Election Time:
Gawd I’ll be glad when the election is over! For one, I want my spouse home before dark. They are flooded with junk mail from politicians. By the way, the political mail is paid for at the bulk rate price, as you would expect. However, it gets treated the same as first class mail. That means your letter carrier (city) or mail carrier (rural) must take them and all the other first class mail out the day it comes in. So when your mail is late, it’s because not only are the politicians invading your commercials (our mute button is wearing out!), but they are also invading your mailbox.
Immigration:
Bush signs Mexico fence into law
US President George W Bush has authorised 700 miles (1,125km) of new fencing along the US-Mexico border, in a move to curb illegal immigration.
From about August 1961 until November 1989, there was a thing called The Berlin Wall. It was created to cut down on people leaving communist controlled East Berlin/Germany. Practically overnight, people awoke to find themselves stuck on one side or the other. According to the article on Wikipedia, it backfired for the communists when the wall became a physical symbol of “free world” vs “communism”.
Isn’t it ironic, then, that the US, the alleged home of freedom itself, is erecting a similar wall? It is designed to cut down on people leaving the poverty stricken nation of Mexico. These illegal people come here and take jobs that no body else wants, work for a mere pittance of money, and then have the nerve to send home that money, without having to pay taxes on it. What most of these people earn here in a month, would take them a year to earn in Mexico.
Don’t get me started on who founded this nation to begin with and who later came from such a wide variety of places that the name “mixing pot” came to mean something totally different. Don’t make me recite (or sing) the words that are on the book the Statue of Liberty holds.
And definitely don’t get me started on how I am tired of seeing Spanish on even my local generic milk; of going to the Health Department in my three-year-old jeans and having to wait alongside Hispanics with cellphones, well dressed children, and watch them leave in their fancy cars; and of being tired of being ogled at the laundromat or at the convenience store down the road.
But deny them the right to be here and annoy me? No, that is wrong. Make them citizens. Make them pay taxes. Make them learn how to speak the prevalent language in this country (before I have to learn Spanish). Make them accept responsibility.
Marriage:
But then again, while this nation is busy putting back up the Berlin Wall, we are also busy defining the undefinable. A marriage certificate is, basically, a civil union. A religious cleric can be granted the privilege of handing out those civil union certificates. Heck, people can get a pastor degree from Rolling Stones, dress like Elvis whilst listening to people say “I do”, and be allowed to hand out those civil union certificates. And people can get these certificates with no counseling, nothing but a blood test, after only knowing each other for a few minutes (or less).
How, then, can the US gov’t define who can get married and who can’t? The ruling yesterday in New Jersey mentions “committed” homosexual couples. Let’s define committed before we define marriage. Just because heterosexual couples have a piece of paper that declares them married, it doesn’t force them to be committed to each other. If it did, there wouldn’t be a 50+% divorce rate. That percentage means that if two couples get married today in a ceremony by Elvis, one of those couples will divorce. Who knows the “divorce” rate among homosexual couples? It can’t truly be measured since the line between “shacking up” and “married-slash-committed” is rather blurred in homosexual circles. You can’t count shacking up unless you count the heterosexual couples who do the same. You can’t count committed without setting a time limit. Five years? Ten years? Seven? Lorna and I have been together 16 yrs. Mike and Chuck have been together almost 30.
It is my opinion, and take it for what you think it is worth, that “committed” homosexual couples are more together than “married” heterosexual couples. Here’s why:
When Lorna and I bought this house, we had to buy it as “tenants-in-common” which means we both legally owned the house and that when one of us dies, the other gets it in whole. We have medical power of attorney papers that grants us access to each other and the decisions that need to be made when one of us is hospitalized. We have to have wills and other forms, all of which must be a conscious decision with plenty of thought and purpose.
When my brother and his wife (and I love them both) bought their house, her name doesn’t necessarily have to be on the deed. When he dies (and may he never), she automatically gets the house. If he is ill, she is automatically allowed to make decisions and visit him (although they do have medical power of attorney for big decisions). They don’t necessarily have to make conscious decisions with plenty of thought and purpose about what to do when the other dies or is ill.
And that is why I think heterosexual married couples have such a high divorce rate. Other than walking down the aisle toward Elvis, most of their work is done for them. Laws are in place to protect and grant rights to one or the other. They don’t have to think everything through. Too many assumptions can be made. And besides, they were married by Elvis.
But it also is why there is a lack of commitment in homosexual couples. If I die, leaving behind medical and other debts, Lorna is not responsible for anything. Homosexual couples can just as easily use a Uhaul to move out as they do to move in, and there not be any lawyer involved.
I receive state Medicaid because they only count my income and I can’t be on her insurance. (As an aside, they do count her income for food stamps since we share the refrigerator and meals. What, sharing the bed doesn’t count??) I don’t have to pay taxes since I earn a mere pittance and fall way under the poverty line. All this because they won’t recognize our “marriage”. If they did, then I’d not be eligible for Medicaid (saving the state nearly 10K a year in meds alone) and I’d be on her insurance; we’d have to file taxes on both our incomes (and Lorna could claim my medical bills); Medicare would have to pay less for my other medical expenses, including a huge chunk of my 15K+ wheelchair.