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| ARCHIVES: December, 2005 |
The Agenda:Testing the Premise: Are Gays a Threat to Our Children? What the "Dutch Study" Really Says About Gay Couples Federal Hate Crime Statistics: Why The Numbers Don't Add Up Favorites:
Photo Essays:The Anasazi Ruins of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Now Showing / Reflection on Hayden, Arizona
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Goodbye Nicole, Jeanine
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Yesterday's Daily Star was a study in contrasts. The top headline carried the news that Arizona is the second-fastest growing state. But just below that is another story on how difficult it is for some of Arizona's best and brightest to stay.
I'm particularly sad to see someone I have come to know the past few years – someone who is a highly-valued and energetic coworker – leaving Arizona for California. The problem? Arizona doesn’t allow second-parent adoptions.
Nicole and Jeanine are Isaac's proud and dedicated parents. But without the option of a second-parent adoption, Jeanine cannot legally make emergency medical decisions for Isaac, meet with his teachers and school officials, or even be assured that she would remain Isaac’s legal guardian if something terrible should happen to Nicole.
So the only way to really protect their family, Nicole is leaving a highly-skilled job that she loves. She is taking her talents elsewhere to a competing employer in California where second-parent adoptions are legal.
The editors asked for readers to submit short comments,
which were published in the opinion section of this morning’s edition. My
comments can be found
here.
Chris and I saw Brokeback Mountain last weekend in Scottsdale. Here is my film review.
The end.
So now there's this war on. You hear about it in the newspaper, and it's all over the cable channels. Happy Holidays against Merry Christmas.
This has got to be one of the silliest fights to break out since Elton versus Madonna. On the one hand, we have far-right Christians going apoplectic (I like that word!) over the very thought of someone having a happy holiday. And on the other hand, there's the flamin' lib'rals having a cow over not wanting to be forced to say you-know-who's name, not even by accident, not even when you're talking about stuff that has nothing to do with him to begin with.
Because when it comes to Christmas, nobody's ever talking about him anyway. Christmas has never been much of a religious holiday. Even back when it really was a religious holiday (and I'm talking about a few hundred years ago here) it was a minor one. Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day, All Saints Day — these were the more important holidays on the Christian (oops!) calendar. When Christmas was celebrated, it was marked more by drunkenness and generally unchristian unruliness than it was by acts of piety.
It wasn't seriously celebrated by the respectable masses until the Victorians trotted it out, dusted it off, and re-branded it. They tarted it all up with carols, Santa Claus, sleigh rides, mistletoe, Yule logs, Christmas trees, red unmentionables hanging on the mantle — none of which really strikes me as being particularly Christian. And some of it, in fact, is quite distinctly pagan. Christmas hasn't been much of a religious holiday since then.
Which is okay by me. If the Easter Bunny can strut around on Easter, if witches and goblins can usher in All Hallows Eve, and if Santa can disburse XBoxes around the world in the early morning hours of December 25th, what's the big deal about having a merry Christmas anyway? And exactly how does having a happy holiday diminish anyone's joy as long as the credit card is still below its limit?
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever. And seriously, Virginia, Santa Baby is real. Just don't kid anybody about him being the embodiment of the generous spirit of us all on this holy of holy nights, not when you've got churches canceling Christmas because it happens to fall on Sunday this year.
Remind me again: who's taking the C-man out of X-mas?
Okay now everybody, stop bickering. You're e harshing my holiday.
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