I'm the type of guy who just wants people to be happy and live in peace. The fact that some people find their bliss differently than I do just makes the world all that more interesting and exciting to me. If everybody were thinking, acting, and believing exactly the same, I think this world would be an incredibly boring and unhealthy place to live. This is not to say that everybody should get to do whatever they want... if somebody finds happiness in killing other people, well, that kind of infringes on the happiness of others now doesn't it?

Time for a little story. It's not a story I had ever really intended for this blog (if it were, I would have posted it when it happened) but, given the events of the day, I'm going to tell it anyway (to the best of my recollection):

While I was stuck in an airport a while back (don't ask me when or where... these things all blend together for me) I looked up to see that one of the two guys who had just sat down across from me was wearing a Hard Rock Cafe T-Shirt. Being the Hard Rock junkie that I am, these things catch my attention. Upon further examination, I saw that it was a shirt from the cafe in Kobe, Japan. Since I was wearing my Nagoya, Japan HRC shirt, I felt I should say something:

Dave: Did you go to the Hard Rock Kobe to get that shirt?
Guy: I sure did. Did you go to Nagoya to get yours?
Dave: Yep! Did you know that they closed the Kobe cafe down?
Guy: Really? I'm glad I went then. Have you been to any of the others in Japan?
Dave: All of them!
Guy: Even the one in Fukuoka?
Dave: Yep, it was a long ride on the Shinkansen to get that T-Shirt!
Guy: Cool. I lived in Japan for almost two years but never made it down that far.
Dave: Don't feel bad, none of my friends in Japan have been either and they've lived there for a lot longer than two years!
Guy: Are you a pin collector?
Dave: I am... not hard core, but I've got quite a few.
Guy: Cool. Pins are expensive so my collection isn't that big. Now that I'm married it'll probably be a while before I see any more Hard Rock Cafes.
Dave: Your wife doesn't like you to travel?
Guy: Nah, but I'm hoping if I take him with me he won't mind so much.

That's when he reached over and took the hand of the guy sitting next to him. After further conversation, I learned that they had just been married and were returning from their honeymoon. All I could seem to say was "That's great!" -- and I really meant it. Here were two people obviously in love, blissfully happy, and it was a beautiful thing to see.

And today I learned that if these two guys were married in California, their marriage was just annulled along with every other same-sex couple married in the state.

What the f#@%?

This is the land of the free? Why? How in the hell was these two guys' happiness destroying anybody else's shot at being happy? So what if they are married... it may have taken me a moment for my mind to switch gears when I met them but, after it sunk in, it still seemed more natural to me than the Liza Minelli and David Gest "marriage."

The entire controversy seems to be the religious angle. Well, that's great and all, but the government of the United States of America was founded on the separation of church and state. The fact that you can be married by a Justice of the Peace, without a religious ceremony of any kind, would tend to back this up. Some people say that marriage is intrinsically tied to religion and, if believing that makes you happy, then please go on doing so. And if you feel that same-sex marriage is wrong, sinful, disgusting, unacceptable, offensive to your god, or somehow diminishes the sanctity of marriage because of your beliefs, then so be it. Nobody is asking that you change, so believe whatever you want.

But you need to accept the fact that not everybody believes the same as you. So using your personal religious beliefs to dictate how others should live their lives is arrogant and unfair. I mean, two athiests are allowed to get married as long as they are man and woman, and there's apparently no political problem with that... who cares? Different people have different beliefs. Different things make different people happy. The pursuit of said happiness is supposed to be what the USA is all about. I would argue that crapping all over another person's happiness when they are doing no harm to you is, in fact, anti-American (heck, it's also anti-human, but I'll save that for another rant).

People marry for money, power, convenience, security, obligation, and hundreds of other reasons that I find totally offensive... yet two people who are actually in love can't be married because they've both got a penis? What kind of stupid shit is that? Today over 4000 couples... 8000 people... were just told that their lives are nothing more than a toy to be played with in the name of politics and religion. They've learned their happiness is of lesser value than other people's happiness. I can't help but wonder if two terrific people I met while alone and stranded in an airport far from home are among them. I'm more than a little sad about that.