Imagination and Creativity

Imagination and creativity are what I think I want to talk about today. No one has asked me about either. Or not recently. However, does one lead to the other? Or do they both exist as reflections of each other? I’m not sure of the answer to either question.

What I do know is that I have always had a creative mind and an active imagination. One certainly leads to the other for me, and it’s not necessarily one before the other. For the time I’ve been in this reality, I grew up being an avid reader. Science fiction and fantasy have been my favorite genres to read, but I enjoy mystery and even the occasional non-fiction work. All fiction, no matter the genre, require imagination to fuel the creativity of writing. Creativity can certainly fuel your imagination. No one can deny that. Someone else’s creativity can spur your imagination, which you can see with the plethora of fan fiction and artwork scattered about online. Yet, what else could fuel one or both imagination and creativity?

Emotions can. Which emotions, you ask? All of them, I believe. Jealousy creates the desire for answers to the fears which spawn jealousy. This fuels the imagination to be creative in finding answers, or justifications, for why your jealous of something or someone. Grief seeks answer for the loss, be it due death, divorce, or whatever, of someone or something you care about. Your imagination then runs with possibilities of why it happened, how you could cope, and so much more. These internal sources are responses to events in our lives, be they major or minor events.

Yet couldn’t there be other sources of creativity and imagination? External sources can be quite powerful.

External, you say? Those are obvious things. Talk about something else.

Obvious? Are you sure? Music and movies, television and books are certainly obvious. Yet, what about a walk around your neighborhood? The birds and squirrels in the trees? Or just the cats and dogs stalking and chasing each other along with those bird s and squirrels? Life around you, bits of overheard conversation, and so much else that is exterior to you can spur your imagination and lead to endless. Sometimes, just a phrase or chorus of a song can cause you to imagine near endless possibilities. For example, what does “Love is the death of peace of mind” evoke within you? That is from an actual song, with that being the title, by the hard rock group, Bad Omens. Or the song by Linkin Park that contains the phrase “bridges I have burned”? What imagery and ideas do those external things spur within you? How does music affect your emotions? All of these can be paths that your imagination can use to create characters, universes, and even plot points for a story.

But those are obvious, you whine petulantly.

Maybe for you, but not necessarily for everyone.  Even so, what about the sunrise?  Or that lightning illuminating the darkness of a nighttime storm?  Tornadoes ripping through a town or city, destroying all in its path?  Winds rattling trees and bushes, as though something unseen crawls through or under them, can feed your imagination.  All of these things can spur your creativity.  Feed your imagination.  Just pay attention to both the internal and external world and you never know what will happen. 

And don’t forget to enjoy life.

Creationism

The sun had just gone below the eastern horizon, though its light still cast long shadows across the freshly plowed fields.  Two figures walked behind the horse as the trio took the long bladed plow back to the ramshackle old barn down by the small house they called home.  The taller of the pair behind the horse, a man of middle years with hair bleached almost white by the hot sun, guided the plow and the horse on a predertermined path from their fields to the barn.  Beside him walked a boy of not quite ten seasons, his hair almost as white as the man he walked beside.  Both wore overalls stained and dirtied, with dust filled hats fallen back off their heads, held around their necks with a roughly twisted length of leather rope.

“Dad?” The boy glanced at the eastern horizon with its streaks of red and purple and green and the ever darkening blue.  “How did all of this get here?  Where did it come from?”

“Well,” Dad answered with a long, drawn out word.  “Grab a handful of dirt son, and toss it in the air before us.”

Confused, the boy did as instruction.  As they watched the dirt get blown away as a small cloud, the boy looked back at his dad.  “Well?”

“As I was told when I was no older than you, the earthen and the heavens above us live and die just as we do.  Once, long, long ago, a universe got so old that it faded and died as universes do.”

“Did it turn to dust and blow away like the dirt I tossed?” The boy looked at his dad with amazement growing in his expression.  “And you said that grandpa would turn to dust when we buried him last winter.  Is that what happened?”

“Sort of,” chuckled Dad.  “Except, when universes die, the stars and suns and worlds like ours die as well.  With no light in the day or night skies, the universe sort of fell asleep and didn’t wake up, kind of like grandpa.”

“Did the universe’s children and grandchildren get sad like us?” The son asked after a short silence. 

“They say that the universe was so old, all of it’s children were dead, so it was alone,” continued Dad.  “But when the universe died, everything became dust that simply floated in the nothingness.”

“Did flowers grow on the universes grave?” The son exclaimed quickly, though likely because they were passing some at that moment. 

“Kinda like flowers,” chuckled Dad.  “A new universe, maybe two, sprang to life just like flowers seem to do overnight.”

Love

You walked toward me

Looking better than your picture.

You smiled and I had to make you do it again.

That voice touched me deeper than I could know,

While your laugh was sweeter than any sugar.

And when our lips touched that night,

My heart wanting to let you know

Just how much I enjoyed our time together,

How was I to know that we would still be kissing

Ten wonderful years later. 

You are my joy, my warm embrace, my love, and my life.

Whether we have only now or ten more decades,

Our love will burn as bright as the sun. 

Glow like a thousand full moons,

Rise like the stars, but never fade or set. 

Be mine again and again,

For I love you.

You’re Not A Christian…

With the recent passage of more totalitarian laws attempting to ban abortions by criminalizing it, in direct violation of established judicial decisions to the contrary, it’s become clear that there are no Christians in this country. If there were Christians, they’d be electing people to their legislatures who will fund free prenatal care, pregnant mother wellness programs, and low cost birth centers. If there were Christians in this country, they wouldn’t be terrorizing women who are just trying to do what is right for them and their family. However, they ignore the teachings and instructions of their supposed savior, Jesus Christ, and go on a power trip where they feel obligated to force complete strangers to adhere to arbitrary rules designed by back-door moneygrubbers whose only goal in life are to be emperor-gods and own everything.

So, you aren’t a Christian. You don’t love your neighbor. You don’t do and give to others the attitude and compassion you demand others show you. It’s all lip service to you, so you can look at yourself in the mirror and lie to yourself about what a wonderful person you are. You, yes you, are what’s wrong with country. You are why the USA will never be great, never was great, and is the laughing stock of the world.

Maybe you should try following the teachings of Christ. Be a true Christian. People might like you. Also, you might get into heaven when you die, should it be real.

My Beloved Dragon

September 9, 2018 – Eight months ago, my life changed suddenly and completely unexpectedly. My partner, my love, my crazy, dragon-blooded man died while visiting his best friend. I tell you this because when someone you love and have spent a third of your life with suddenly vanishes, you are never the same. We talked occasionally about formally getting married, but one thing or another stopped us. Not having had that ceremony didn’t stop us from living those traditional Christian vows of “for richer or poorer, in sickness or health, til death do you part.” We made each other smile and laugh and whine for this or that when one of us were sick. Just over sixteen years together. It hard to believe it was that long, but also seems like no time has gone by at all. I still remember that first night we finally met in person, the accident on our second or third date when I was forced to call a friend to come get us and take him to work, and the day he brought a dog up from his parents’ place after we’d moved into a house with what we thought was a secure backyard. Both the dog and my dragon are gone now, together in whatever lays beyond death.

Now I live in a house that feels too big, surrounded by memories, and left with projects still to be completed. A larger circle of people I consider friends and family because of that man. A man who, to my experience, had not enemies, could make everyone smile at the very least, if not laugh out loud despite being in a bad mood. So, while I miss him incredibly everyday, I am so very glad that we connected and fell in love. I know he was happy that I had convinced him to come meet me despite having just gotten off work and it was nearly 10 PM. Both our lives would have been so much poor had we not met, not talked until well after midnight.

So, why do I say all this? I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to talk about him. Share a bit of the “us” that is now just “me”. And that hurts to write, let alone think about, even so many months after his death. While I may have regrets about what I didn’t or couldn’t give him, I will never regret the time I got to spend with him or the love we shared.

May each of you find that one person who adores you. I did and I cherish his memory. Rest-In-Peace, my dragon.

Hello Again

It’s been too long since I’ve mused upon these pixels. 2016 saw the death of our beloved dog, Big, in December. The following year looked up. My partner, Chris, had a couple of surgeries over the course of the year which brought him much better health. Last year brought his best friend closer, but also brought about his sudden and untimely death at the beginning of September. I still write, occasionally send the few stories I have finished out in hopes of getting published again, and currently am working on a novel I outlined back during the first half of last year. As my grief settled into a new balance with my life and my “voices”, or creative juices, this idea I outlined was the only thing which spoke to me to write. I’m nearly done with the first draft, and hope to have at least a second draft done by the time Conquest and Soonercon arrive in May and June, respectively. I am planning on going to both conventions, with this year being the first time in a number of years for Conquest (It’s their 50th year). I’ll post the info on the anthologies where one of my stories appears in a future post. My plan is to make this my writer’s website. So, don’t get lost.

What’s the Answer

One thing I’ve not seen during this election cycle, or maybe I’ve just missed it, is the answer to the basic question that Trump’s election phrase, or ‘call to arms’, raises. If it’s time to “Make America Great Again”? When did America stop being great? When Obama was elected? When Bush the Younger was elected? Or maybe it was when Clinton the Husband was elected? Do we go as far back as Bush the Elder? Reagan? Or even Carter?  

The earliest presidential election I remember is the Carter/Ford contest. From then on, I’ve never thought America wasn’t “great”. It was and is great. What has changed over those forty years has been a rise in technology and our awareness of the rest of the world. No longer does the nightly news give us a snapshot of what’s happening to us and the world in a brief thirty minutes or hour. No longer is our information limited to a few columns in a newspaper, leaving us wrapped in a nice warm cocoon of world ignorance. Now we can sit and stare at news and opinions 24/7. Be bombarded by what’s happening (and nearly always the worst of what’s happening) next door, in the next town, the next state, or the next continent. And the news is near instantaneous from the moment the event happened.  We see and feel the worst that humanity experiences and can inflict on ourselves and/or the world. Information is tossed into our faces and we think we’re informed. People sit on the other side of the camera blathering on about something they have a passing knowledge of, or maybe actually have a PHD in, and we think we are now the next Einstein or Curie (as in Marie. Go read a history book). Or we realized just how little we and everyone in this country knows. We wonder where this country went wrong. Memories of our parents and grandparents accomplishments play through our head and we think, “my generation hasn’t done squat”.  
You and your generation are not losers. Each generation, I suspect, thinks this. America is STILL great.  
Do we have a Congress that has spent the last eight years largely sitting on their hands with a stick up their collective butts? Yes, but that’s because ‘We the People’ put them there.  
Do we still spend over half our annual budget on the military? Yes, but isn’t this one of the things people consider an aspect of our “Great”ness?
Look, many people point to the generation that fought WWII as “the Greatest Generation”. That war was a pivotal moment in human history for a lot of reasons. Yes, it was a completely modern war fought with very modern and increasingly advanced weaponry, culminating in the atom bomb. The pivotal aspect I’m talking about is the philosophical part. Good versus evil. Love overcoming hate.
Each generation seems to fight the same fight as their parents and grandparents. Each generation has to come to terms with the inherent hate we’ve been taught from a very young age and may not even realize is present inside us. WWII was our grandparents or great-grandparents fight against hate masked as nationalism run rampant. Hitler used the Great Depression and post WWI economic woes to turn an entire nation against anyone not a white Germanic person. And despite America’s own racial issues, we joined with the rest of the world to put an end to such rampant nationalistic racism. It was a fight that nearly wiped out an entire generation around the world. Millions died in that war. In some ways, all of humanity has been recovering from a species induced case of PTSD (undiagnosed, of course). Yet, the survivors would say “That was when America was great.”
The Civil Rights Movement became the next generations’ epic fight. Many still battle away in that war. A war which may never truly end, unfortunately. However, likely having heard their parent’s tales of horror from WWII, that generation chose a more political and philosophical route. Protests. Sit-ins. And what’s happened is a slow change in how America and its people see themselves. For some, though, it might be seen as a ‘loss of prestige’. Or maybe power. I’m from after that era, so my understanding of what that generation might feel they lost is hazy. However, they would say “That was when America was great.”
Now, the Equal Rights Movement seems to be the current generation’s fight. The technology fueling the world we live in gives a power to the individual which didn’t really exist before. They look at the fights our forefathers struggled through to make the world the way it is now, but see that so many are still not equal and can’t share in the freedoms that so many other have. So they’ve stood up and said “Hold on now. What about me? What about my brother or sister or aunt or uncle or friend? Why can’t they _____?” Yet their parents look at them and say “Shush! Don’t rock the boat.” Then they turn and shake their heads, think of how wonderful the world seemed in their childhood and mutter, “That was when America was great.”
Yet, those parents have made America great. Have made the entire world great. Look at the world we all live in here and now. Yes, there are still problems to be fixed, some threatening humanity’s very existence, but look at the world. Humanity lives in a world more at peace than any previous era. It’s filled with doctors and medicines which are allowing 7 billion plus people to crowd this ever shrinking world. Technology that lets someone in America talk to someone in Tibet one day, and be standing before them the next. It is a world of the future only dreamt of by our grandparents and great-grandparents childhood minds. A world where everyone wants to live equal to their neighbors. A world where people are on the verge of living on another world for the first time. A world where we KNOW other stars have planets orbiting them, not just speculating about it.  
To the ancient world, or even the world of this country’s founders, we live as though gods. Gods jaded to the wonder we are surrounded by on a daily basis. A greatness that surrounds us, lifts us up, and fills us with a health that once was only a prayer and a hope.  
So stop belittling the fights you parents, grandparents, and every human before you fought. Look to the world and say not “Make America Great Again.” Rather, say “Let’s Treat the World As Our Equal.”
Or, simply, let’s not bully each other.

Making America Great

October 11, 2016

Tragedy strikes again.

And again.

Gunfire. Knives. Flight. Fight.

People die and people lament. Words of hate and bigotry spew forth from mouths faster than the brains controlling those tongues know what to make of it all.

Deport. Ban. Burn. Hate.

Hate. It comes so easily. When we don’t know what something is, we fear it. That fear brews within us hatred far faster than anything else can. And when you hate something, you want to see it destroyed or dead. Everyday, this sort of fear-induced anger clouds our judgement and distances us from our own heart. It leads us to look for someone or someones to protect us, which lets that person or persons to chip away at the bedrock of what makes America “great”.

We pride ourselves as Americans, on being the “Land of the Free” or “The Free-ist Country in the World”. However, do we really have freedom? Everyone is assumed to be carrying weapons or explosives in airports. We can’t marry more than one person at a time, we apparently can’t go to the bathroom without answering twenty (20) questions or stripping naked. And now we need to worry about whether our children and ourselves are safe in once safe environs like schools, theaters, and dance clubs.

We have let the terrorists win. We’ve let fear take control. As FDR said in a speech to Congress, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Yet, now we fear being afraid.

Half of our country lives with some level of fear of the other half. Which halves am I referring to? Take your pick. Women fearing men. Blacks fearing whites. Whites fearing everyone else. When did all this fear come about? Or maybe, just maybe, it’s always been here lurking all around us since the beginning.

America was born out of fear. Fear, frustration, and anger at not having adequate representation back in England. Our Constitution was born out of fear that the weak central government initially created after the success of the American Revolution would lead to the 13 former colonies breaking up into seperate countries. Or worse, being reconquered by England. For too many decades, America feared its own percieved inadequacies. Feared not being great enough, not controlling enough of the continent, not being able to do this or that. Yet people came to this country because the fear of the unknown that America was to the rest of the world was not nearly as great as their fear of a future, or lack there of, in their own home country. Those people came and struggled and built this country. Generation by generation, hatred and greed hand-in-hand with dreams and desires for a better future for not just themselves, but their children and grandchildren.

Yet today, America stands before a cracked mirror. We seem to look at ourselves and see the pieces or parts, but not the whole. Those born in this country see newcomers as a threat to jobs, homes, and resources which are perceived as ‘ours’, not ‘theirs’. Yet each generation forgets that the previous generation had the same attitude about some other group of immigrants. Today’s Muslims were yesterday’s Mexicans who were once Vietnamese, Jews, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Germans, and so many others. The cracks in the mirror seem to separate us. Divide the country into native-borns versus immigrants; rich versus poor; blacks versus whites; Christians versus Muslims. Name any group and you’ll have at least one other group they pit themselves against. Why do we see the “African” in African-Americans, or the “Muslim” in Muslim-Americans? Each of us should be seeing and saying “Americans.”

You want to “make” America “great” again? Then remember what you and your neighbor are: American. To describe yourself as anything else is to see only a piece of the mirror. Look at the image shown in the whole mirror. And remember these words inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

If you want to make America great again, reopen that golden door.

Alive and Kicking

Here is it is June of 2016 and after some recent successes in the publishing world (more on that in a minute), I thought I should break my nearly three (3) year hiatus, come out of my cave, and let anyone that actually comes across this little musing of mine that I am, in fact, alive and kicking.

With that out of the way, lets get into the alive thing.  Here in Oklahoma, it’s looking more and more like our Legislature is NOT alive.  After passing tax cuts for the rich and powerful in the state, our illustrious (infamous?) governor announced that the state will be nearly $1.5 billion in the red.  I wrote that correctly.  Billion with a B.  As in Barrels, which most of us will be wearing once the poverty trickles down to everyone.  Don’t forget Butthurt, for the pounding every resident of this supposedly great state will suffer because of the Bad governing our elected officials have wrought.

So who and what suffers from this Black hole in our Budget?  Everyone and everything except the Legislature.  That’s right, our elected officials made sure that they had enough money to operate smoothly while taking money from EVERYTHING ELSE.  We already have Bridges collapsing or near collapsing (holes are constantly forming in several interstate bridges inside the Oklahoma City metro alone).  Considering this morass Oklahoma finds itself, I question the sanity and status of Oklahomans as living persons.  Another B word or two comes to mind, but lets keep this civil.

Continuing with the kicking, (and not the “in the pants” many in Oklahoma want to do to our Legislature and governor), the ground is kicking up its proverbial heels here, but things haven’t gotten above a 4.0 or so on the richter scale.  If I’m wrong, I’m sure someone will tell me.  Internet trolls so love to correct everyone even if they aren’t wrong or aren’t talking about the subject the trolls are passionate about.  Anyway, we’re rolling with the kicks the ground give us and everyone hopes and prays that California gets the ‘Big One’ before we do.  (It’s more than just me, right?).  More kicking is coming with the drop in crude oil prices, which is looking like it’s kicking off a recession here (part of the source for that budget hole).  With hundreds of millions of dollars getting sucked out of the local school systems (from Primary to Higher education), hundreds getting laid off in the energy and related industries, and hate-mongering legislation making Oklahoma look like another pariah state.

“Fucking wah,” you say?

“Stop complaining,” you whine?

Fine.  We’ll move on to the successes in the publishing world I mentioned earlier.  Around this time last year, I had a short story accepted for an anthology, which was then published in October of 2015 by WolfSinger Publications.  The anthology, Under A Dark Sign, is available via Amazon as well as Barnes and Noble.  If you’re going to be at Soonercon, I’ll be selling copies along with one of the two editors for that book as well as the other anthology I sold a short story to.  The second anthology, Lightships and Sabers, is also available via Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Both anthologies are chock full of great stories by very talented authors.  Check the links above and pick up either a print copy or an ebook version.  You won’t be sorry.  So now you can call me a published writer as well as whatever other adjectives you’ve been using.  Hopefully I’ll see some of you at Soonercon, or another convention in the near future.

Peace!

Marriage Among Us

Marriage and its definition seems to be the hot topic in the media nowadays.  One side screams about the sanctity of it and the other side shouts for equality in it.   I don’t expect to change any minds on this subject through this blog, but I want to voice my opinion on the matter.  I grew up in a family that would be called traditional and stable by any definition.  My parents, who are both still alive, have been married for more than fifty (50) years.  They raised their children, paid our way through college, and instilled in us what would be called old fashioned or traditional values.   My siblings have all married and had children.  None have divorced and considering all pondered the question of marriage by dating, in some cases, for years, I don’t foresee any getting divorced anytime soon. 

And isn’t that what everyone wants when they find themselves looking for love?  I think everyone asks essentially the same questions   Can I see myself growing old with this person?  Will I be able to tolerate their little annoyances through the years?  These thoughts go through our head at some point in the relationship.  We may never be conscious of it, but I think they do.  The ceremony of marriage, culturally, is merely the outward declaration of “this person is mine, so hands off”.

So why all the yelling about marriage between people of the same gender?  Religion aside, it amounts to those in positions of power feeling threatened by a changing world.  These people don’t want the status quo to change because they may lose precious power over the minds and pocketbooks of those that follow them.  Words such as ‘sanctity’ and ‘tradition’ are tossed around like free candy to children as a way to play on fears.  Concepts of change are used to make people fear what they don’t know much about because they have never had to learn about it.  What you don’t know, can’t hurt you.  Right?

The problem with all of this fear mongering is that it keeps people ignorant and make bigots out of otherwise loving and caring people.  Put a pair of cats or dogs together that are the same gender and have them show affection for each other and most people will go ‘Awww! How cute!’ However, have two humans of the same gender do the same thing (show affection for each other by kissing or holding hands), and how many would either get nervous or embarrassed about that, but never bat an eyelash when it’s an opposite gender couple?  We are all a product of our upbringing and altering ourselves away from that takes time and effort.  Also, there has to be a desire to change.   The same thing goes for the concept of what marriage is really about. 

So what is marriage really about, you ask?  Isn’t it about two people saying I love you before family and friends?  Promising each other to stay together no matter what?  Given the prevalence of divorce in today’s society, I’d say for a vast number of people, not so.

Marriage today is a huge industry.  In fact, in 2008 it took in a whopping $86 billion (http://afwpi.com/wedstats.html).  Also, marriage is a controlled, benefits-driven contract regulated by both state and federal governments.   Some states have loose controls while others have tighter controls.  We all know this because some states require blood tests, limit who can marry and why (i.e.: gender and/or familial relationship), and have time limits of various types.  Then there are those things that are granted as a privilege for having gotten married.  Things like medical decision-making, inheritance, communal property, tax breaks, and more.  These benefits are attractive and assumed by most of us because it was so for previous generations.  For these reasons, I see marriage, in today’s world, more as a social contract between two parties.  A contract that is unique in that many want to celebrate its signing with a public ceremony.  Further proof that marriage is a contract is the relative ease at which it can be ended.  Divorce is legal throughout the US, and in most all countries worldwide.  So we can enter and exit marriage almost at will, with damages during the breaking of that contract as the divorce settlement dictates. 

Yet there is the religious aspect of marriage that cannot be overlooked or ignored, even if we tried.  Religion’s role in our society now and the important role it has played in our social and cultural development in the past cannot be belittled.  Ridiculed, chastised, and recognized as the hate-inducing, fear mongering, violence condoning aspect of the human psyche certainly, but not belittled.  However, for all the importance religion has played in creating our current civilization, it can also be blamed for the hate and fear toward homosexuality and the attitudes toward marriage.

What do I mean?  Historically (one of many sites: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html), marriage was seen as a religious ceremony mostly, but a means of upward mobility, or consolidation of power and prestige.  Prior to the nineteenth century (1800s, folks), marriages were arranged by parents for their children.  This was essentially an agreement between families with no consideration of the children’s feelings on the matter.  For some, it was to take what was considered a liability, a girl, off her parents hands.  The parents would find as rich a man as they could that would make them look good, and then give him their daughter and money, or property of one form or another, in what’s called a dowry.  But let’s be real, here folks, women weren’t always much better off than a horse or dog, since they were seen as the virtually the PROPERTY of their husband or father.  And, since children were expected, there was little recourse for the reluctant partner.  Divorce, while possible, was a public shame to the family name on both sides.  So when the words ‘traditional marriage’ are bandied about, this is what I understand is wanted or meant.

Then, during the 1800s, the Romanticism movement changed the concepts behind marriage.  Around the time of the 1850s, laws also started appearing in the US governing marriage.  Prior to this time there were no or few laws governing marriage.   Was it to stop men from marrying men?  No, it was to keep the races separate and the white race pure, at least in the US.  Slowly, but surely, more and varied laws were added until we have the jungle of legalese that fills our lives.  Now marriage is a benefits rich aspect of our society.  What benefits?  Well, As I stated earlier, automatic inheritance upon the death of a spouse, right to make medical decisions, tax breaks, social security benefits continue, ability to put the spouse on your insurance at work, and the list goes on and on.  In fact, this website (http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html) has a rather long list of various benefits typical of the US.

So how does a marriage between two men, two women, or some variation of men and women affect the contractual aspect of our modern day marriage?  How does it ruin or belittle my parents fifty plus years of marriage?  It doesn’t.  All that it does is reduce the perceived power of a few people, both politically and religiously.  Two men, two women, a man and multiple women or one woman and multiple men doesn’t really change anyone else’s marriage.  Presumably the parties are all adults and have consented to the implied contract that is marriage. The genders of the parties don’t matter to anyone except those that don’t like change; don’t like seeing something different than what they grew up with; don’t want to explain to their child what sex is or why two men or two women are kissing because they themselves as adults are too embarrassed by the act of sex they’re imagining happening to simply say, “They must like, or love, each other.  You know, like your parents love each other.”

What about children, you cry.  Marriage is about procreation and bringing children into the world! 

Really?  In this day and age of 7 BILLION people you’re worried about there not being enough humans in the world?  If that’s why people get married, then that’s their business, but where’s the love between them that will be conveyed to the child?  I can’t comment on what a loveless marriage does to children, because I didn’t come from one.  My parents didn’t do much PDA, but we all knew they loved each other.  I have a number of friends that purposely didn’t have children, their reasons as varied a them.  Marriage doesn’t mean procreation in today’s medically empowered fertility capable society.  With a surrogate, any couple can have a child.  Through adoption, anyONE or any couple can have a child.  Procreation by natural means is no longer the prerogative or sole venue of marriage.  That is one area society has not caught up to technology on, but is getting there.  I’ve known same sex couples that I would trust to raise a child before I would the actual opposite gender couple that have birth to children.  Personally, I think people should be required to babysit a three to four year old child that’s sick and cranky before they ever have children.  It would so help the human race.  So the idea that only opposite gender couples can properly raise children is a lie.  A lie that is being debunked constantly.  Look at video testimonials like this one:  http://youtu.be/1VnEexIhBTU.  And then there’s this article about a study on the subject of gays raising children: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051012/study-same-sex-parents-raise-well-adjusted-kids

So get a grip, pull up, and take it like the man/woman/thing you are.  You don’t have a monopoly on love, nor will you ever be able to get one.  The most you can hope for is the ability to control your own love life as you slink from one to another while trying to understand, justify, or make others do as you command.  In a constantly changing world and human society, the reasons we marry change as well.  We should simply hope that we make as many people and creatures as happy as possible during our life as we can.  Anything else is just being a dick.  Don’t be a dick.  Or an asshole.

But that’s just my opinion.  What’s yours?