Clerk Denies Gay Marriage Licenses

Here's the article:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/01/manhunt-on-for-gunman-after-cop-reportedly-killed-in-chicago/

Basically, a Kentucky clerk is refusing to issue any gay marriage licenses based on her religious convictions. I find this stupid and patently unfair. While I can sympathize with a Church not wanting to marry two gay people within their precincts -- who would even want to get married in an institution that considers them a sin? -- there is one thing I must point out. And I really can't emphasize this enough.

THIS WOMAN DOES NOT WORK FOR A CHURCH.

She is not in a place where religious beliefs should have any say over what goes on. It's called a separation of Church and State. I'm sorry to break it to you, kiddies, but marriage is not purely a religious institution anymore. It can be, but it can also be simply a legal matter. In this case, it is. They don't want to get married in a Church, they just want to get married! And they should be allowed to! Marriage is an official, lawful document that allows people privileges -- family precedence during hospital visits, for example -- that simple couples don't have.

While there is some paperwork allowing gay couples similar rights to married couples, this practice is very uneven and varies from state to state. Allowing gay marriage is much more universal.

I don't care if gay people are allowed to get married in Churches. I'm sorry, but frankly, I really don't give a fuck. You want to deny them entry? Go ahead. But don't deny them their goddamn legal rights.

Rant over.

On Dates and Sex

I am fascinated by the different forms relationships can take.

For example, you can be in love with someone and not want to consider them your exclusive boyfriend or girlfriend. You can like someone and think they're attractive without being in love with them. You can be in love with someone, or love someone, and not be attracted to them. Well, similarly, you can go on a date with someone and not be thinking about sex.

In Japan, they have these things called host clubs. In a host club, you pay someone to go on a date with you, essentially. But they're not prostitutes. There is no sex at the end. You just pay to be with an attractive person who's friendly to you and has interesting conversation for an hour. Geisha operate under the same principle, which is why there are so many things historically wrong with Arthur Golden's admitted amazing book Memoirs of a Geisha. (He adds in the sex and makes them high-class prostitutes. I'm an American and sometimes I hate Americans.)

I find the host club, the geisha, to be so fascinating as a concept, because it's something we don't really have in the United States. In the US, sex has to be involved. You have to kiss on the first date and be fucking by a few dates in. Or else there's really no point to the dating. There is even doubt as to whether a man and a woman can be friends without wanting to fuck each other. We never pay for dates, either. We pay for SEX and call that paying for dates.

And I just find that so sad, because it allows for such a narrow range of human experience. I've been on plenty of perfectly nice dates with no touching involved, dates full of laughter and conversation, but no touching, simply because neither party felt like going there. But for so long, I was caught up in this delusion that the only good dates were the ones with touching involved. Friends would ask "if he'd kissed me goodnight", and I would feel there was something wrong with me because he hadn't. And guess what? In a lot of those instances, I actually got second dates.

We just didn't feel like touching, that's all. That didn't mean it wasn't a date.

And I know the old argument, that that's just "hanging out", and you know what? It's not. Because on a date, you dress nice and go to a nice place and make a real effort to get to know each other, and that's just so refreshing. And all those things are missing from "just hanging out."

Dates can be with friends. You don't have to want to fuck someone to go on a date with them.

Right now, I'm writing a story, and in it there's a teenage girl. She goes on a "date" with her teacher, and another "date" with a little brother figure. There's no physical attraction involved. No innuendo. Nothing. They're just nice and go out somewhere and treat each other well.

And I think I feel compelled to write that because that acknowledgement of the breadth and depth of human experience and relationship experience is just so sadly absent from our current, modern American society. My first relationship was with a boy I wasn't physically attracted to. Did I miss the sex? Yeah. But guess what? I enjoyed the relationship anyway.

Read that again: I enjoyed the relationship anyway. He was a great friend. And because we went on "dates", I got to know that friend better than any of my others.

I am not a very sexual person. Sex has its place, and it's enjoyable -- I'm not asexual, I've felt attraction for people -- but I'm not really a very sexual person essentially. And I just feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of uncomfortable sex in American society. What's wrong with a nice conversation, a well meant gesture, a gift or a nice dinner? Why does there always have to be something extra attached at the end?