearing that marrying a divorced ex-dancer during the campaign would hurt his chances of winning a seat.  The marriage happened in October, 1948, and Ford was elected to his first congressional term a few weeks later.

4. Gerald Ford served 13 consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, and became known as a moderate and mediator.  Significantly, he never authored any major legislation during his time in Congress, choosing instead to work behind the scenes.

5. Ford was a member of the Warren Commission, which was slated by Lyndon Johnson to investigate the Kennedy assassination.  A strong believer in the single-gunman theory, it was later discovered that Ford had worked secretly with the FBI to keep them informed of the commission's investigations, sometimes even reporting on other commissioners who were skeptical of the FBI's single-gunman theory.

6. During the mid-1960's, Ford was elected House Minority Leader for the Republicans, a position which he continued to hold after Richard Nixon was elected.  Johnson and Ford frequently butted heads on issues of policy, with Johnson once quipping that Ford had played "too much football without a helmet."

7. In October of 1973, Spiro Agnew, vice-president under Nixon, resigned amid a bribery and tax evasion scandal.  In such a situation, the 25th Amendment gives the president the authority to nominate a new vice-president, but the nominee must be approved by both houses of Congress.  Nixon nominated Ford, and Ford was overwhelmingly approved by Congress.  Ford took his oath of office on December 6, 1973.

8. Ford served as vice-president for only eight months.  In early August of the following year, new evidence came out in what was by then the 2-year investigation of the Watergate scandal, and Nixon abruptly resigned.  Ford was sworn in as president on August 9, 1974, the only person in U.S. history to assume the presidency without being elected to either the presidency or the vice-presidency.

9. Ford's 2-year presidency has generally gone down in history as unfavorable, aided largely by the fact that he unconditionally pardoned Richard Nixon about a month after entering office.  Ford believed it was the best thing to do for the country's political state of affairs; most Americans saw it as unjust political cronyism at its worst, and Ford was even accused of making a backroom bargain with Nixon, promising a pardon if Nixon would resign.  During the 1976 presidential campaign, Ford barely survived a run from Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, then went on to lose narrowly to Jimmy Carter.

10. Gerald Ford lived another 30 years after leaving the White House, and continued to be active in the public eye up until his death in 2006.  He lived long enough to become the longest living president in U.S. history, surpassing Ronald Reagan.  A moderate to the end, in his later years, Ford spoke in favor of both abortion and gay rights, and criticized the Bush administration for the war in Iraq.  

10 Fun Facts About John Adams

John Adams, Jr., the 2nd President of the United States

1. John Adams was born in 1735 in Massachusetts, to a Puritan family that was already an old American family at the time of his birth.  His ancestors had arrived on the unsettled shores of the New World on the Mayflower, and had thus been among the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Adams' great-grandfather through his mother's side was John Alden, said to have literally been the first person to step off the Mayflower onto New World soil - a sort of Neil Armstrong of the 1620's.

2. Adams attended Harvard in the 1750's, earning both Bachelor's and Master's degrees there.  He began practicing law in the 1760's, and married his third cousin, Abigail Smith.  Together they had seven children, five of which lived to adulthood, including John Quincy Adams, who would become the sixth president of the United States.

3. As a lawyer, Adams first rose to prominence in 1765 during the colonial opposition to the British Stamp Act, which levied taxes for many paper products used in the colonies.  Since the British Parliament had enacted this tax without the approval of any colonial representatives, many colonists believed it was invalid, and John Adams was one of the biggest leaders of the opposition in Massachusetts.  Many of his perspectives were copied and disseminated throughout the colonies, and his name became well known.

4. A few years later, Adams again found himself in the spotlight when he agreed to represent the British soldiers accused of murdering colonial civilians in the infamous Boston Massacre.  Despite his growing disdain for British rule over the colonies, he famously stated that facts, while sometimes inconvenient, are "stubborn things," and must overrule other passions or political inclinations.  All but two of the soldiers were acquitted, and the two convicted were convicted on lesser charges.

5. Around the same time of the Boston Massacre trial, Adams was elected to the colonial Massachusetts legislature, where he became a forceful opponent of British rule.  Following the British blockade of the port of Boston as a result of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, the first Continental Congress was called, and Adams was elected as a representative.  His nomination for commander-in-chief of the new American armies was George Washington - a nomination which was heartily approved.

6. Adams was one of the most radical leaders of the Continental Congress, and helped lead the charge to encourage the colonies to form new governments and declare independence from Great Britain.  The name most commonly associated with the Declaration of Independence is Thomas Jefferson's; Adams, however, contributed significantly to its actual contents, and Jefferson later admitted that the document itself was essentially the brainchild of John Adams.  

7. In that same year, 1776, Adams published an influential pamphlet called Thoughts on Government.  In this document he argued for a legislature of two houses (bicameral legislature), a separation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers, and a federal government limited to only those powers expressly granted to it.  These ideas would go on to form the basis of most state constitutions, as well as the eventual U.S. Constitution.  

8. In 1789, following the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Adams was elected to be vice-president under George Washington, and again in 1792.  Despite his lofty status, he was largely unhappy with his role, which he saw as essentially symbolic, with little to no real power or influence.  His negative impression of the vice-presidency as a largely powerless role has been echoed by vice-presidents ever since.  During his tenure under Washington, Adams became known by the nickname "His Rotundity," a reference to his weight and to the fact that he had argued (and failed) for loftier titles for the president of the United States (one such title was "His High Mightiness").

9. After Washington's retirement in 1796, Adams was elected president in what was, for all intents and purposes, the first true presidential election (Washington ran unopposed and won both his elections unanimously).  Adams defeated his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, by a mere three electoral votes, and Jefferson (according to the rules of the time) became his vice-president.  Their time in office was a stormy one, and Jefferson ran against Adams again in 1800, marking the only time in U.S. history that a sitting vice-president has run for election against a sitting president.  The election was again narrow - Jefferson won by eight electoral votes, and Adams was, effectively, sent into retirement.

10. Near the end of his term, Adams became the first president to live in the newly built Executive Mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.  He became the first of twenty-three (and counting) former lawyers to become president of the United States.  He also became the first (and counting) of seven Harvard graduates to occupy the presidency.  Finally, he became the longest living president in U.S. history until Ronald Reagan (Reagan was outdone a few years ago by Gerald Ford).  Adams died on the 4th of July, 1826, in the middle of his son's presidency, and on the same day as his old friend, colleague, nemesis, and later friend again, Thomas Jefferson.  Adams and Jefferson were the only two men who signed the Declaration of Independence who went on to become president, and they both died on its 50th anniversary.

10 Fun Facts About Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States

1. Teddy Roosevelt was born in 1858 in New York City, to a wealthy family of Dutch ancestry.  His niece, daughter of his brother Elliot, was future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Eleanor's husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a distant cousin to Eleanor and Teddy and shared their last name.

2. A sickly child who probably suffered from asthma, Roosevelt devoted himself from an early age to intellectual pursuits, particularly zoology and biology, and later took up sports, competing in boxing and rowing after enrolling at Harvard in 1876.  After graduating near the top of his class and entering the New York State Assembly, Roosevelt published a scholarly historical account of the U.S. Navy in the War of 1812, which he began writing in college.  It is still in print today and is considered one of the "standards" in the scholarly study of that war.

3. Roosevelt had married a woman named Alice Lee in 1880, having announced their engagement on Valentine's Day earlier that year.  Four years later, Alice was pregnant and due around Valentine's Day 1884.  The baby arrived on February 12th, while Roosevelt was still away at the capital.  He returned home late on the 13th to find both his widowed mother - who lived at the family home - and his post-partum wife gravely ill.  In the early morning hours of February 14th, his mother died, apparently of typhoid, and just a few hours after that, his wife died as well, from complications with the birth.

Roosevelt's diary entry from February 14, 1884

4. Over the next 15 years, Roosevelt spent time as a rancher, writer, a commissioner of the U.S. Civil Service, the Superintendent of the New York City Police Department, and also made a failed run for mayor of New York City.  In 1897, he was named Assistant Secretary of the Navy by president William McKinley, but resigned the position after just a few months in order to serve in the Spanish-American War.

5. Roosevelt attained the rank of Colonel in the war, leading a regiment of cavalry that came to be known as the Rough Riders.  They were heavily involved in the charge of San Juan Hill, one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles.  Roosevelt earned great fame and notoriety for his achievements, and was nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor, but it was not bestowed on him until 2001 - making him the only U.S. president to ever win the award.

6. After returning to civilian life later in 1898, Roosevelt was elected governor of New York.  Like his other jobs in the 1890's, he would serve in this capacity for only a brief time, before being added to the re-election ticket of president William McKinley in 1900.  When McKinley was assassinated just a few months after taking office, Roosevelt was sworn in as president on September 14, 1901.  At 42, he remains to this day the youngest person to ever hold the office of the presidency.  

7. A major reformer as president, Roosevelt devoted significant time developing governmental oversight and regulation of big corporations, and fighting for the rights of workers.  He was also instrumental in the completion of the Panama Canal.  In 1906, following his efforts to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War, he was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.  Together with his Congressional Medal of Honor in 2001, he is the only person in history to receive both his country's highest military award, and the world's highest peace award.  After keeping the White House in 1904, he declined to run again in 1908, instead supporting the eventual winner, William Howard Taft.

8. During the ensuing Taft administration, Roosevelt began to regret his decision, and became one of Taft's biggest critics.  Roosevelt ended up running for president again in 1912 on a third party ticket - the so-called Bull Moose Party, which effectively split the Republican vote and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win easily.  Roosevelt, however, became the only third party candidate in U.S. history to win more votes than a major party candidate.  During the campaign, Roosevelt was shot by an assassin in the chest, but the bullet did not penetrate his lungs, lodging instead in the tissue of his chest, and it remained there for the rest of his life.  Certain that the bullet had not done mortal damage, Roosevelt went ahead and gave the campaign speech he had been about to give, opening by casually telling his audience that he had just been shot.  

9. Following his failed third party run, Roosevelt devoted the remainder of his life to supporting Progressive Republican politics, making expeditions into remote areas of the world, and campaigning against American neutrality in World War I. Roosevelt died in 1919, from a heart attack while he slept.  He was only 60 years old, but his travels into the jungles of South America had ruined his health, a boxing accident during his presidency had rendered him blind in one eye, and he had developed inflammatory arthritis.  He was buried near his home in New York.

10. Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, joined the budding U.S. Air Service during World War I, and was shot down and killed over France in 1918.  During World War II, Roosevelt's oldest son, Teddy Jr., was a brigadier general who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on D-Day.  Like his father many years later, he would also win his award posthumously - he died of a heart attack just a few weeks after the landing.  Roosevelt's oldest child - Alice - from his first marriage, outlived all her younger half-siblings, dying at the age of 96 in 1980.  She was a controversial figure who married a prominent politician, mothered a child through an affair with another politician, and, at the age of 90 in 1974, famously proclaimed on 60 Minutes that she was a "hedonist."

Notes from the Cave

My poetry collection is free right now at Amazon, if you have a Kindle reader.  It will be free today and tomorrow (that's June 11 and 12).  There are, I believe, 52 poems in the collection, most of which were written between 2004 and 2006.

My short story Widow's Walk is also free today and tomorrow.

I've noticed recently that my blog hits are in a slow decline, and that is obviously due to my basic lack of blogging in the last few months.  I only had about 1,200 hits last week, which is the lowest its been in a long, long time.  I gotta get writing again, and I gotta do more than just these stupid updates.

Work has been not fun.  The new software implementation is in full swing, and I think most people are comfortable using it now, but it has had everyone's nerves on edge and has generally made everyone extra stressed out.  (Hint: "everyone" probably just means "Scott.")

I've also had a lot going on with my second job as a language and writing instructor with a company that serves the Japanese market.  It's been too much really.  I am absolutely certain that I don't handle stress and workloads as well as others, but I can only hold myself to my own standards, and by my standards, I have been busy to the point of generally wanting to run away.

I went with my wife and kids this weekend to Target to buy fat clothes.  I have been wearing shirts and shorts and pants for months now that are way too tight, telling myself all along that I will lose weight and fit into them again.  But I have finally given in and bought new clothes.  I haven't exactly replaced my wardrobe or anything, but if I DO manage to lose weight in the next few months/years/decades/eons, I am going to have a bunch of shirts and shorts that are too big.

My car is in the shop now getting (thankfully) only 250 dollars worth of work.  I went out to start it yesterday and the engine sounded very funny...sort of rattling and shaking.  I drove up the street and it didn't really get better, and the check engine light came on.  So off to the car shop we went, and of course by the time we got there, the car seemed normal, and they weren't able to reproduce the problem.  They think it is related to spark plugs and gaskets and other car shit that I don't really understand, so they are going to tune it up for me.  Hopefully it won't break down and strand me in the ghetto where I work - or on the Interstate in East Bufu later this summer when we drive it to Georgia.

East Boofoo?  No, I think I prefer Bufu.  Although that sort of looks Egyptian or Babylonian or something.

Okay, fine, I'll use an old euphemism that a co-worker of mine used to use all the time:

"Or on the Interstate in East Jesus, Nebraska, later this summer when we drive it to Georgia."

Hmm, that doesn't really work either, for geographically obvious reasons.

Well anyway.  A friendly word of advice to Twitter users: don't follow Obama or Romney on Twitter.  They are TOTAL spammers.  Sheesh.  STFU a'ready.  All I know is this: Romney wants to fire teachers, police officers, and firefighters, and Obama hates Hispanics.

Notes from the Cave

This is yet another Dining Room edition of Notes from the Cave, as the Cave has been overrun with school supplies.  M has been hired on at a new school opening in the district this fall, so she had to clean out her classroom last week when the school year ended.  Both the girls will be going with her to the new school, as well as our nephews.  Her old school was only about half a mile from the house.  The new one might be one whole mile.  It's hard to believe, but H will be in 5th grade, and S will be in 1st.  It's a definite irony of life that the older you get, the faster the time flies by.  Seems like it should be the other way around.  

Today was a big day at the hospital; it was the "go live" day for our new computer system, called Epic, which is a fully-integrated online medical record system.  Previously, we'd only had a digital medical record system in the ER.  Now, the whole hospital is completely virtual - no more patient charts in binders with carbon copies and pre-printed order sets.  In the Radiology department, where I work, we already used computers to do most of our work; that's simply the nature of modern radiology.  So the change hasn't been quite as dramatic for us as it has been for nurses and doctors on the floor who are used to charting on paper.  Even so, we are completely changing how we enter, receive, and complete our radiology orders, so it takes a lot of getting used to.  

In a nutshell, I hate change.  I told someone today that I wished I could hibernate for the next two weeks, and then come back to work and have all the implementation headaches solved and everyone fully trained, and could thus just skip it all myself.  As it is, I am dreading the next couple of weeks. 

I have also recently accepted a position on 2nd shift.  This was a huge decision for me, and I had actually initially turned the offer down, only to reconsider several weeks later.  In the end, the additional money that I will make on 2nd shift, together with some other personnel changes that are occurring, sealed the deal for me.  I am really bummed about having to leave a lot of good friends on 1st shift - it's like a big family there - but I keep reminding myself that it's not like I'm leaving and will never see or work with these people again.  My shifts will overlap with 1st shift for several hours every day.  The additional pay is also pretty significant, at least for a family at our economic level.

Still, I think this permanent shift change (which starts July 1), coupled with the new software implementation, is just a bit too much all at once.  I've been feeling down a lot lately, and have even had a few minor panic attacks.  I've been moody at home and work, and I think my wife and kids, as well as many of my co-workers, are ready to kill me.

My reading list this year is suffering in new and dramatic ways.  As of June 1, I have completed just three - yes three - books.  And all three of them were fairly short.  I have not completed any non-fiction, and, in fact, haven't even been reading any non-fiction books.  I have been reading a very, very long novel for the last several months, and although I absolutely love the book, it's taking me forever to get it done.  

Now, in my defense, part of the reason for this dearth of finished books is because I have been focusing a lot of reading time on documents from American history.  Specifically, I have been reading through all the presidential inaugural addresses and State of the Union addresses, going all the way back to Washington, as well as numerous papers and documents from various presidential terms.  I'm not exactly sure what my goal is with all of this; a big part of it is simply that I find it interesting.  Of course, it is also related to the blog posts I have been making this year on presidential facts and the history of political parties.  I don't know if anything worthwhile will come from this endeavor, aside from expanding my own knowledge, but there might be a little book or historical narrative or something hiding out in the back of my brain.  We'll see.  

Of course, another big reason for the lack of reading in general has been my addiction to watching the entire series of Lost from start to finish.  I think I started it sometime in late January, and finally finished it a few weeks ago.  Now that I am done with it, I hope to get back on track with my reading.

I've sat here for about five minutes trying to think of something else to write about, and I just don't have anything.

Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Theological Argument

Read Part I - Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Constitutional Argument

In this first part of this two-part series, we looked at how religious opposition to gay marriage goes against the principles of liberty and secular government, outlined in the Constitution.  It's not that religious people don't have a right to voice their opinion or to be opposed to something they view as sinful; but when religious opinions dictate legislation (as with recent gay marriage laws), the Constitution and civil liberties are thrown out the window.

In that first part, we saw how some modern political groups - most notably the Tea Party - claim to uphold the Constitution and to be rigorous defenders of Constitutional rights, but many of those same Tea Party groups are vocally opposed to gay marriage rights on religious grounds.  I stated that this is but one way in which many gay  marriage opponents are hypocritical.

The other way, of course, is within Christianity itself.  

Most people seem to think the question of gay marriage in general, and homosexuality in particular, is a "no-brainer" as far as the Bible is concerned.  The Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality and homosexual relationships, so any self-respecting Christian should be opposed to it.  In this regard, a Christian friend of mine, who is a minister, stated: "Scripture is clear.  Homosexuality is wrong.  There is no gray area."  In another place, he stated: "I can't just accept the parts about God's love and mercy and forgiveness, and skip over the parts about His holiness and judgement."  In other words, he can't just pick the nice parts, and ignore the difficult parts.  For this reason, he says, "I can't justify [a homosexual lifestyle] with a holy God who calls it a sin."

This "Pick and Choose" argument, as I call it, is one of the most common arguments that Christians use when discussing hot-button topics facing modern society.  I have heard it used in discussions on everything from gay marriage and homosexuality, to abortion, gender roles, and whether or not Jesus is the only viable means of salvation.  Indeed, this argument may be the most commonly used weapon evangelicals wield against "moderate" and "liberal" Christians who they see as watering down the Holy Word.

The problem with this argument, of course, is that there is no such thing as a Christian who does not pick and choose what they like from the Bible and discard or ignore the rest.  Even the most stringent Bible literalist doesn't actually believe everything the Bible says, and doesn't actually follow all of the Bible's teachings.  More on this in a bit.

First, I want to briefly discuss what the Bible does actually say about homosexuality.  I have written extensively on this topic in the past, so if any reader wants more information, they can find it here: Homosexuality and the New Testament.

To put it simply, the Bible has very little to say on homosexuality - but it seems like it says a lot more.  The Torah codifies homosexuality as a sin punishable by death (Leviticus 20:13).  Other passages in the Torah also condemn homosexuality as detestable to God.  In still other parts of the Old Testament, homosexuals are either put to death or expelled from the Jewish kingdom (for instance, 1 Kings 15:12).

There is a two-fold problem here, however.  First of all, anytime critics of Christianity point out all the absurd, and sometimes even downright horrific, rules of the Old Testament, Christians will defend themselves by pointing out that the Old Testament was replaced by the New Testament, and so the rules and regulations of the Old Testament are no longer valid.  Jesus did away with them.  If that's true, of course, it also applies to the Old Testament rules and regulations about homosexuality.  After all, many modern Christians may think homosexuality is a sin, but they don't advocate the death penalty for it.  So for Christians, using Old Testament passages to condemn homosexuality is theologically inconsistent.  Those rules aren't in place anymore, having been "fulfilled" by Jesus.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Old Testament doesn't actually say nearly as much about homosexuality as it appears.  In fact, outside of those outdated Torah rules about putting gay people to death, the Old Testament doesn't ever refer to homosexuality.  In all the many passages that have long been understood as referring to homosexuality, the Hebrew word used there doesn't mean "homosexual" at all, but instead refers explicitly to a temple prostitute.  In the ancient world, fertility cults were extremely common, and part of the way these cults worshipped included ritual sex acts, involving both men and women.  In the Old Testament, when kings are shown expelling "homosexuals" or "sodomites" from their kingdom, the text is actually referring to pagan fertility cults being disbanded.  This is so widely recognized today that even the widely-read NIV and the New King James Version have translated the word as "male temple prostitutes" instead of the traditional King James word "sodomites."

At this point, you might be asking, "But what about the New Testament?"

Like the Old Testament, the New Testament only seems to say a lot about homosexuality.  Famous passages in both 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy use a Greek word that has been translated as "homosexual" or "homosexual offenders" (or the classic King James phrase "abusers of themselves with mankind"), but linguists and scholars today understand that this word's meaning is basically unknown.  It is never attested in any Greek text prior to Paul's usage of it in 1 Corinthians, and it simply isn't clear what he was referring to - it has even been suggested that Paul coined the word himself.  There were, in fact, several widely-used words in ancient Greek that referred to homosexuality - "pedophilia," which referred to men having sex with boys, and "kinaidos," which basically referred to the size of one's rectum.  Whatever Paul's word meant, there simply isn't any reason to assume it meant "gay men."  In my own study of the issue, I think the most appropriate translation of the word is "pimp" - that is, someone who benefits monetarily from sex.  The link I provided above goes into a lot more detail about this issue.

In any case, we are left, in the New Testament, with just one passage that definitely talks about homosexuality, and that is a text found in Romans 1, where Paul laments men and women who give up natural relations in order to have sex with people of the same gender.  But here, as in the Old Testament passages, this reference to homosexuality is related to ritual sex in pagan temples.  The context of the passage makes that crystal clear, and Paul almost certainly had an eye on the Old Testament passages we saw above that talk about ancient Jewish kings expelling fertility cults from the land.  And remember, Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome, where fertility cults were commonplace.  He was encouraging them not to be led astray by these false gods, which were "man-made things" made to look like birds and reptiles (think of the animal gods of ancient Egypt).

With all these issues in mind, is it actually true that the Bible is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality, as asserted by my minister friend?  Or are the waters much, much murkier?  In fact, I think the waters are unquestionably murky.  About the only thing we can say with confidence is that the Bible clearly condemns pagan fertility cults and those who take part in them.  Just about everything else is debatable.

As such, should Christians be attempting to legislate morality on an issue that is not even particularly clear in the Bible?  Shouldn't Christians be more concerned with issues that are, in fact, clear in the Bible, like feeding the poor, helping the sick, and living a lifestyle of unrestrained love and mercy?

Of course, I think the answer to that first question is no, and to the second question yes, but my theological argument goes even farther than that. I want to turn now to the "Pick and Choose" phenomenon I mentioned above.

As I explained, one of the first arguments sophisticated Christians make when confronted with social issues is that a Christian can't just pick and choose what they want to believe.  You have to accept the whole deal; you can't just follow some things, and reject the others.  This is sometimes referred to as "buffet-style Christianity," taking what you want and ignoring the rest.

And this is where the real hypocrisy comes into play in regards to Christians who are opposed to gay marriage on Biblical grounds.  Let's agree for a moment that the Bible actually is crystal clear on the issue of homosexuality.  Let's agree that homosexuality is an unquestionable sin and should be condemned.

Of all the sins and unrighteous ways of living outlined in the Bible, why is this one so important?  Not just so important that Christians need to voice their opinion about the sinfulness of the gay lifestyle, but so important that they actually need to amend their state constitutions - and maybe even the U.S. constitution - in order to deny gay people the right to get married?  Why this sin, and not something else?

In 1 Corinthians, there is a passage that is very frequently referred to by people arguing against gay marriage.  This is one of the passages I noted above where the meaning of the word used is unclear and probably did not refer to homosexuality.  But, as above, let's agree for a moment that it does refer to homosexuals.  In that passage, Paul is imploring his audience to live righteous lives and to flee from immorality.  He lists several sins which will keep believers from "inheriting the kingdom of God."  Among these are sexual immorality, drunkenness, greed, idolatry, adultery, and homosexuality.  Why is homosexuality the most important thing in that list?  Why not focus on greed, or drunkenness?  Why not re-enact the 18th Amendment and put Prohibition back in place?  Why not amend the constitution to outlaw sex outside of marriage?

The fact is, there is no legitimate justification for putting homosexuality above the others.  There is no Biblical justification for denying gays the same rights as everyone else, even if you think it's a sin.  You may think sex outside of marriage is a sin too, but you sure aren't trying to keep those who have had premarital sex from being able to get married!

And the biggest one here, of course, is adultery.  If you judge a sin's importance by how often it is referred to or condemned in the Bible, adultery is probably the Number One Biblical Sin.

And just what is adultery, by the Bible's definition?  Quite simply, adultery is when a married person has sex with someone other than their spouse, or when a non-married person has sex with someone who is married to someone else.  At its core, adultery is about infidelity and unfaithfulness.  This is why, throughout the Bible, "adultery" is used as a metaphor for unfaithfulness to God.

In the Gospels, Jesus speaks about adultery on several occasions.  In fact, Jesus uses the word "adultery" no less than fourteen times.  One of his teachings, which is repeated in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, dealt with adultery and divorce.  Here, Jesus states that even looking lustfully at someone who is not your spouse is the same as adultery.  He goes on to say that Moses was wrong in allowing people to get divorced for any reason.  In fact, he argues, if you get divorced for any reason other than infidelity, and then get remarried, you are committing adultery.

This passage, of course, has been the basis for many rules and regulations within modern churches about divorced people.  I grew up being taught that getting divorced for any reason other than unfaithfulness was a sin, and so was remarriage after such a divorce.  I also grew up in a church that did not allow divorced people to have leadership roles like minister or deacon; many modern churches still have rules like that.  If a divorced person wants to remarry, some churches won't allow them to have the ceremony in their church, and some ministers won't marry anyone who has been divorced.      

So with this in mind, and considering that adultery is essentially the biggest sin in the Bible, why aren't Christians fighting to ban divorced people from getting remarried?  Why aren't they arguing that such marriages harm the sanctity of marriage, as ordained by God?  Why aren't they pointing out that divorced people who get remarried are living a sinful lifestyle of adultery?

Scripture is clear.  Remarriage after divorce is wrong.  There is no gray area.

I hope you get my point here.  Christian opposition to gay marriage is inconsistent with the way Christians react to other teachings in the Bible.  I don't know any Christians who are fighting to amend a state constitution to ban divorced people from getting remarried.  I don't know any Christians who would disallow a divorced-and-remarried person to  be an active and accepted member of their church community.  I don't know any Christians who are "hung up" on people getting divorced and remarried.

And yet there are millions of Christians out there trying to ban gay marriage, ostracizing unrepentant gay people from their churches, trying "cure" gay people of their sins, and who are, in general, definitely "hung up" on gay rights.

And these same people, of course, will turn around and accuse a gay rights Christian of "picking and choosing" what they believe, while ignoring the fact that virtually no Christian believes it's a sin for a woman to have short hair, or a man to have long hair (1 Corinthians 11), virtually no Christian believes a woman should not be permitted to have authority over a man (1 Timothy 2), and virtually no Christian believes that slaves should be content in their way of life and faithfully obey their masters (1 Corinthians 7; Ephesians 6).

The Pick and Choose argument, in the end, is just a lot of hypocritical smoke and mirrors to justify prejudice against gay people, and legislating discrimination based on that prejudice.  It is an inconsistent argument that makes false assumptions about what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, and presupposes that "good" Christians follow everything the Bible teaches, even though that is demonstrably not true.

In the end, opposition to gay marriage is not about religion at all.  It's about the fact that many people are simply uncomfortable with gay people, afraid of gay lifestyles, and generally find the whole issue of homosexuality distasteful.  Many of those people then simply open their Bibles to find ways to justify their prejudice.  It's a method of operation that has been going on in Christian society for many hundreds of years.  700 years ago, Christians used the Bible to persecute Jews and other non-Christians.  500 years ago, Christians used the Bible to condemn Galileo.  200 years ago, Christians used the Bible to support and condone the institution of slavery.  100 years ago, Christians used the Bible to deny equal rights for women.  And today, they are using the Bible to justify discrimination against gay people.

Fortunately, history shows that they will lose this argument as they have lost all the others.  Fifty years from now, no one will have a problem with gay marriage, except for a few nutty people on the fringes of mainstream religion.  Gay people are going to win their rights to get married, and it will eventually happen in every state.  Christians today who are opposed to gay marriage will either die out or will reluctantly give in to the changing times and the irresistible force of progress, just as they did with slavery and women's rights.  In the future, the fact that there was so much opposition to gay marriage will be an embarrassment to self-respecting Americans.            

That, at least, gives me some hope.








 

Arguing Gay Marriage Rights

With North Carolina's passage of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, passions have run very high very fast, and I am certainly among those who has been fairly vocal and public in my opposition to this amendment.  I have probably said too much; have probably argued too forcefully.

A friend of mine who pastors a church in Indiana made a blog post calling for calmer heads and more respectful discussions.  He ended by using the example of Jesus, who, he says, always debated respectfully with the Pharisees.  I appreciate his thoughts and I think his post is worth reading.

However, I ultimately didn't agree completely with him.  Some issues require passion.  Some issues even require anger and calling people to the carpet.  Sometimes, that's the only way you can get people to listen.  Without putting too fine a point on it, we certainly don't look back now at the 1960's and suggest that African-Americans shouldn't have been so angry.  Their anger fueled social change.

Anyway, in order to explain my perspective on this, and to explain why I am so vocal on this issue, I thought it might be worthwhile to post my response to him here on my own blog, where my own readers can see it.  Of course, you can also just follow the link above, read the original post, and also read my response.  

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On many subjects, there are opinions, beliefs, and perspectives that are equally valid. Should the government cut taxes or raise taxes to spur the economy? Which is better and why, Papa John’s or Pizza Hut? What’s the best play in sports, the Grand Slam or the Triple Double? Is the Gospel of Thomas a mid-1st century, or a mid-2nd century text? What killed the dinosaurs, a cosmic disaster or a climatic disaster?

These are all questions that have valid arguments on both sides.

But not ALL subjects are like that. Should women be allowed to vote, or not? Should slavery be legal or illegal? Should we mandate jury trials in all criminal cases, or should we be allowed to convict people without a trial? Should we have religious freedom, or should the government tell us what we can and can’t believe?

On issues like that, there is only one perspective that has any real validity or legitimacy, and if someone argues against it, they certainly have the RIGHT to their perspective, but that doesn’t mean their perspective deserves any respect, or that their perspective has any legitimacy.

For me, the issue of gay marriage falls into the latter category. You are entitled to believe whatever you want to believe. But that doesn’t mean it has any legitimacy or deserves respect.

So while I agree that we should approach this topic with humility, that doesn’t mean that there is no right and wrong. That doesn’t mean that both perspectives are equally just and equally valid. Just as there was a right and wrong over the issue of slavery, and later of civil rights, there is also a right and wrong about gay marriage. And sometimes, you have to get angry in order for people to wake up.

And this, actually, is reflected in the gospel accounts of Jesus, which leads to another point about what you said….you say Jesus debated with the experts of the Law, but always respected them. There may be much lost in translation, but it seems pretty clear to me that Jesus didn’t just “debate” with the experts of the Law, but got into heated debates with them, and even downright angry arguments.

Matthew 23 is a great example. Jesus starts off by basically mocking and degrading the “teachers of the Law and the pharisees” and going into a long exposition about what incredibly unreasonable and enormous hypocrites they are. Then he goes on to deliver the so-called “Seven Woes” wherein he basically calls these people a bunch of nasty, dirty names, condemns them to hell, and states that all the “righteous blood shed on earth” is squarely on their heads.

There is nothing kind, conciliatory, or respectful in his tone.

Jesus’s clearing of the Temple is another example, especially the version in the Gospel of John where he’s brandishing a whip!

Finally, in Matthew 15, where again Jesus is giving a tongue-lashing to the Pharisees, he seems to have gone so far in what he said that even his disciples seem embarrassed. They approach him afterwards to tell him he “offended” the Pharisees. Jesus is unrepentant and basically says they deserved it, because they are “blind guides,” and he likens them to weeds that will be uprooted by God.

Jesus, clearly, understood that sometimes you can’t “debate” with people. Sometimes, people are just wrong. And sometimes, the only way to get people to wake up is to call them to the carpet.

I believe all of these things pertain to the issue of gay marriage.

Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Constitutional Argument

The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
~ from the U.S. Treaty with Tripoli, 1797

After establishing its independence from Great Britain in the late 1700's, the United States faced one of its very first foreign relations crises: piracy in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.  This piracy was based out of the so-called Barbary Coast of North Africa.

Muslim sailors from these North African kingdoms and caliphates were given the legal right to prey on shipping from European, and eventually North American, countries.  The justification for this was essentially a religious one - these western ships were fair game, because they were owned by Christian nations, who were considered the religious enemies of Muslim nations.

In 1785, just two years after the end of the Revolutionary War, two American ships were captured by Barbary Pirates and the men crewing those ships were sold into slavery in North Africa, with ransoms put on their heads.  There was even a rumor during this time that Benjamin Franklin, on a voyage overseas, had been captured, though it was not true.

In any case, the fledgling United States began establishing official diplomatic relations with the various Muslim countries of the Barbary Coast, in an effort to keep their ships safe from Barbary pirates.  As a result, they enacted a series of separate peace treaties with these countries throughout the 1780's and 1790's.  One of these was the Treaty with Tripoli in 1797.

This treaty established friendship between the two nations, and was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate, and signed by President John Adams.  It is a matter of historical fact that copies of the treaty were given to each senator, and the entire treaty itself was read aloud on the Senate floor, prior to the unanimous vote of ratification.

One of the clauses in this treaty is the now somewhat infamous phrase I quoted above.  It comes from Article 11 of the treaty, and in context, this article argues that because the United States is not an established Christian nation, the Muslim region of Tripolitania had no religious quarrel with the U.S. - thus no reason to prey on U.S. shipping.

There is no question that this phrase from an obscure 200-year-old treaty has been over-emphasized in recent years by those wishing to widen the gap between Church and State.  But there is also no question that this government document, unanimously approved by the United States Senate and signed into law by John Adams, is an inconvenient one to those who wish to argue that the U.S. was founded on "Biblical principles" or is a "Christian nation."

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the government will not make any laws "respecting an establishment of religion."  This phrase is clearly referring to state-sponsored religious institutions, with a strong eye towards the Church of England, which the King of England controlled.

This amendment, however, has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include a lot more than simply outlawing government-sponsored religions.  Instead, judicial rulings for more than 200 years have established this amendment as effectively separating Church and State, and thus keeping religion out of government.  Many people have differing opinions about this, but the Supreme Court has the constitutional mandate, and the constitutional authority, to interpret the Constitution, and that means their opinion is the final say on the matter.  It is worth noting that virtually every incarnation of the Supreme Court over the last 200 years, both liberal and conservative, has agreed on this issue - the First Amendment irrevocably separates Church and State.

This separation of Church and State is one of the hallmarks of the United States, and one of the most important and enduring legacies of our nation.  Because of it, any American can worship as they choose, or not worship at all.  Any religious organization can build structures and meet there peaceably.  Religious organizations do not have to pay taxes to either the state or federal government, and their rules and regulations do not have to meet with any approval of government officials.  While they must still remain in compliance with criminal laws, they have no obligation to meet the requirements of civil laws passed by the government.  Every citizen of the United States, regardless of their religious or political stripes, benefits enormously from this very important and distinctive American tradition.

You may now be asking yourself: What does a 200-year-old treaty on piracy and the U.S. Constitution really have to do with the 21st century issue of gay marriage?

Quite a bit, as it turns out.

The Treaty of Tripoli shows that our earliest leaders viewed the United States government as a secular entity.  The United States was not "founded on the Christian religion," nor could the United States pass laws establishing religious principles as legal precedents.  That does not mean government officials can't be members of a religion, nor does it mean that U.S. officials can't use their religious beliefs as a way of influencing their own governing.  What it does mean, however, is that religious principles cannot be legislated - at least not if we want our laws to be constitutional.

Enter gay marriage.  From my experience, both in speaking with individuals personally, and in reading numerous sources, the overarching opposition to gay marriage is a religious one.  Of course there are other reasons given too, most notably issues surrounding traditional gender roles and family values, and slippery slope arguments about how gay marriage will lead to an "anything goes" perspective on the institution of marriage, including polygamy, incest, and zoophilia (sex with animals).  As the argument goes, if two men can get married, why not a man and a goat?

But in my experience, all these other arguments are secondary.  They are the "justification" arguments - and not very good ones, at that.  But the real source of the opposition to gay marriage is a religious one.  The other arguments simply attempt to deflect that fact.  I'm sure there are atheist/agnostic/non-religious people out there who are opposed to gay marriage, but I don't really know any.  The far and away vast majority of opposition to gay marriage is coming from people who are religiously opposed to gay marriage.  I am certain this is an undeniable fact, and if you don't agree with me, then consider these statistics:

In 2010, a Gallup poll found that among those people who said that religion was "very important" in their lives, 70% opposed gay marriage.  On the flip side, among those who said that religion was "not important" in their lives, the numbers were basically a mirror image - 70% supported gay marriage.  Similarly, among the four geographic regions of the U.S. - North, South, Midwest, and West, the most religious region, the South, also had the lowest support for gay marriage, at about 35%.

In 2011, a Pew Research Center poll found that among white evangelicals, 74% opposed gay marriage.  In that same poll, only 20% of people with no religious affiliation opposed gay marriage.

Clearly, the overwhelming majority of opposition to gay marriage - indeed, the only real reason why gay marriage is not already legal everywhere - is because of religious opposition to it.  Without religious opposition, there would be few people in the United States opposed to gay marriage.

I hope by now you see my point: it is unconstitutional in the United States for religious beliefs to form the basis of legislation.  If my Christian beliefs tell me that gay marriage is a sin, that fact can have no bearing, legally, on whether gay marriage is legalized or not.  This is why we have no laws banning sex before marriage, mandating baptism, or banning women from leadership roles over men (all of which are religious beliefs).

The separation of Church and State works both ways: the government can't pass laws regulating religious beliefs or practices, and religious beliefs and practices cannot be legislated and mandated.  This is why it is illegal for religious organizations to be involved in politics - they are separate from the government, they don't pay taxes, so they can't have an official voice in government.  Of course, free speech still permits them to express their views, but their religious views cannot form the basis of legislation.

And yet, many of the same people who bark about fidelity to the Constitution are the very same people who believe their religious beliefs regarding homosexuality should be legislated and made applicable to all Americans.

Consider the mission statement provided on the homepage of a group called Tea Party Nation:

Tea Party Nation is a user-driven
 group of like-minded people who desire our God-given individual
 freedoms written out by the Founding Fathers. We believe in Limited 
Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure 
Borders and our Country.

This same Tea Party Nation has stated that gay marriage "will become one more factor in the destruction of America."

This constitutional inconsistency is just one of the ways in which hypocrisy creeps into the discussion about gay marriage.

In the second part, Christian Opposition to Gay Marriage: A Theological Argument, I will look specifically at Christianity and the Bible, and how Christian opposition to gay marriage is not only constitutionally irrelevant, but theologically inconsistent.

A History of American Political Parties, Part III

Read Part II

A major shift in partisan politics occurred in the 1830's, following the rise of Andrew Jackson's new party, the Democrats.  The popularity of this new, largely agrarian, party led to the demise of the short-lived National Republicans, who had been made up of the remnants left over from the collapse of the Democratic-Republican party, which had dominated U.S. politics since about 1800.

Out of the ashes, in the 1830's, grew another party to oppose Jackson and his Democrats: the Whig Party.

The name of this party has sometimes caused confusion for students of history.  The term "Whig" was a common term in colonial America, and referred to those members of the British parliament who were opposed to the powers of the monarchy.  During the American Revolution, this term came to be associated with anyone who was opposed to tyranny.  Most Americans of the 1770's would have called themselves "Whigs" - not as members of any party, but as ideological opponents of kings and monarchs.  As a result, many of America's earliest statesmen are sometimes referred to as Whigs - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, even George Washington.

When the Whig Party was formed in the 1830's, the name was chosen for the very simple fact that Whigs were known to have been supporters of the Republic, and enemies of the king.  The name, then, was meant to imply what the members stood for.  It didn't, however, have any direct connection to the Whigs of the British parliament or of the American colonial period.

As an alternative to the Jacksonian Democrats, the Whig Party believed in protectionism (taxing foreign goods very highly in order to generate revenue for the government, and make competition easier for American companies), and believed in a largely ceremonial role for the president.  For Whigs, it was Congress who should really have most of the power.  The president, they believed, should concern himself primarily with foreign affairs and with being the figurehead of the Republic.  This, of course, was perfectly in line with the anti-monarchy beliefs of colonial-era Whigs.

One of the ways the Whig Party put this belief into practice was by pushing for the elimination - or at least the dramatic limitation - of the president's veto rights.  With the ability to veto any legislation passed by Congress, the president had been given an enormous amount of power, which could easily be used to dramatically influence American society. Whigs wanted this largely unregulated power overturned.

In 1836, the Whigs had their first chance on the presidential stage.  Andrew Jackson had decided to retire after two terms, so the Democrats nominated his vice-president, Martin Van Buren of New York.

The Whigs, however, were still a new party without a whole lot of widespread unity.  As a result, they were unable to agree on a single candidate, and ended up nominating four different people for president.  William Henry Harrison was on most of the ballots in the North, while Hugh White was the Whig candidate in most of the South.  In Massachusetts, however, the Whig candidate was Daniel Webster, and in South Carolina, William Mangum.

How, exactly, could the Whigs hope to win with none of their candidates on all the ballots?  Quite simply, they hoped for a repeat of the 1828 election, when no candidate won a majority of the electoral votes, and the House of Representatives was forced to choose the president (which is a stipulation of the 12th Amendment).  They figured that their four candidates would secure enough electoral votes to keep Van Buren from winning a majority, and they believed they had enough influence in the House of Representatives to ensure that one of their own candidates would be chosen as president.

It didn't work.  Van Buren ended up winning 170 electoral votes, far more than the 148 needed to win a majority.

Despite its loss, the Whig Party slowly became united during Van Buren's term, eventually engulfing a prominent third party called the Anti-Masonic Party.  This party had evolved in the late 1820's with its central platform opposed to the influence of Freemasonry in American politics.  In time, it moved away from this focus on Freemasonry, and eventually began embracing many of the same beliefs held by the Whigs - most notably an opposition to a powerful executive office.  During the 1840 election, both the Whigs and the Anti-Masonic Party nominated the same person for the presidency, and afterwards, the Anti-Masons effectively ceased to exist.

That double nomination went to William Henry Harrison, one of the Whig candidates from 1836, and the one Whig who had had the best showing against Martin Van Buren.  The Whig cause was helped by an economic recession under Van Buren's watch, the so-called Panic of 1837.  That, coupled with an effective campaign by Harrison, swept him into office in 1841 as the first Whig president.

The good feelings didn't last long.  Just one month after taking the presidency, and before he really did anything other than give a few speeches, Harrison came down with an illness and died.  His vice-president, John Tyler - who was also a Whig - took over.

Things went downhill for the Whigs after that.  Tyler almost immediately put himself at odds with his own party by vetoing two major banking bills sponsored by Henry Clay, the leader of the Whig majority in Congress.  Outraged not just at Tyler's refusal to support Whig legislation, but at his presumption of using the veto in a way that Whigs were ideologically opposed to (they believed a veto should only be used when the constitutionality of a bill was in question), the Whigs voted to expel Tyler from the party.  They eventually went so far as to try to impeach him, though the bill for impeachment never got off the ground.  His expulsion from the party made him, effectively, an Independent throughout the remainder of his presidency - the only non-partisan president since George Washington.

Despite its disastrous first attempt at putting a Whig in the White House, the Whig party managed to maintain its influence throughout the 1840's, losing the 1844 election by just a few thousand votes, in an election that turned heavily on the issue of territorial expansion - which Whigs generally opposed, but Democrats supported.  In 1848, however, the Whigs won again, placing war hero Zachary Taylor into office and giving them not just their second president, but their second war-hero president.

The Whigs, however, just didn't have much luck when it came to presidents.  Taylor, much like John Tyler before him, proved to be independently-minded, and frequently found himself at odds with Whig platforms and policies.  He had personally never been affiliated with any political party before running for president in 1848, and during that election, both parties had courted him as a war hero.

Then, in 1850, just 18 months after taking office, he got sick and died.  As such, in less than 10 years, the Whigs had put two men in the White House, both won primarily because of their records as great war heroes, and both died from illness before completing even the first half of their first term.  In Taylor's case, however, the Whigs got a good consolation prize - Taylor's vice-president, Millard Fillmore, had first entered politics with the Anti-Masonic Party, and had joined the Whigs by 1832.  As such, he was an ideological and loyal Whig.

Despite this, even Fillmore managed to do things to harm his reputation with some Whig factions, particularly his signing of the Fugitive Slave Act, which many northern Whig abolitionists saw as essentially favoring the South and supporting slavery.

In 1852, the Whigs - again in disarray by sectional disputes - chose not to renominate Fillmore, and instead gave the nod to Winfield Scott, yet another war hero.  Unfortunately, three times was not the charm for the Whigs; Scott was defeated in one of the biggest landslides in history, losing by 7 percentage points in the popular vote, and more than 200 in the electoral vote, to Democrat Franklin Pierce.

This disastrous election proved to be the downfall of the Whigs, and the entire party collapsed into ruins during the 1850's as the issue of slavery began to put a stranglehold on the nation and split party loyalties.  In 1856, the Whigs did gather to make a nomination for the presidency, but they opted instead to support the nomination of the new American Party, which had nominated former president Millard Fillmore.  Afterwards, the party effectively ceased to exist, and the Democrats won an easy victory, putting James Buchanan into the White House.

The American Party, also known as the Know-Nothing Party, had grown largely out of the ashes of the Whigs, but so had another party, formed in 1854 and known simply as the Republican Party.  This party would grow to dominate American politics for the next 80 years.