Afternoon Multi-rant (unnecessarily long and slightly "homophobic" post warning) 

Holy crap, I'm in the middle of a Carnivalanche, courtesy of the Carnival of the Vanities over at Begging to Differ. It may have something to do with the fact that Evil Glenn mentions it each week, which also means that a few people that have been here were originally on Instablender...which means I'm stealing his readers for a few seconds! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Sorry. I do have real things to talk about. First of all, here's a fun experience I had this morning that some of you may be able to identify with: I woke up really early for some reason, but since I was awake and hadn't looked at the clock, I immediately figured that it must be 7:45, the time I usually get up. When I checked the clock, it said 4:21. Unfortunately, I wasn't really paying attention, so I only saw the :21 part and figured that it was actually 8:21, which would make me almost late for class. In a drowsy panic, I got out of bed and quickly started getting dressed. I had changed everything but my shirt before it occurred to me that it was still dark outside, which is when I noticed the 4 in front of the other two numbers. After that, I sat there for a second contemplating the depths of my idiocy, and then I changed clothes again and went back to sleep. That was the first time this has happened since I started college, but I did it a few times at home, too. Strange.

Okay, now that I've once again chased away all uninterested parties with my rambling, here's the important stuff: The topics of gay marriage and homophobia came up once again today, but this time, they were part of a discussion in my sociology class (which I've mentioned a few times before). We have to write a paper for Friday about a social problem and how it can be solved, and the professor decided to use "homophobia" as an example for the purposes of discussion. He said that one way to solve the problem would be to put homosexuals in positions of authority. For example, he said that police departments should "make it their policy to hire officers who are openly gay and lesbian."

What is wrong with these people? My first problem was the fact that he's overlooking qualifications, but he eventually said that the officers in question would be fully qualified. Great, but you're still hiring them based on who they're attracted to. That's friggin' asininity. Apparently, he thinks that putting homosexuals in positions of authority would eliminate their marginal status and make them members of the "normal" community.

So, here we go again with the "gays aren't fully human or American" crap. I don't get it. Hiring gay cops will not change my position on homosexuality. The problem is that "gay" has become an identity in and of itself instead of being a part of someone's identity. Just because people don't agree with homosexuality, it doesn't mean that they think homosexuals can't hold positions of authority. They're two completely different things. Homosexuality, in my view and in the view of many more people than you may think, is immoral.

Putting gays in positions of authority because some people are "homophobic" would have the same effect as putting burglars in positions of authority because some people lock their doors when they leave their houses. It's not irrational to disagree with something you see as immoral, but it is irrational to give someone preference just because you think that behavior is acceptable and want to prove others wrong. Show me how homosexuality is morally acceptable and equal to heterosexuality, and then you'll change "homophobic" opinions. Until then, stop pretending that gays are somehow deserving of special privileges just because they like to have sex with their own gender.

Of course, gay marriage was also covered, and the professor's approach was to portray homosexuals as being deprived of rights because they can't marry (shocking, isn't it?). I've explained my position on this a couple times before on the blog, but I didn't feel like arguing with another professor, so I stayed quiet in class and tried to commit as much of the discussion as possible to memory. First of all, I'm tired of it being called "gay marriage," because that's one of the ideological fallacies mucking up the debate. It's not "gay" marriage that's in question, but same-sex marriage. Gays are not being discriminated against, but since they're the only ones who WANT same-sex marriage, it sometimes seems that way. It's not like straight people of the same gender are allowed to marry each other, but they clearly don't want to.

I'm not going to get into that topic again because I've covered it already, but I do need to address another aspect of the discussion. One girl said she doesn't understand why two people who "love each other" can't get married because they're the same gender, but a man and a woman can marry even if they're not fit for it. I am sick of that argument. Heterosexuals who marry for reasons other than love bother me just as much as homosexuals who want to get married, so I don't think that's really the issue.

Of course, another student pointed out the slippery slope argument that people could use that justification to marry a goat if they claim to love it. I'm not sure if she was being sarcastic, but that is a valid argument. If we use love as the only validating factor in marriage, we should be able to marry anyone and anything, but that's clearly not the issue.

I can't even write about this anymore. I'm just tired of people claiming that gays are somehow being discriminated against when we don't allow same-sex marriage. I'll say it yet again: everyone has a right to marry, it's just a matter of how we define marriage. I think the current paradigm is working pretty well. As for "civil unions" and all this other crap, that's just going to give heterosexual couples more excuses to avoid marriage, so it's probably not a real good thing either. I want to close by directing you to a couple of commentaries by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason, because he articulates this a lot more effectively than me. Here they are:
You Can't Marry Your Canary
Ellen Degeneres Comes Out
Equal Rights for Homosexuals
If you want more, go to STR.org. Christianity at its finest.