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Unconstitutional

Ever since Vermont instituted civil unions in 2000, granting gay couples (among others) the same civil rights as married folks, I've been waiting for another state to refuse to recognize such a union. To my great shame, my own state is the first that I know of to take this terrible step. The Appellate Division Second Department, which has jurisdiction over Long Island, rejected a Supreme Court ruling that permitted John Langan to sue St Vincent's Hospital for the wrongful death of his partner, Neil Spicehandler. The opinion is marred by red-state ugliness.

"The thought that the surviving spouse would be of the same sex as the decedent was simply inconceivable," the appellate court said of the law's original intent.

(Click here for Newsday's full account.) But the original intent of our wrongful-death statutes is not the issue. It is wholly irrelevant to the case. According to Article IV of the United States Constitution,

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.

If Vermont says that Mr Langan and Mr Spicehandler were partners, then they are partners everywhere in the United States, and invoking the term "spouse" to conclude otherwise is the meanest sort of legalism. The Appellate Division's opinion is plainly unconstitutional. The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is in on the case. Let's hope that the Court of Appeals reinstates the trial-court judgment.

Another, much sillier but somehow more informative spoor of the wingnut male mind crossed my desk later in the day. It starts out on a jocular note but gets nastier and nastier, attacking liberals as being, among other things, like women. I put it after the jump, so you don't have to look at it unless you want to. But I do wonder that its manly author remained so obviously unaware of his resentful self-pity. I don't believe that anyone who felt good about his own life would have forwarded this to a friend, much less written it.

I'm not trying to make a political statement here, but I couldn't pass up this one.

Important history lesson omitted in public schools...

History began some 12,000 years ago. Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the winter and would go to the coast to live on fish and lobster in the summer.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundations of modern civilization, and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: Liberals & Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain, and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how ! villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as "the Conservative movement."

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting, learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as "girlymen."

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years, conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the! jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added) , but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men.

Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists, are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't "fair" to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, soldiers, athletes, and generally, anyone who works productively outside government.

Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work! for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to "govern" the producers and decide what to do with the production! Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history. Now you know everything that's really important

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Comments

It is not manly, it is silly and, as you say, in a deep sense offensive, but then most of the popular culture humorous or otherwise is offensive to anyone given to reflection or introspecition. Abortion in my mind is simply baby killing, note I don't even say technically baby killing, but it is baby killing that in some circumstances I will allow and in others tolerate, and in yet still others not do myself nor encourage others to do, but still you and everyone else may do as they please. Should same sex marriage be allowed, sure, along with a very long list of things in my opinion. In fact we need a simpler list of what can be restricted by law and the rest needs to run free with the issues to be settled among members of the community on a much more local level without the intervention of the views of elected representatives whose scope of representation is so large as to make my minority voice at best a distant whisper. I will in some ways be pleased if you are found to be correct about the constitutional issues, but I won't be marrying a man anytime soon, eh?

I hope that the writer of this diatribe has neither wife nor daughter. God only knows what he thinks about his mother- I'm assuming he was born of a woman, but you never know. Maybe his mother doesn't "sew, fetch or do hairdressing"- did she abandon him at a young age? Did she not act like a girly-girl,thus confusing him for life?

Our friend also doesn't get out much. I have met liberal doctors, corporate executives,doormen, construction workers, police and others "who work productively outside government". I'd say he lives a pretty unhappy life.

Just so that you might know the full scope of this nonsense in the blogosphere we ran a Google search on "History began some 12,000 years ago. Humans existed as members of small bands" gaining some 200,000 hits. You by the way with your piece Unconstitutional at DB are the third item returned in this search result today. Not very scientific but given the size of the search string it probably indicates that the blogosphere is simply littered with this item. There is after all no accounting for taste and the results of shallow thinking, eh?

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