All Over A Word

Oh no, here we go again: gay marriage has come to the forefront of American politics, spurred by San Francisco mayor Gary Newsom’s recent decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Cue the delirious claims of the imminent downward spiral of family values and the collapse of society.

I really don’t get the opposition to same-sex marriages, much less the call for a constitutional amendment, for a number of reasons. The biggest annoyance is the lack of structured, logical arguments against same-sex marriage – if it’s so wrong/destructive/inappropriate, shouldn’t it be simple to demonstrate why?

Time for a quick tour of the arguments…

Let’s start with the claim that the traditional definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. These arguments are grounded in religious beliefs that God/Allah/your-deity’s-name-here says it’s wrong, according to an interpretation of the Bible/Quran/your-scroll-here. This viewpoint tends to ignore that said religious documents have been revised, tweaked, or changed wholesale at the whim of numerous rulers over time. I don’t mean to be sacriligious, but if I was The Almighty, I think I’d seek a better representation of my will on Earth than a document that’s seen more patches than a version of Microsoft Windows.

Another version of this argument attempts to dress up religious rhetoric in scholarly garb: gay marriage serves no purpose, as the purpose of marriage is to provide an environment for rearing children. I’ll be honest, there might be something to this – after all, if a gay couple can’t reproduce, aren’t they just taking up space, from a strictly evolutionary standpoint? But on the other hand, the same argument could be applied to couples who are incapable of producing offspring, either by choice or physiological incapability. I’m a stickler for consistency, so if we’re going to make propagation of the species a prerequisite to recognizing marriage, we’d better be prepared to apply the same rule across the board, right?

The final argument has less to do with whether or not same-sex marriage should be recognized, but the legal and legislative process by which it should or should not be recognized. Some groups claim that the Mayor has no place changing the law – I’ll agree with that. However, I won’t agree with the same groups’ claims that the courts are “out of control” and “rewriting the laws” without legislative oversight. Here’s a clue: that’s their job, to enforce consistency in the law. If one law says “we don’t recognize same sex marriages” and a higher law says “by the way, the federal government can’t discriminate”, then the courts have to apply the higher law. This isn’t something new; it’s the way it’s always worked. It’s the way it worked when equal rights for minorities were enforced, and when women won their right to vote, so why should we expect it to work any different now?

The most unsettling part of this debate is watching people trying to justify their own prejudices on screen, while trying to not come off like jerks. If you believe the soundbites, then nobody’s against same-sex marriage, they just don’t want to call it marriage, due to the traditional connotations of the word “marriage” as being a union between a man and a woman. It sounds to me like all the laws need to be re-written to replace “marriage” with “civil union” and make the separation of church and state definite. Of course, I’m not about to believe that this would actually solve the problem, but it’s nice to think it would. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure we have bigger problems that affect all of us that we should be solving instead of quibbling over a word.

Bay Area Road Trip

A weeklong gap in my blog usually means I’m either temporarily dead, or I’ve been busy. In this case, I’ve been very busy on a road trip to the sunny Bay Area near San Francisco, colloquially known as Silicon Valley. Ashley and I drove down to Palo Alto last weekend, taking two days to enjoy to trip, so I could check out the region, see a few companies, and get a general idea of what the area had to offer a newly-minted MBA.

First, let me just apologize to freeways. You see, I had always felt freeways were a Bad Thing, an opinion mirrored by the City of Vancouver in deciding to design the city without them. Let me just say, after driving around the Bay area, covering much ground with minimal effort, I have to say that freeways are definitely a Good Thing. In the time it took me to drive to Coquitlam the previous week, I drove five times the distance in the Bay Area without so much as taking the Lord’s name in vain. A significant feat for me, especially given my dislike of driving.

So, what did I do while I was down there? Well, let’s see. I had an interview with PGP Corporation, which went pretty well. The company, reformed from the intellectual property divested by Network Associates, is humming along nicely, complete with revenue, customers and experienced management. Looks really good, so hopefully I get an offer.

I also got a chance to visit with team at Project JXTA at Sun. It was nice to finally meet the team, see what was going on. I was also given the opportunity to dub the next release of the JXTA reference implementation – it seems that the team is naming releases after exotic dishes. Not to be outdone, I chose “Klauh Kalesh”, in reference to the episode of ‘The Simpsons’ where Homer visits New York. Ironically, “Klauh Kalesh” is a real food, not just a Simpson’s gag, though it sounds very unappealing.

I also managed to visit the Haas School of Business in Berkeley to access their Career Center, which operated in a league of its own compared to UBC. But I digress. Berkeley seemed pretty cool, if a little bit like a Phish concert that had been going for thirty-five years, before which it had been a Grateful Dead concert. Many, many flower power casualties wandering the streets there.

Best of all, I managed to attend a morning event presented by Carr & Ferrell, a local law firm. They were hosting a seminar/workshop on “Pitching to Win” – complete with Jerry Weissman, the legendary pitchman who has helped numerous CEOs tune their IPO roadshows, giving tips from his new book, “Presenting to Win“. Cool!

All in all, the Bay area seems very active, has lots to do. Not a bad place to live at all, should I get the chance.