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      <title>Comments on Weirdbook.org</title>
      <link>http://www.weirdbook.org/</link>
      <description>A blog experiment by Brad Mills.</description>
      <language>en-us</language><pubDate>Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:41:18 -0400</pubDate><lastBuildDate>Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:41:18 -0400</lastBuildDate>
<item><title>Martha's comment on Goodbye, Blossom</title><link>http://www.weirdbook.org/2010-09-02-goodbye-blossom#c1283557278</link>
<description><![CDATA[We can still dress up and go to Laury's.  Or Aubrey's.  Or even Soho's, if/when I get over being mad.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:41:18 -0400</pubDate><guid>http://www.weirdbook.org/2010-09-02-goodbye-blossom#c1283557278</guid></item>
<item><title>Robin's comment on Inalienable rights</title><link>http://www.weirdbook.org/2010-08-18-inalienable-rights#c1282208566</link>
<description><![CDATA[I definitely support gay rights in general and gay marriage in particular, and I hope you're right that things will change dramatically within a generation, but in terms of day-to-day life, I fear such transformations will require a much longer time. Oh, legally, things might change, but homophobia is still so strong in some parts of this country, I just can't imagine the controversy will ever really die down. Abortion rights certainly never did.

I live just a few miles away from two abortion clinics, and I walk past one every day on my way to work. Every single morning, there's a group of protesters in front of the clinic screaming at women who go into the clinic. When they aren't screaming, they're standing there with their rosaries reciting their morning prayers. To them, abortion isn't about rights. It's against "God's law," and to them, that law is more important than anything the US laws and Constitution might say. There's no reasoning with them--they believe God says it's wrong, therefore it *is* wrong, as far as they're concerned.

The same goes for gay marriage and homosexuality in general. Even if the laws change and special protections are put in place for GLBT people, I suspect most parts of the US will remain gay-unfriendly for a long time. Ask my mom why she opposes gay marriage, and she'll immediately pull out her Bible and point to Romans Chapter 1--one of the most homophobic passages ever written--to explain why homosexuality is just "wrong."

Abortion and gay rights are, for fundamentalist Christians, very different from civil rights for black people or voting rights for women. The latter are, to them, matters of taste; the former are matters of religion. I just don't see them letting go of anything that offends their religious sensibilities...not in the next generation, nor any after that.]]></description>
<pubDate>Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:02:46 -0400</pubDate><guid>http://www.weirdbook.org/2010-08-18-inalienable-rights#c1282208566</guid></item>
<item><title>Robyn's comment on Inalienable rights</title><link>http://www.weirdbook.org/2010-08-18-inalienable-rights#c1282190931</link>
<description><![CDATA[Well, you pretty much summed up my own views on those matters quite nicely, except that you're much more concise, given that I can't start talking about constitutional rights without citing a couple of hundred years of precedent.  Several things to add though--although I find Proposition 8 personally repugnant, and agree completely with your stance on it, I can't help but think that the Federal DOMA is so much more egregious...for one thing, it allows individual states to violate the underlying fundamental right to marry, and the Equal Protection Clause, but it's also a blatant violation of Full Faith and Credit, which is the reason why the USA is a unified country and not a collection of little countries that all share space.  With DOMA in place, even if Prop 8 is overturned and CA goes back to allowing marriages, no other state is required to recognize the marriage that CA performed.  So you can be married, but not if you want to move to New York, or West Virginia, or wherever.  

When states aren't required to recognize the legal actions of other states, we aren't really a country anymore.  That, to me, seems a lot more dangerous to our nation than burning a flag could ever hope to be.  Goes back to my favorite quote--"A Constitution serves little of its purpose if it is worshiped when not needed and debased when crucial."]]></description>
<pubDate>Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:08:51 -0400</pubDate><guid>http://www.weirdbook.org/2010-08-18-inalienable-rights#c1282190931</guid></item>
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