The Supreme Court and me: A response

Heather at Lez B Vegan Moms has some reflections on my post about the Supreme Court’s impending gay marriage decision.

Heather is (unlike me) an actual lawyer law school graduate.

I particularly agree with one of her thoughts: Marriage is three different things:

• a collection of legal rights and obligations
• a commitment between two people
• a ceremony, religious or not

It is a category error to confuse the three things, as opponents of gay marriage often do. As Heather says, I don’t need a lawyer for the latter two. I don’t need God for the first.

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PS: She called my post “very intellectual”! My dear, I’m just an engineer.

PPS: Heather’s post reminds me that my hero is Roy McDonald, a conservative Republican from a conservative, Republican upstate district, who committed political suicide by voting for the New York gay marriage law. Roy said,

[Y]ou try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f*** it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing. … They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.