That's so gay.

So today I had a rather interesting conversation with a friend of mine today about the topic of the legalization of gay marriage. I thought I would share my argument and get some opinions from the world of blogs.

My argument was composed as such:
Being gay is not a choice, it is an innate characteristic.
Not allowing gays to marry is discriminating against them due to something they cannot change.
Therefore, gay marriage should be legal.


More in depth:
Being gay is not a choice. Arguing otherwise, frankly, is ignorant. I know far too many gay people who have told me so that to believe otherwise is ridiculous, and for those who still do not agree (I assume the aforementioned people are not gay), did you choose to be straight? Did you simply wake up one morning and decide you like the opposite sex? Or was that just always how it had been? Exactly.
Not allowing gays to marry is discriminating against them due to something they cannot change. In the 1960's, this same argument was going on about whether black people could marry white people or not. Now, we look back and most of the population sees this as an issue that pretty much everyone is on one side of, after the prejudices have been (for the most part) broken down. Many people argue that the Bible says that being gay is immoral. I believe this argument, firstly, should not be valid in this issue because our founding fathers held the belief that there should be a separation of church and state to limit religious persecution by the government. Using the Bible as a reason to make a law banning gay marriage is obviously a breach of this value. However, even if we DO accept this as valid, then there's still the issue of blatant hypocrisy. In Leviticus, the book of the bible that holds the quote (paraphrased) "one man shall not lie with another," there are also many other stipulations that prohibit things like shaving, doing ANY work on Sunday, and even associating with women who are menstruating. Picking an obscure verse out of the Old Testament and saying it should be responsible for a law and that all Christians (who use the New Testament mainly, anyway) should abide by it whilst ignoring the other stipulations in the same book is absolutely ridiculous, making it quite obvious that people are simply using the Bible to forward their prejudices. Wake up, religion was never meant to be an excuse to hate people without cause, especially Christianity, which preaches "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "love thy neighbor," and in general, compassion for all people.
For these reasons, I believe it to be quite obvious that gay marriage should be legal. Paragraphs of logic are one thing, but I believe Wanda Sykes sums it up pretty easily: "If you have a problem with same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex."

Longboards

Alright, so here's the deal: my good ole skateboard split in half in front of the rear truck. I'm looking into getting a longboard now, which I can say from personal experience, is a fun way to get around. My dilemma is this: I don't know whether I want to get one of the long, pintail longbards, or one of the short ones with a kicktail, more reminiscent or a regular skateboard.
At first the shorter one sounded more enticing because, although it is heavier, it is still possible to ollie on one, making it easy to pop onto curbs and such. However, the longer boards are amazingly smooth rides and can carve a turn like nobody's business.
I've seen and ridden both types, and I love them both, leaving me torn.
The short board I was looking at was a Sector 9, called Green Flash, from the Sidewinder series. Link provided below.
Sector 9

Let me know what you guys think!

So it begins.

The goal of this blog is for me to have a method with which I can express my opinions as to why this country is going to shit. Prepare for a lot of ranting.

Firstly, I believe nationalism in general is one of the most fatal flaws of this country. Nationalism, A.K.A "the belief that your country is the greatest because you were born in it," seeps out of every advertisement, store front, shopping mall, and house in this country. "America's favorite burger," or "the American brand," or "the heartbeat of America." Whether it be a cheesy pick-up line tossed at you by a car company or an enormous flag hung across the rear window of an "upstanding citizen" 's Ford pick-up truck, this belief that living in this country somehow makes us "better" than every other person living in the rest of the 194 other countries in the world permeates throughout our ass-backwards society. America is not the best, America is not "God's country," we are simply a country in this world full of countries, and we have to start behaving like there are other people out there, and that they're not there simply to make our Mickey Mouse t-shirts and answer Comcast's phones.

Also, Christianity runs rampant through this country in such a way that the inhabitants of some parts of this country are so blinded by ignorant faith that it is simply holding them back from becoming halfway intelligent beings. Now, as a preface, I have inherent problem with Christianity in general and its teachings, that is not what this is about. I agree with many of the core values of Christianity, just not necessarily how they are put into practice around the world. The proper response upon meeting someone with beliefs that differ from your own should not be, "but if you don't believe what I believe, you must be evil and are going to hell." Believing that Christianity is the one true religion and that all other religions are complete gibberish is so painfully ignorant, however I see it quite often. I've heard devout Christians discuss how ridiculous Islam is, when the things they are saying are not relevant to the teachings of Islam or any of the writings in the Koran. Or similarly, putting polytheism down because it is "ridiculous." Christianity states that God impregnated himself asexually with himself in order to give birth to himself so that he could die, resurrect himself and save the rest of the world from a sin that they committed before they were born. Makes perfect sense, everything else has got to be absolute bullshit, right? The grand central theme here is that our country seems to have a lack of respect for anything different than their own ways, and is blind to the wonderful array of cultures that our world has to offer besides apple pie and fireworks.