Up and showered by 7:00 am this morning. Lots to do. I had to get two boys ready for school by 8:30. Ian started special ed preschool today.
In between making lunches, packing up spare clothes for preschool, and toasting bagels, I flipped on the computer to check the e-mail and the comments on the blog. (Very amused at the comments on the geek question.)
Hubby sent over a link to an article on the Pew study of bloggers that I mentioned last week.
Popped Jonah on the school bus and then drove to Ian’s new school. I was very worried. Ian has a very complicated way of communicating — part sign language, part grunt, and part mom just knowing that the sign for monkey refers to Dora who has a friend who has a monkey and that Olivia next door has a ball with Dora on it and that’s what Ian wants. There’s no way that his teachers are going to have any clue what he’s talking about.
I camped out in the school office for two and half hours just in case he flipped out because nobody understood him or because someone tried to pressure him to talk. I caught up on my reading.
I picked up the New York Times magazine and fiddled with the crossword puzzle for a while. Moved on to the OCD article, which made me itch.
Then there was the cover piece on Rick Santorum. Santorum is predictably against gay marriage.
To Santorum, who is married and the father of six children (as well as one who died shortly after birth), marriage is primarily about procreation and child rearing, and a union without at least that possibility need not be legally sanctioned. ”Society’s interest in marriage is the future,” he told me. ”It is the next generation. It is in providing a stable environment for the raising of children. That’s why we give marriage a special status, not because people like to hang out together and have fun.” …
When I asked him if he viewed gay marriage as a threat to his own marriage, he answered quickly. ”Yes, absolutely,” he said. ”It threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages. It threatens the traditional values of this country.”
I haven’t written much about gay marriage on this blog mostly because I don’t get what the controversy is about. If Rick thinks that marriage is only about producing kids (should infertile people be prevented from marrying?), he’s entitled to his beliefs. Whatever. But I don’t get how other people getting married just for the fun of it affects his marriage. Where’s the threat? Just don’t get it.
But truthfully, I also don’t get why so many gay folks want to get married. If I was gay, getting married would be the last thing on my mind. I would be all leather clad and pierced, making out with another cute lesbian and taunting the hetero guys. (I fully admit that I may projecting myself as a very shallow gay person, who probably isn’t even gay, and this whole matter probably deserves more thought and seriousness than I’ve given it. Tomorrow.)
After sneering at the ethical column, I moved on to the New Yorker. First up, Anthony Lane reviews Revenge of the Sith. Oh God, life is good.
The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith” seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.
The whole piece is one amazing snark. Must read.
Ian made it through the whole 2-1/2 hours. There were some tears, but no meltdowns. When he saw me waiting for him at the door, the bottom lip went out. I grabbed him, and he hid his head in my shoulder. It’s going to be rough for Little Boy as he gets used to the new regimen, but he’ll be okay. And I’ll catch up on my reading.
Apt. 11d 
The NYer is worth the sub if only for Anthony Lane every other issue (even now that Adam Gopnik is marooned somewhere not Paris is therefore not performing at his potential). Even so, the end-to-end fury of this particular review is unusual. Anyway, the better part of an Anthony Lane review almost always gets read aloud in my house.
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The issue with gay marriage is not so much the hanging out and having fun aspect, but the rights it might and should afford gay couples. For example, right now, a partner in a gay relationship cannot collect his/her dead partner’s social security. In some states (and at some businesses), gay partners are not entitled to health care, 401(k) benefits (i.e. inheritance of said benefits). Allowing gay marriage is really a stepping stone to those rights. I think many people would agree that the union doesn’t have to be called a marriage and churches would have the right not to perform a ceremony for a gay couple. However, I think the government (state and/or federal) needs to guarantee that gay couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples.
Sorry to focus on that one thing, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I have many friends who are gay and in permanent relationships (in Rick Santorum’s state, btw). It’s amazing the simple things they can’t do because they’re in a gay relationship.
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Ian’s a brave boy, and he’s got a great mom. Good luck to you both.
I forwarded the Anthony Lane review of Sith to a bunch of friends when I first read it. Hilarious. Lane is a national treasure.
One of these days, I’m going to have to write something about Santorum. Maybe about this book he has coming out, It Takes a Family. In the meantime, I hope Bob Casey, Jr., blows him out of the water in the 2006 Sentate race.
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