What Margaret Somerville said about same-sex marriage reminded me of something I heard about radical feminists who wanted equal rights for women in every way, even when it came to the right of going into the men’s change room!

This is where the ideas of separate-but-equal and different-but-equal seem to apply. Women are different-but-equal and as such should have the same rights as men to use the rest room assigned to their gender. If they were separate-but-equal, using Dr. Somerville’s definition, they should be able to use either a men’s or ladies’ change room. I obviously, like most of society know that women should be classified as different-but-equal and not separate-but-equal.

Now as for same-sex marriages, should they be classified as separate-but-equal or different-but-equal? Well the more conservative religious and political parties don’t want to give them either and would try and say they don’t deserve any equal rights. For the sake of expediency in my argument I will not address such an archaic way of thinking. Obviously we want equal rights for all humanity. However, the question still persists: different-but-equal marriages (implying that they should have some sort of equivalent marriage just for homosexuals but don’t call it marriage) or separate-but-equal (implying that they should be granted the right to have the exact same kind of marriage traditionally reserved for man and woman)?

Dr. Somerville thinks the answer is different-but-equal. She thinks that “recognizing same-sex marriage would change [marriage's] inherent nature,” the same way allowing females into a men’s change room would inherently modify the men’s change room into a gender-less change room. It’s a good argument, one that might convince you that different-but-equal is the answer, if you agree that there would be some damage to marriage because of recognizing same-sex marriages.

Dr. Somerville failed to argue any realistic damage that would be done. Instead she just says that, “The issue is whether society needs marriage to institutionalize the inherently procreative relationship between a man and a woman. I believe we do, and maintaining it should take priority.” That’s all fine and dandy that she has an opinion but she doesn’t explain why the procreative relationship between a man and a woman is an inherent property of marriage? Is it because the dictionary used to say so?

Going back to my change room analogy, this inherent property of marriage—the procreative nature between a man and a woman, isn’t really an inherent property the way gender is. Marriage will still be the uniting of two people that love each other regardless of the government’s decision to recognize same-sex marriages. Allowing a women into the men’s change room would modify inherent properties because it would no longer really be a men’s room, it becomes a gender-less change room. The men already using the change room would have to adjust because the modification of the change rooms inherent properties would actually have affected their right to a men’s only room.

Same-sex marriages will not have this impact upon traditional male and female couples. Just because they are recognized under the law will not change the way heterosexual people are married or make their marriages worth less. Therein lies the difference. Therein is the reason that similar-but-equal is the answer, and while Margaret’s arguments may have been convincing it was the fact that she never concretely secured the most important variable, and that is whether or not the procreative relationship between a man and a woman is an inherent property of marriage.

The same-sex marriage controversy in Canada is a hot topic. I was talking with Mom, Dad, and Anna about how I felt that the new law wouldn’t really affect us. What does it matter to me as a straight guy whether or not two same gendered individuals are married by definition or just living together. It doesn’t affect me. However, for the gay or lesbian couple, it means a lot. The situation that Anna pointed out seemed to make a lot of sense to me. She explained that if a homosexual person were extremely ill or injured in the hospital and his or her partner came to the hospital to visit them, the hospital had the right to deny visitation rights on the basis that he or she is not family. The same rules apply for all kinds of legal proceedings and have many implications to the homosexual population.

The Canadian Alliance is doing what they can in an attempt to block same-sex marriages. What is it that they are worried about? The destruction of the family? Like every traditional family is about to self destruct because of a new law. Get real. Are they worried about the number of homosexuals portrayed on TV? That’s a whole different issue, one that I can understand but they need to realize fighting this isn’t going to make Will and Grace any less gay. Frankly I can’t see any reason to fight this.

“I was writing a post on my PC and it was like bleepeepbleepeepeep bleep.” This happened to me yesterday. Actually there was no bleeping. Just the uncensored swearing inside my head as I realized that my knee clicked the switch on the power bar under the desk. Here at The University of Lethbridge they screw the power bars onto the bottoms of the desk so as to be out of the way. They are not out of the way.

My New Jeep

I’ve been driving the new Jeep around lately. I just got insurance for it, which as I now realize—I should not have paid for an entire year in one foul blow. At least I can cancel my insurance on the car. Anyway the Jeep is great. I’ll post a picture later today (if I remember before it gets too dark).

I knew, at the time, that I would regret later but I was trying to be sensible. I went to an auction the other day to see about buying a fridge. I only wanted to bid $100 for the fridge and also promised myself that I wouldn’t bid on anything else. Well now I regret it. There was a piano for auction—a mighty fine sounding upright type piano and I was quite tempted to bid. Probably worth a few thousand now that I think about it. It sold for $250. What was I thinking? I guess I was thinking that I just don’t have room in my house for a piano. Maybe I’d have room if I got rid of all the extra washers, dryers, etc! They are really bringing me down lately.

The title is a bit of an inside joke. Sorry if you don’t get it.

Swim practice was really good this afternoon. I am becoming much more consistent in my swimming. It’s important to be able to set a pace for yourself and to know how fast you are swimming in the water. I have come along way since I started (again) last year. Now that I’m done class and done my 3D Studio Max tutorial I’m going to head home where I will find a delicious supper made by Anna-Maria. She is so cool and not just because she made supper tonight, which might even include GRAVY! Yum. But maybe not too, I don’t really know.

Janine is my ex-fiance whom I ran into today. Actually I didn’t run into her literally, I just talked to her for a minute outside the pool when I was renting my locker for the year. She is going to the University still; taking part in some sort of practicum that starts in November (I think). Anyway just have to add, it’s really for the best that we never got married.

So you want to see “Def Leopard Photos”(sic) from the concert last night? Well I didn’t take any pictures myself, but the band did. Of course they mentioned at the concert that it might be 24 hours or so until they get them posted. It’s a good way for them to get 10,000 extra hits a day while all the excited fans keep checking over and over to see if the pictures they took of the audience are there yet.

The concert was really fun, a little loud - but hey at least we remembered to bring ear plugs so it wasn’t that bad. The noise of the crowd was the worst, the fans were very excited last night. So here’s the deal with our seats. Anna and I never inspected our tickets very carefully. We just sort of assumed that row 11, seats 5 and 6 meant Row 11, seats 5 and 6 - right up there on the floor. We walked down the stairs and right through security. They never looked at our tickets very carefully either. They just stamped our hands and our tickets and told us to keep moving. We were sitting up there in the 11th row enjoying the opening band when someone came up to us and wondered why we were sitting in their seats. We pulled out our tickets and they both appeared to be for the same seats, but then we realized that our tickets were for section 113. Oops. Well we moved and decided that now that we were already down in the floor seating we would just sit in some empty seats and stay down there. There were a few guys wearing Mullet wigs, but for the most part, it appears that fans of Def Leppard have traded in their mullets for bald spots. Hard core rockers are getting old. However, the relative age of the audience was not apparent when we listened to their enthusiastic cheers. According to lead singer Joe Elliot we are at least as loud as Montreal and Saskatoon (he mentioned that he was surprised at how loud Saskatoon was, given that they are in the middle of nowhere).

Despite being extremely tired last night, I forced myself to drive home. We got back around 1:45am and when 6:00 rolled around there was no way I was going to go swimming. I was just too tired. I’ll try and get in for this afternoon’s practice before my 4:30 class.

This morning I did get up though and called the radio station to say thanks and tell them about the concert. They played a short clip of our conversation on the air. I think I sound terrible on the radio. It just occurred to me that since I won the free tickets, I wonder if I will be eligible for the Toys for Boys contest? I mean it seems to me that you can’t have won anything in the past 30 days. Well chances are I’m not going to get drawn anyway, so no sense losing sleep over it.

We finally buckled. My roommates and I are getting cable. The cable guy is supposed to be coming on Wednesday—they said that someone needs to be home all day. I don’t know how they get off having someone ruin their day waiting for the stupid cable guy to come, you’d think they could at least narrow it down to a couple of hours. Well I guess that’s just the way the world works. Hopefully with all the roommates that I have now at least one of them will be able to stick around. Speaking of roommates, I was happily surprised to find that while I was in Calgary my roommates moved the fridge in for me. Sure now that I have another fridge my house looks even more like a furniture/appliance store, but it’s a store with plenty of food.

The fridge has arrived. It is in my backyard waiting for someone strong to move it downstairs. Anna thinks she is strong enough to help but reality will hit hard when she finds herself under the fridge at the bottom of the stairs.

I’ve decided to get a second hand fridge which will be dropped off at my house at 11:30 today. It’s $150 but needless to say it’s going to be a nice change to have some room for food. Now I just need to get a second stove so that half the roommates can use the downstairs laundry room as a kitchen and pretty much leave us alone upstairs. Not that I find them bothersome, it is just that it gets crowded with five people in one kitchen. (Actually I’m just joking about the stove—for now).

It looks as though Anna and I are really going to the Def Leppard (Official Site) concert tonight. We don’t really want to go deaf so I think we’ll try to remember to pick up some ear plugs before we go. We’ll be leaving for Calgary at around 4:00 this afternoon and we will “get rocked” from 7:30 until they’re done I guess. It’s doubtful that we will be seeing Gary or Tracie tonight but tune in to Rock 106 tomorrow morning between 7 and 8 when I will phone the radio station up and tell them how the concert was. If you don’t live in Lethbridge then you can go to their website and click on listen live. Even though we could scalp the tickets and make a mint (they are 11th row floor seats) I think it will be worth it to go and have a good time.

Yesterday night Anna and I headed up to the north side of town to Urszula’s for a BBQ with the rest of the Aquatics Staff. It was pretty fun and after having a couple of burgers some of us competed in some friendly Indian Leg Wrestling. Vicky seemed to dominate most of the leg wrestling. Actually I don’t think she even lost. Sadly I was one of the people that lost to her. Anna is so flexible that her body was basically folded in half—I wish I had a picture to post but alas, I don’t. Everyone had a good time at the party and then we headed home fairly early because we had to get up early to head off to Medicine Hat the next morning.

Anna and I drove up to Waterton yesterday. She had an interview for a job in the national park. It’s a good and bad deal because while Anna can start working right now, she will have to live in Waterton (just because it’s too far to drive in from Lethbridge) and so that sucks because we won’t be able to see each other very often. I guess I’m hoping she won’t go for it, but we’ll see what she decides. That was pretty much my trip to Waterton, fairly uneventful, but we did get some delicious ice-cream from the Big Scoop.

In addition to winning the tickets to Def Leppard, Anna and I were entered into Rock 106’s Toys for Boys Contest. The prizes include:

• A Big Screen TV from Vision Electronics worth $2500 dollars.
• A Rock 106 Logoed Fridge from The Roadhouse
• Free Pizza for a year from Little Caesar’s
• A Custom Built Computer from Computing Excellence
• A 4X9 pool table from Dan’s Den
• A premiere Cabria 5 piece drum kit from Prueggers Music
• A complete Wilson golf package including clubs, bag, balls, shoes, pants and shirt from Nevada Bob’s
• A complete Burton Snowboard Package including Board, bindings, boots, pants and jacket from Boarderline in Downtown Lethbridge
• 2003-2004 seasons tickets from the Lethbridge Hurricanes
• Free movies for a year from The Movie Mill
• A Sumsung A460 Flip-Phone and cell phone starter kit, plus a Bell Express VU satellite system with the personal video recorder from Discovery Computers and Wireless.
• A 3 Year Membership for the new Gold’s Gym.
• Two season passes from Castle Mountain and last but definitely not least
• The Kawasaki 360 ATV 4X4.

My fingers are totally crossed.

If it seems like I drive Medicine Hat every weekend, it is because I do come here almost every single weekend. We [Anna and I] are visiting to celebrate her brother Jake’s Birthday (it’s tomorrow). I’m am going out for lunch with Jake, Anna, Lana, and Pam right now.