Matters of Definition: Issues of Society and Politics

There are several issues, currently “hot-buttons,” on which the Left has managed to convince the media and a substantial segment of the population that theirs is the only reasonable position by assuming and arguing from false definitions. I’d like to take a look at some of these issues, beginning with better, proper, definitions, today.

“Fleeting Vapor”

Each Friday I post a poem from my archive, until I run out.

Fair friend, have I not wed you in my dreams?
Draw near to me, as my lids droop towards sleep,
And kiss me as I join you in my dream.
For only in my dreams, and in such poems
As will reveal no unintended hint,
Dare I to give, unstinting from my lips,
Such kind affection as your worth demands
Or keep from sighing when I see your image:
But oh, that I might see you when I wake,
Or hear your voice in truth, not memory,
Or feel your arms and in mine hold you tight
As a dear friend long missed if nothing else.
How glad I am each night I see you here
Still waiting for me in this pleasant dream,
But I have sworn allegiance to that King
Who calls us out of slumber into light.

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, based on some half-remembered impressions of a few dreams. I’m not sure if it’s really finished, or if it needs some more elaboration of the idea I introduce in the last couple of lines, but since it almost “wrote itself” and nothing to follow those lines came immediately to mind it may be complete as is.

In any case, as always I welcome your comments, critique, suggestions, or any other feedback on this poem or any other part of my work. You can also read other poems I’ve written on my blog.

This poem is also posted on Google Docs and WEbook.

Shine Cycle Background: “Made Permanent”

Before we get to the characters themselves, some more background. Sunshine Kingdom and the Shine and Wild Empire have a somewhat weird government. There are elements of feudalism (notably, oaths are taken very seriously, and oaths of fealty are in some circles the building blocks of society), but it is also a strange sort of parliamentary democracy. Each district elects a representative to the Commons, often combining that post with the office of mayor or governor. But the federal government may choose to make this post (or any such district administrative or representative post) permanent “in good behavior” (i.e. for life unless resigned, impeached, or recalled) by giving the representative a title of nobility. Nobles (and there are only one or two other ways to gain nobility) make up the House of Peers, the upper house of Parliament, which is overwhelmingly not the irrelevant body it is in Britain. (Similarly, the King–elected to serve “in good behavior”–is the limited but quite powerful executive; limited, in that the last King to overstep his authority under the Charter lost the civil war he provoked by retroactively dissolving the Parliament that had just impeached him and removed him from office, but quite powerful in that he, rather than the Prime Minister, is the repository of executive authority.)

I think that the next post for this feature will be the entry and history of one of my favorite characters.

And as always, feedback of any kind is eagerly requested and greatly appreciated. Questions? Comments?

On Veterans Day: Gratefully Remember and Reflect

On this day, at the hour this is posted, in 1918, the combatants signed the Armistice to end the Great War, now known as the First World War. Since then, this day has been designated the one day of the year to specially honor those who served in our armed forces in that war and other conflicts since. On Memorial Day we remember those who gave the greatest sacrifice (cf. John 15:13), but today we honor those who were willing to lay down their lives, but of whom that service was not demanded.

Gay divorce? The left’s fundamental misunderstanding of matrimony

There was a very frustrating column by Ellen Goodman in yesterday’s paper on the intersection of gay marriage and divorce law. I know from numerous examples that Goodman can be a charming and insightful essayist; unfortunately, it seems that she discards that ability every time she writes about partisan politics.

The story at issue here is that a gay couple got “married” in Massachusetts, moved to Texas, and tried to get a divorce; the marriage amendment to the Texas constitution, according to the Texas Attorney General, prevents that, though the judge overruled him. Goodman thinks that the marriage amendment is rooted in a desire to deny equal protection under the law to gay couples and argues that we should allow them at least enough equal protection to divorce. Or, in her words, that Republicans are conspiring to keep them “unhappily joined” “in perpetuity.”

However, this premise is a fundamental misunderstanding. The point of the so-called “traditional marriage” movement is not that we have anything more against gays than against alcoholics or movie stars (to name two other categories of people with strong, usually indulged tendencies toward particular sins which we might condemn), or that we wish to deny them their rights granted by God and the Constitution. Our problem with the Massachusetts decision, and the reason this divorce ought to be denied, is that (whether a court says otherwise or not) “gay marriage” is a contradiction in terms, like “square circle” This has nothing to do with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection for all; a gay man, just like anyone else, may marry any woman who consents (and is legally permitted to consent) who is not married to anyone else. In this case, even if the state of Massachusetts says otherwise, the couple are as entitled to a divorce as a man who “married” his dog, a man whose wife has been dead for years, or any unmarried couple. No one is conspiring to keep this couple “unhappily joined” because they could never have been “joined” at all.