on same sex marriage

sounds like i'm supposed to ignore some key things i've learned and lived about core conservatism and join the fight to defend society against same-sex marriage.

i'm also straight.  no dog in this hunt.  but why aren't more conservatives on the "pro" side of this?  or at least "hey man, that's your business not mine".  we're all about individual rights, especially when those rights don't inflict on anyone else's?  aren't we all about freedom to follow our chosen life path and not imposing our views on others?  

anywho...  here are 10 things the "new right" say about it.  i went and knocked some logic against all 10 and ended up with a perfect losing record of 0-10.  can you do any better? (or worse?)

1.  because The Bible says so

well...  all this tells me is that some parts of Leviticus are important and some not so much.  but no one ever says how they know which is which.  or what this means to americans who don't follow The Bible.  

2.  marriage is for breeding, so... opposite-sex couples only

true.  the biology isn't there.  then what about these?:

a.  ...a post-menopausal woman can't get married

b.  ...a man without testicles can't get married

c.  ...if a couple chooses not to breed, we take away their marriage license

these 3 points above follow the same logic and aren't opposed.

3.  gay marriage destroys the sanctity of marriage

divorce does.  infidelity does.  even if same-sex marriage did, why isn't divorce illegal?  yet again the logic is very selective.

4. if gays can marry, then the gov't will force my church to marry gays

no it won't, can't, shouldn't, never has.  nothing shows it ever would.

besides... your church already has the right to choose who it marries, doesn't marry.  no level of gov't is stopping you.  that's religious freedom.  to bring it up as resistance to same-sex marriage is a red herring.

5. if gays can marry, then our schools will have to teach homosexuality

public schools teach human sexuality as part of their health curriculum.  they're not teaching sexual preference as right or wrong.  if they were, then fight that.  until then, schools teach biology and hygiene. you as parents teach them the rest.

6.  legitimizing homosexuality will only encourage it to grow

us "straights" are born this way, and you can't convert me to be gay. same goes for gays. all i can tell you for sure is that if i were a woman, i'd be a lesbian.  it's the way i'm wired.

in fairness, if some are confused, not sure, figuring themselves out, seeking out counseling.  ok sure.  then in those cases let each individual deal with their own issues as they see fit.  but you don't solve that problem by enjoying a right and denying it to someone else. 

i mean, it almost sounds like you're trying to fix one problem by breaking something else.  careful... that's what liberals do.

7. marriage is a religious term.  same-sex couples should have a civil union with the same rights, obligations, protections, just don't call it "marriage".

you mean "separate but equal"?  we know how that turns out, right?

but ok, if you believe our secular legal system should lose the word "marriage", and replace it with "civil union" for all, then say that.  that's logical and provides equal freedom.

let's play this out.  let's separate the sacrament of marriage in the eyes of our church away from the legal contract of civil union in the eyes of our society.  if you're an opposite-sex couple of faith, get a civil union at the courthouse, and a marriage from your clergy.  atheists, you only get the civil union because you don't want the second one.

problem is, i don't hear those opposed to same-sex marriage fighting for that. instead i see folks using a personal bias to deny a legitimate right to others.  

8.  if it's legal for gays to marry, it'll teach my kids that being gay is ok

it won't teach your kids anything.  that's your job.  if you believe that homosexuality is wrong for you and your family, then let it be wrong for you and your family.  teach your kids what you think is right and wrong.  maybe at the same time teach them to not impose their beliefs on others.  especially when others exercise rights that don't impose on your rights.  

i mean... telling others what to do with their lives is un-american and un-conservative.

but ok, let's go in the other direction.  there are a lot of things that are legal that aren't ok for kids, or even ok for anyone, so even then there's no connection.  still falls flat.

9.  if gays marry, what's next?  marrying a child?  an animal?  a sandwich?

nope.  opposite-sex marriage is two consenting adults.  same-sex marriage is two consenting adults.  no slippery slope either way.  

10.  it's just not right and damages our society and our way of life

right.  how?  [crickets chirping]

so there you go.  10 of the most common objections and once you follow them two or three steps in, there's no traction.  all you're left with is inconsistency or selective logic.

how about this?  if you're against gay marriage, then don't get gay married.

and... notice that nothing in any of the 10 points above says that those of faith shouldn't believe what they want.  because they should.  and they should support their families and raise their children in the spirit of their faith.  

and if they raise their kids to believe that same-sex marriage is wrong, or homosexuality in general for that matter, that's their right too.  parental responsibility is really important to us conservatives.  personal responsibility too.  but at the same time we need to remember that deciding right-and-wrong for ourselves and pushing it onto others are two different things.

what am i missing?  i'm a conservative and because logic is stronger than creed i'm "pro" same-sex marriage!  where did i go wrong?

- jimbarry

hello prezi

bad powerpoint presentations make me bored.  but bad prezi's make me dizzy.  here is my first lame attempt of creating a prezi.  mostly because i'm testing the sharing, embedding, and export options.

in this case here on my blog, the embedding part.

so i humbly thank you, my legions of guinea pigs.

JB's first prezi on Prezi

on rutgers football

am i a rutgers football fan?  in a semi-detached way, i guess i sort of am.


for sure, i am pretty happy for the scarlet student body of the 21st century and the added dimension a strong football program brings to the college experience.  these students have a legitimate contender to cheer for, or at least a team that's at least semi-competitive against any top-ranked team, year after recent year due to greg schiano's leadership and nj-heavy recruiting.


i'm definitely a football fan in general, but for the most part the nfl, and specifically the new york giants.  and, along with my father and sister, we are season ticket holders.  which is pretty cool since he waited a few decades on the waiting list so we can't give'm up now.   


as for college football, eh, i guess i never got into it.  i mean, i went to rutgers in the 80s, and while the scarlet are the only division i-a college football team in the nyc metropolitan area, the largest media market in the usa, let's face it, if you roamed the banks of the ol' raritan in the 20th century (or even a good part of the 19th) most of us were pretty much trained to not care too much about college football.  around the time i was paying tuition, whether or not rutgers ended up with a winning or losing record in any given year pretty much came down to how many division i-aa versus i-a teams were on that year's schedule.  the less of the latter, the better they'd come out in the end.


for those who don't know, one of the things rutgers can be proud of football-wise is that what's now the college avenue campus is the birthplace of college football. i won't bore you with trivia, but it was some pickup game against some princeton students back in 1869.  

there weren't any uniforms, so the rutgers men tied red rags around their heads, which further solidified scarlet as the school color.  sure, princeton can claim part of that heritage of that first game, but let's face it, it was a home game in new brunswick and who won that game?  rutgers.  (as the story goes, there was a rematch the next week and princeton plowed the scarlet team.  


so... that one week late in 1869 was pretty much the last time rutgers was ranked #1 in the country.)
  

it's been fun to keep up with how they've been doing, and kinda cool to see a whole bunch of players are making it into the nfl every year.  but the fact is i feel pretty detached from the whole wave.  and, being a good sports fan in general, i resist the temptation to jump on bandwagons, despite the fact that in this case i might be excused for it, but mostly due to the fact that the number of games i went to while i was an undergrad i could count on one hand, with a finger or two left over to throw a dart down in the basement of the chi, which i might add is probably what i was doing on game days, most of the time blissfully unaware that a home game was actually being played across the river at the time.  hey pledge, pour me another.

the company i work for here in california contains a lot of transplants from all around the usa (and many other countries around the world), and many of those folks did go to schools with solid football programs, and as such actively supporting their school's team was a big part of their cultural experience there.  schools like penn state, wisconsin, washington, auburn, south carolina, etc., and a few years back when rutgers started doing well, it was those folks who kept me in the loop monday morning on how my own school's team fared the previous saturday.   when i didn't know how rutgers did, or if they even played, yeah, from these folks i got quite a few strange looks.


so, in the end do i support rutgers football?  it a detached way, sure.  all in all i'm pretty pumped up about it, now that it seems it wasn't just a one season flash.  in a way the scarlet are still underdogs of division i-a, but it's got to be good for the state.  


i mean, jersey has a population of about 8 million, but with two halves in the shadows of nyc and philadelphia, the team and its success has pulled the halves together, watching their red team go upstream. rah rah rutgers rah, indeed.


so it's been announced that rutgers will play iowa state in the pinstripe bowl huh?  looking forward to it.  and with the game being in the bronx, i'll expect to see the stands a sea of scarlet.

literally...

ok folks... don't know why this gets under my skin a bit, but misusing the word "literally" is really unnecessary.  so sure, you know and i know it means "actually" or "non-figuratively", but to me it's more than that.

here goes... jimbarry's 3 rules for using the word "literally".

rule #1:  what you said must be true in actuality, based on the common and standard definitions of the phrase "literally" is modifying.

my eyes were literally pinned to the tv.  

ouch, no 
(no kidding, i once found this one on dictionary.com as a *proper* use of literally)

rule #2:  the phrase you just said is quite often used figuratively.

it's literally so cold in here.  

ok so it is, but that's not normally a figurative expression. 
(i overheard someone say this while sitting at an airport gate)

rule #3:  there's a reasonable chance that the person you're talking to might not know whether you mean it literally or figuratively.

i literally just took out the trash.  

good, if you work at a bar and the person you're talking to didn't see you toss empties into the dumpster out back versus toss drunks onto the sidewalk out front. 
(this one i just made up)

so... in the end, if what you're going to say doesn't fit all three rules, there's really no need to use the word literally.  i really don't know how it became this general intensifier, but you don't need it to sound more serious.  

how about this:

if you've got a good point, we'll get it.  

and if you're full of it, we probably already know.

comic unmaliciously yet still improperly lifted from toothpastefordinner.com without expressed permission from them nor major league baseball.

new york, great city, and you must respect

especially the football giants...

i really dig this video. directv has a few other good ones.