Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve? Who Cares.

While traditionally I choose to stay away from sensitive political subjects I felt compelled to comment on the seemingly ridiculous continued argument for banning the union between same-sex partners. It seems that as we enter in the year 2012 we have much bigger and pressing issues than if a couple is allowed to enter into what some refer to as the “traditional” marriage. So then the question that will be looming to my readers is am I for or against same-sex marriage? My answer, I don’t care. This doesn’t affect my life either way; however it seems almost ludicrous to continue to spend so much time, energy and money into trying to stop the gay community from being allowed to have the same rights as a man and a woman do.
President Obama has said he believes that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” but he voted against a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage as a U.S. Senator, saying the decision should be left up to the states. He said he encourages states to adopt marriage alternatives such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.”
Currently, there are six states that allow same-sex marriage: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and the District of Columbia. While Maine was once considered on this list the law that was signed was rejected; however, it currently has a domestic partnership law in effect.
There are 37 states that have their own DOMA or Definition of Marriage Acts. Of these 30 states there are constitutional amendments protecting what is considered traditional marriages.
While not an expert on this issue in any way I simply see this as a right of freedom for all humans to be allowed to enter into whatever they deem appropriate for their situation. How can we possibly know what is right or wrong because a book tells us so; one that was of course written by man? And if I am not mistaken man has made quite a few errors in judgment in the past few centuries; slavery, Holocaust, wars, etc. This is a never ending battle and one that I feel takes away from what we as a country really need to be focusing on; our economy! We need to collectively be able to come together to fix this society that we have all managed to ruin and I don’t think that by letting Adam and Steve become legally married is going to impact whether or not John Doe is able to get a good job and feed his family.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Colleague Critique

Alex offers us a concerned insight into her Cutting Defense in the Face of Trillions blog post. I think we can all agree that these past years of war have cost our nation both in money and lives. However, it doesn’t seem that there will be an end anytime soon. Therefore, it’s necessary to begin to “lighten” this ballooning debt we are continuing to increase on a daily basis, the million dollar question is where do we take money from?
As a military wife, I agree with Alex that cutting military funding isn’t the way to go, but as with anything there are always some expenses that could be scaled back just not at the sacrifice of the soldiers or their families.
While your commentary is well written in favor of non DOD cut backs, I am left wondering what your ideas are for budget cuts in general. In the beginning of this course we filled out a survey about budget cuts and had to make decisions to take money from different areas, I think this would have been a perfect opportunity for you to add your budget cut choices into this blog to give us more of a solution.  I remember having a difficult time making those choices, because everyone has a reason or a cause for why they need money and it is a very challenging position to be in, not one that I envy at all.
I appreciate your concern for the military and its possible impending cut backs and look forward to reading your blogs in the future.