Category: Uncategorized

Don’t really have time for this but…

Will provide more details in a followup post.

Yesterday was fun, I went to swim practice in the morning, chicago diner (funky vegan place) for lunch (it’s too expensive for the food quality), back to joel’s (met him from frontrunners. He introduced me to the chorus, we went out on one date, which didn’t feel right for romance, and is probably my best friend in chicago) to crash for a bit, out for 2 hours with chris (incredibly cute, really swell guy, we dated briefly, he’s now in a long term relationship, actor, auditioned for a play right before I saw him) which was slightly awkward, but fun nonetheless.

Went back, hung out more with Joel, then we went to the cgmc spring show (Sidetrack IV). It was good. This show was intensely visual, and I’m sure it was alot of fun, to be in, but I didn’t have the extreme longing I had during the holiday show to be up there with the guys for this one. There was one sappy song that I really liked, about hidden loves, and not having to hide anymore. And it showed shot after shot of homo love scenes from hollywood, which have convinced me that maybe I should actually see the Celluloid Closet.

Eike Lumma was there. He’s this total sweetheart who was on the chorus the whole time I was (and a long time before to boot). He moved back to Germany around the time I moved back to pittsburgh. It was cool seeing him in part because he’s the member of the chorus (a very touchy feely group) who most gives me the sense that he’s hugging me for me, not for himself.

Went to the after show party, made my traditional cameo, and crashed back at Joel’s place. Now off to Jen & Rob’s in the suburbs, probably going to hit the blind faith cafe afterwards. If I don’t get around to posting anything more before I head back to pittsburgh, you can look forward to a _huge_ slew of posting early next week. (long amtrak rides, with a laptop, and a convenient power outlet, you do the math =)

Time for me to go, later folks.

digital camera fun

I finally got around to borrowing the digital camera download cable from a friend of mine, and downloaded some of my old lame pics of san fran from july of 2000. I really have to get one of my own.

Then I played around for a bit, and made some actually recent pics of yours truly. They can be found at http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~scu/pics/me and are the ones with filenames that start off “apr11darlington”. Let me know which ones you like, and, if you’ve ever seen me in real life, which ones actually look like me. =)

The state and marriage

My particular take on state involvement in marriage is that it really doesn’t belong there. This is religion’s purview, and as such, not the state’s. The main legal purposes of it, as I understand it, are some power of attorney foo, mandatory support for the spouse, inheritance, custody, and taxes. Secondarily there are health care benefits, but those are breaking into the field of domestic partner benefits.

If all of these (except the taxes) can be accomplished through other avenues, why do we civil marriage?

The mandatory support for the spouse (see alimony payments) ought to be covered under a basic safety net for all citizens (also, we ought to pay house spouses for their labor, rearing the next generation, contingent upon their proper execution of their duties, blah, blah, blah).

I’ve never really understood the motivation for the tax angle.

Power of attorney and inheritance issues can be handled separately (though wills have been overruled by courts before, though I’ve never really understood why)

That leaves custody. And I cannot think of a compelling reason that co-parents must be unrelated individuals of opposite sexes engaged in some romantic relationship, and furthermore, that they must be limited in number to two. Especially given the number of children with only 1 or no parents.

In short, the government should leave marriage to the churches, imho.