Civil Unions

The Governor of Utah was rejected by a Republican club in Michigan for supporting civil unions. I think this is part of what is wrong with the Republican party lately. They're picking battles that they can't win and further alienating otherwise conservative voters. I've been debating with myself over the issue of civil unions and, so far, I see no (political) reason why the government shouldn't have them.

The issue of gay unions is a religious matter. The government should stay out of religious matters and not tell religions how they should be run or impose a nation-wide religion (the actual purpose of the idea of separation of church and state). However, the state does recognize marriage, which is a religious matter. As such, the government should not attempt to redefine marriage, but, since they've already recognized a union based on a religious matter, why shouldn't they recognize another type of union? To do otherwise would be advancing one religious view over another (or lack of religious view depending on your viewpoint).

Try to think about it as if the shoe were on the other foot. For example, say our viewpoint, the covenant of marriage was in the minority and the government has already recognized unions between gays. Our argument would be eerily similar to the arguments coming from the gay rights community.

This is not an endorsement of the gay lifestyle, but merely a way to hopefully get people to understand what one of the crucial roles of government is. That is, to protect the minority from mob rule. One day you might be in the minority and if you, while in the majority, have eroded the government's ability to protect the minority, you might not like the outcome.

Let me know what you think.

Quick Update

In no particular order:

As you may have read, Abby beat me at chess the other night. She did very well. She tends to underestimate her skills and become frustrated, but when she thinks through her moves she does well. I'm proud of her. I always have fun playing with her even when I lose.

I had a disc golf weekend with Randall and Andrew last weekend. It was awesome! I have a new favorite course, Coyote Point. It was difficult, but fun. Lots of variation with some altitude variation. It was evident real thought was put into every hole. There was never a very easy route (at least for me). Many holes made me try shots I might not normally try because there really weren't that many options to try. Randall has some photos (I forgot Abby's camera) and I'm sure I'll post at least a few when I get the CD from him.

Our home phone has been turned off. We rarely used it and we both have cell phones so it was an easy cut from our budget. We had the basic service which was supposed to be $9.99/month, but with all the fees Verizon tacked on, it ended up being about $25-30/month.

I canceled our domain name www.travisandabby.com, you can still find the site at tab.hardboiled.dyndns.org. Yahoo wanted $35/year to renew the name, which was up from $5/year. I briefly looked for cheaper options, but it was just a convenience so it's gone too. I have some more pictures to upload. When I do I'll notify you here.

I think that's all. I have two games to ref tomorrow. I think I'm running the line and evaluating the center ref from what Bob said. That should be fun. Then some guys and I are getting together to play the zombie survival game, Left 4 Dead. After that I'm going to get back to tiling the other bathroom.