I saw the man from the radio!

Here in the upstate of South Carolina, we have a talk-radio station called WORD. It's really the best thing on the radio, if you don't like light rock, rap, or old-people music. The host from 3 to 6 is a guy by the name of Ralph Bristol. He's a decent conservative guy, near as I can tell from his show. Anyways, since WORD is having a "focus on Spartanburg month" the month, Ralph was hosting his show from the food court of Westgate Mall this week, which just happens to be a few minutes from my house. So, we decided to stop by for dinner.

(My apologies for the tiny image size; my TJ-37's camera shot this twice as large, but half as good.)

The guy on the right is Ralph Bristol, and (I think) the guy on the left is his producer, Skip. I was surprised to see that these were the only people there. Very interesting. They were talking about Hillary Clinton from John Kerry, which Ralph was very skeptical about.

Anyways, we got there in the last few minutes of the show. Afterwards, we saw Ralph talking with some of his young lady-fans.

Gay Marriage

A week ago, Dr. Bob encouraged the student body to join a national calling campaign to the mayor's office of San Francisco to protest the illegal marriage licenses it was issuing to gay and lesbian couples. A 2-page instruction sheet was handed out in chapel and a bank of telephones was set up to allow the students to call for free. Although I'm not entirely certain what good it's going to do, it did get me thinking about the gay marriage issue.

Let me start by saying the only legitimate Christian position is that homosexuality is wrong. How else can you interpret verses like 1Cor 6:9-10?

Tell me, what else could that passage mean other than that homosexuality is immoral?

But look again: it also says the greedy and the verbally abusive will not inherit the kingdom either. As near as I can tell, the sins are the equal in God's eyes.

The next verse goes on to say "Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Since Jesus came to save sinners--as the songwriter wrote, "Christ redeemeth sinful men"--then God cannot hate gays, as some who are "verbally abusive" will tell you; why would Jesus die for someone He hated? They say that gays will burn in hell--but so will we all, unless we repent of our sin and come to Christ for salvation.

/Sermon Mode

All that to say, if the Bible is the foundation of our moral code, then we must call homosexuality immoral. Now, the question becomes, should homosexual marriages be illegal? Is immorality sufficient cause for illegality?

My answer to that is, do you want laws against greed? After all, it's in the same list as homosexuality.

No, I think that to become illegal, an act must first cause actual physical or financial harm to another person. An Ebenezer Scrooge causes me no harm, so long as he doesn't steal from me. He might not do me any good, but his greed doesn't hurt me. In the same way, if Ben and Steve want to get married, how does that hurt anyone physically or financially?

(As a matter of fact, it's more likely to be helpful, both physically and financially, to allow gay marriage! Think about it: financially, marriages boost the economy. (You know this if you've ever had to pay for one) Physically, by locking homosexuals to one partner, it might help stop the spread of AIDS.)

I understand the position that some take that we don't want the government giving its stamp of approval on immoral behaviors. But to be perfectly frank, it already has. If marriage is supposed to be the time-honored, sacred tradition that those against gay marriage make it out to be, how do they explain Brittney Spears' drunken marriage and divorce in less than a week? I don't mean to imply that her behavior is acceptable, but rather to say that she and others like her have done immeasurably more damage to marriage than allowing gays and lesbians to marry will.

So then, to address the stamp-of-appoval concern, I think that the government should not give marriage licenses to gays. Furthermore, the government should not give marriage licenses to heterosexual couples either. My inner minarchist asks, "Why should the government know or care whether I'm married or not? And why should I pay them a fee for that privilege? How does this knowledge help the government perform its central function, which is to protect me from those who would do me harm?"

Why does the government care if I'm married? Aren't the citizens of this country supposed to be equal under the law?

Besides not having a legitimate reason for knowing my marital status, the government has no right to know it. Under our current interpretation of the first ammendment, we are supposed to have separation of church and state. Why then has the government taken on a fundamentally religious issue like marriage?

So, if the government has neither right nor reason to know if I'm married, why should it be the government's right to decide whether or not gays can marry? As I said before, marriage is a fundamentally religious issue. Then let the churches decide this issue ! Let people swear their marriage vows according to the rules their religious/personal moral beliefs set for them.

Minor edit for clarity, 5/17/04

I'm Baaaack....

Yes, it's true! I have finished all my big projects (like my Investment Portfolio Management project which ended up being 35 pages, about a third of which were charts from Big Charts) Now, I should hopefully have time to write an occasional post to my blog.... Like the one I wrote today about gay marriage that will appear soon after this one.

McGraw Hill to the Rescue!

Remember the Wheels Exquisite accounting problem software I mentioned earlier? Remember how I extolled the great software engineers of McGraw-Hill? Well....

They've done it again! I was in the middle posting the next-to-last entry for this week when the program decides to lock up. Well, no big deal, I'll just hit ctrl-alt-delete and close it. Reopen the program, and *whew* it opens up my files. Good. I check the previous entry, and it accepted it. Good. I post the next entry, then go to look at the general ledger. A nice little box pops up that says "Runtime Error: Subscript out of range." And the program crashes.

Hmm... thinks I. Let's try again. Open the program, wait for the stupid splash screen to pop up, *close* the "Welcome JEREMY" popup box and click the general ledger. Same deal, crash the program. Reset the computer (which solves 95% of all software problems) and try again. No dice.

So, now I've emailed my accounting teacher and *hopefully* I won't have to do this weeks stuff all over again. I really don't have the time.

OK, next up: Investment Portfolio Management test. Then work on my Marketing project. Then work on my Investment class semester project. Oh, and at some point clean my room (which is an absolute mess) so that it looks nice for the appraiser that's supposed to come by on Monday. And do all the regular homework. Three more weeks. Here we go....

Whoa!

Didn't realize how long I'd been away. School will do that to you. Like right now, I'm supposed to be working on a Bible Geography take-home test. Then I've got a Public Relations project due friday, a marketing presentation on Tuesday, and an investment class project due on Friday. That slight warm feeling you feel? That's the back burner. I'll come back soon; promise.

The Royal Family

I guess it's not entirely unsurprising that America has it's own aristocracy. I mean, Fred told us that already in point seven of his cynical, yet unfortunately accurate, column about democracy. But did you know that it's not just a permanent political class? It's also family.

Via Dean's World

Bush and the Press Conference

I thought that Bush did well last night. He seemed real. He really believes what he says. The press got to ask him all the questions they've been floating in news stories, and he answered them.

Of course, they kept asking for him to apologize for the War in Iraq. I'd rather he issue the apologies in one of Scrappleface's latest posts. Just remember: life reflects ScrappleFace.

Unconscious mutterings

Another fun survey-game website is on the radar, called Unconscious Mutterings. Like all the others, I'll probably play for a week and forget about it.

Anyway, it's the classic word-association deal. They think of ten words, we write whatever comes to mind. Here we go!

Condemn: Death

Promiscuous: Dance (It's the "prom")

Pro-life: Its the image of an abortionNO truck I saw the other day.

Mona Lisa: smile

Crown: prince

Mumble: Mutter

Hack: Computer

Diet: Root Beer (it's late)

Introduction: Conclusion

Latin America: Romans

Two long-distance phone calls

I just got my longest-distance phone call ever: from the far-off exotic location of India! It was some dude from Discover trying to send me a credit card. I told him I had all the credit cards I need. (That is, zero)

I also made a phone call to California, to Camp Lucerne, where I had hoped to work during the summer. As you can tell from the use of the past tense, I probably won't be going there after all.

I sent in an application more than a month ago, and I hadn't gotten a response yet, so I was calling to find out what was going on. Turns out the program director was waiting to see if anyone was going to drop out, because they're "kind of full" right now. So, I've been put on a waiting list.

I'm disappointed, but either one of two things will happen: Either I will get to go, or I'll find something better. I had prayed before I turned in the application that I wouldn't be accepted if God didn't want me to go. So, I think that something good will be coming. I just hope I don't waste my summer like I did last year. I thought I was going to be able to work a lot of hours at Chick-fil-A, but then, so did everyone else who was working there.

Anyways, there's some sort of job-recruiting thing tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I'll find a great summer job. Stay tuned....

Clie Update

I just wanted to confirm something for you guys: Buying my new Sony Clie was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I sold my old PDA, a Visor Prism, and its accessories for something like $225, so it's like I'm getting it for $75. And really, it's worth every penny. It's smaller, has a higher resolution screen, wi-fi (although this can be a pain if you, like me, don't know what you're doing yet), good sound (think MP3 player), and even a built in camera. AND I can play videos too! It's great!