thoughts

hey linda

yeah just send me a shrimp fork. or you can take a picture of the yellow bike that I left in front of the tell'ride house. You can use it. Tell Keegan that it is his if he is going to live in the house. All of you cornell ppl can use it too but you might have to find it or change the brakes because they were not working very well.

Interesting you brought up gay marriage/ civil unions. I was just at a RI model legislature event. It is a simulation of the state govt where students draft bills and debate on them. Anyways, civil unions are a hot button issue this year. I hesitate to use "gay marriage" because of the various connotations that have developed, especially recently, around the word. Some gay people even refuse to accept the term marriage, seeing it as an institution that, through acceptance of the name, places the couple at the judgment of an institution that has marginalized and excluded them. But, barring a better term (gay unions?.. it sounds like a labor force), I will use gay marriage.

Most conservative arguments are based on religion/natural law perspectives. To many people, homosexuality is inherently a sin. I am doing a project on human rights violations of sexual minorities in India. Prejudice is built into the gov't and law; it categorizes homosexual behavior in the same category as incest and bestiality. I bring this point up in order to stress the certainly widespread and arguably world-wide view that non-heterosexuality is a sin.

Natural law advocates bring a perspective that is somewhat thought-out. The reasoning is that sex is meant to procreate. Homosexuality does not produce kids, therefore it is somewhat deviant. Sexuality is a naturally useful and fulfilling act, when used "right". The same train of thought holds that murder and violence are inherently wrong; that is, the purpose of our fist and tools are for the fulfillment and procreation of our species. These actions do not objectively lead to fulfillment and happy lives. The fact that beating people and robbing them is wrong is independent of what society likes to think. These are objectively immoral acts.

This is the extent of what I have been able to glean from a natural law class that I took last year.

I am sure that there are better arguments against gay marriage and homosexuality in general.

Those are the arguments and Im just laying em out.