In the Midst of Joy, Sorrow

Proposition 8, banning gay marriage in California has now passed, basically 'un-marrying' all those who had rushed to take advantage of the right to be wed while it still stood.

Bummer for Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi and all those other smug queers, eh? They were getting mighty uppity. Good thing they got put in their place.

Here are the salient paragraphs from the New York Times' reportage today:

California Voters Ban Gay Marriage

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ABBY GOODNOUGH

LOS ANGELES — California voters have adopted a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, The Associated Press reported Wednesday, joining voters in two other states who went to the polls Tuesday to overturn such unions.

. . .

Only three states this year had ballots that included bans on same-sex marriage, compared with 8 in 2006 and 11 in 2004.

The ban passed in all three states — the other two being Florida and Arizona — but its success in California, a trend-setter in so many arenas, was seen as major defeat for gay rights activists.

A total of $73 million was spent on the race there, a record for a ballot measure on a social issue, resulting in incessant television and radio commercials from both sides. Advocates of the ban played up their belief that without it, children could be taught about gay marriage in schools, while opponents likened approval to denying fundamental civil rights.

The measure came only months after California’s highest court ruled it constitutional, spurring thousands of gay couples to marry there.

“We pick ourselves up and trudge on,” said Kate Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “There has been enormous movement in favor of full equality in eight short years. That is the direction this is heading, and if it’s not today or it’s not tomorrow, it will be soon.”

The article may be found in full here. Further coverage can be found at abc local's site here.

Meanwhile, you can sample the sort of viewpoint behind 'Yes on 8', at a blog run by Stephen Black of Oklahoma, a self-professed recoverer from, among other things "sex, drugs, sexual abuse, sexual distortions, and identity conflict in homosexuality".

The post of Black's that I'm referring to - actually an article by the similarly-minded Oklahoma pastor Paul Blair - has the following highlights:

We in America have taken great care for the well being of our fellow man.

We require seat belts to be worn in order to save lives. Cigarette smoking is discouraged because of the increased risk of lung cancer. We even have limitations on vending machines in schools because of the danger of obesity. Yet, if someone dares raise a question about the obvious dangers associated with homosexual behavior, that person is labeled a homophobe. It is more loving to speak the truth in love than to placate those practicing self-destructive behavior.

Homosexuality is dangerous. Homosexuality is sinful. Homosexual marriage will destroy the very existence of the home in America. Never in the history of America is the traditional home facing the threat of extinction as it is today. Christians, we must take a right stand and cast our vote in defense of the sanctity of the Traditional Judeo-Christian Home. There are over 60 million “Evangelical” (political definition of professing believers with more traditional beliefs) Christians in America. We need a Spiritual Revolution and Awakening in America. If we wake up, pray up, show up and vote we can BEGIN to take a right stand for America.

As ever, you can read the whole of the post here.





The above image was taken from this site.

Solar Solutions, Green Collars and Eco-(Un)Friendly Takeaways

Time for some green stuff, to satisfy the eco-concerned out theah - which includes me, good people - so I figured I'd do an extra-verdant melange of emerald bits n' pieces tonight.

Being resident again in Cyprus, the island of my birth, after many years abroad, it is a joy to take for granted the abundance of sunshine, light and heat during most of the year (though, right now, we're in the midst of severe drought, so as much as I am a Sol-worshipper, I dread the consequences of our near-bone-dry reservoirs and dams). However, what would please me even more would be even greater investment in solar energy technology on the island.

If we could use solar power for (unfortunately vital) desalination of water, it would add to be a considerable energy saving, not to mention, ultimately cheaper for the tax-payer, since Cyprus has no oil or gas reserves of its own, and must ship them in - a process, in itself, that pollutes the environment, to say nothing of the CO2 emission from the vast amount of power required for the desalination process.

In the US, one individual who is really pushing solar solutions - not merely to promote environmental responsibility in light of global warming, but also to boost inner cities' standard of living and create jobs in "green construction and alternative energy" - is Yale-educated lawyer Van Jones, the Oakland, CA-based human-rights activist.

Byran Walsh's TIME magazine article entitled "Bring Eco-Power to the People" has this to say of Jones:

You couldn't create a better advocate for the green-collar movement than Jones. A Yale-educated lawyer who founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, the magnetic Jones moves easily between worlds, at home preaching to inner-city high school students or mixing with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. But everywhere Jones goes, he repeats a simple message. "Give the work that most needs to be done to the people who most need the work," he says, and solve two pressing problems--pollution and poverty--at once.

For the environmental movement, embracing Jones' message means recasting global warming not just as an existential threat but as an enormous economic opportunity. It's a narrative that is particularly resonant with low-income workers who are likely to bear the short-term economic burden of cutting carbon only if they believe there will be a personal payoff for them in the long run. Says Jones: "They need to see green in their pockets."

The rest of the article can be read: here.

On a related note (well, 'related' in the sense that it's another area in which to heed the need for green) just how environmentally sound can we grade our takeout or takeaway receptacles as being?

Elizabeth Gillian, writing for chow.com broaches the topic thusly:

Your food can’t go everywhere exposed to the elements; it needs packaging. Unfortunately, that packaging often takes massive amounts of energy to create, and much of it doesn’t properly decompose. We’ve rated some common carriers on a scale from 1 (bad) to 5 (good).

The usual suspects follow with their pros and cons re. eco-friendliness, with some (styrofoam) being predictably on the more culpable or virtuous (edible containers made from food) end of the scale, while others (aluminium foil) falling surprisingly somewhere in the middle.

For those of us who, for a range of reasons, consider dinner (or lunch - or even breakfast) prep to be speed-dialing the nearest Thai place for some green chicken curry delivery, the green-or-not low-down on transporting eats to your home in all its depressing glory can be found here.