Letter to the Editor
I have some questions for those who support same sex marriage - should I be allowed to marry my brother? If not - why not?
I would point out that the reason for not marrying my sister is that if we reproduced - then we would likely have birth complications. However - that doesn't apply if I marry my brother because I can't get him pregnant. For that matter - should I be allowed to marry my sister of one or both of us are not capable of reproducing? - If not - why not?
Should I be allowed to marry more than one person? Why limit marriage to only 2 people? Why not 3 or 4? Why have a limit?
Should I be allowed to marry my cat - especially when a cat is much more likely to make a lifelong commitment that a human. In fact - I would bet that if someone compared the average number of years an owner and their pet stay together and a man and wife stay together - the pets would win.
For those who want to move the line on what people should and shouldn't marry - where do you want to move the line to? And - why should the line be there?
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If it were up to me - I would move the line back the other way to include only couples with children. To me marriage is about families - reproducing - creating new generations. I would therefore - if I were King - grant civil unions to same sex couples and non-reproducing heterosexual couples.
All marriages are really civil unions in the eyes of the state because all states have no fault divorce laws. Therefore the state doesn't really recognize the "relationship" part of a marriage and marriage is really just a bad property agreement where if the relationship fails then two lawyers get to keep your property. From someone who has been chewed by the courts I say to same sex couples - be careful what you ask for - you might get it!
If this isn't cluelless I don't know what is. We have to start a war with Iraq to go after terrorists - but the guy who is actually doing the terrorism isn't important.
Defense Secretary Says Capturing Bin Laden Would Not Change the Problem of Terrorism
By Robert Burns The Associated Press
Published: Mar 16, 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) - Capturing or killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden would not "change the problem" of international terrorism, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.
Rumsfeld also raised the possibility that bin Laden was dead.
"The reality is that bin Laden is spending a great deal of his time - if he is alive today - hiding and running and trying to communicate and trying to survive," Rumsfeld said in an interview at the Pentagon with WTN radio in Nashville.
Because of the pressure on bin Laden, al-Qaida and its affiliates have become more decentralized, Rumsfeld said.
"It would be a good thing if he were not there, but it certainly isn't going to change the problem. We're going to have to find the rest of the terrorists and his associates and see that they're put in jail."
The interview was one of a series that Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials gave to radio stations around the country Tuesday as part of a Bush administration public relations offensive marking the one-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. The war began March 19.
In an interview with WPHT radio in Philadelphia, Rumsfeld was asked about a reported remark Monday by the chief of France's armed forces that bin Laden several times had narrowly escaped capture by French troops in Afghanistan.
"We don't know" whether U.S. or coalition troops have come close to bin Laden, Rumsfeld said.
"We haven't caught him," he added. "Close doesn't count. This isn't horseshoes or hand grenades. We're trying to capture or kill this man. We don't even know if he's alive for sure."
The consensus of intelligence analysts is that bin Laden is hiding out in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.
Last weekend the U.S. military command in Afghanistan announced the start of an offensive, dubbed Operation Mountain Storm, aimed at destroying al-Qaida and the Taliban and ultimately finding bin Laden.