Back of the Envelope

Last week, I said that I was considering moving off of Blogspot, and I've been hinting that there's a major change to the site in the works. Some of you may have already put 2 and 2 together and guessed what's happening. Yes, I am moving off of Blogspot, and onto a site hosted by Powerblogs. In the process, I've registered a domain name. Back of the Envelope can now be found at www.DonaldSCrankshaw.com. I've taken advantage of this change, and Powerblogs' 75 MB of storage space, to merge Back of the Envelope with my homepage, putting everything in one place. So come visit at the new site, and please remember to update your blogrolls.

Old Post: My last post on the Federal Marriage Amendment is here.

As you probably already know, the Federal Marriage Amendment failed to pass yesterday. To be honest, I was never a big fan of this version of the FMA. I much preferred Hatch's version, which I think could have passed with the proper politicking. My guess is that the Republican leadership thought it was more important to force a vote on the issue than to actually pass an amendment. That was a mistake.

First, although a majority of Americans oppose gay marriage, most won't go as far as an amendment. Dean Esmay says it's because there's not enough hostility toward gays. I think he's being unfair, as he seems to assume that the only reason to oppose changing the earliest known social unit would be hostility towards homosexuals. I think it's more likely that an amendment is considered a very strong step, one that once made cannot be easily undone, and people are reluctant to go that far.

And they're becoming more reluctant. Opposition to gay marriage is decreasing as people become more used to the idea. Part of that is a natural reluctance in this country to deny people what they want. It's the same reluctance that gives us redistributionist policies. If it benefits one group a lot, but hurts everyone else only a little, then it's not worth opposing--not for the majority of the population, and certainly not in the Congress. Especially when the accusation of bigotry is all you get for your attempts. But even more important is that prior to the existence of gay marriage, you would be opposing giving people something that did not yet have. Now that it exists in Massachusetts, this federal marriage amendment would take something away from people. If the populace is reluctant to withhold from a special interest, they're even more reluctant to take away. Waiting longer, to bring it up for another vote, will only make it harder to pass the amendment.

The harm from allowing gay marriage is subtle and long-term, the benefit is clear and immediate. If in the end the harm is more than the gain, as it seems to have been in the Netherlands, by that point it will be too late.

So is there a solution? Gay marriage may be gaining acceptance, but not so much that it can be legislatively enacted into law in any state. In every instance, it's been enacted by activist judges. While I oppose gay marriage, I would not protest as loudly if an orderly decision were made by the general populace to accept it. In that case I could believe that, at the least, it had been debated, the advantages and disadvantages weighed, and the decision made with a willingness to accept the consequences. I cannot accept it being foisted on the nation by activist judges who make their decision in a matter of weeks without significant input from all sides of the debate.

I think that Senate should have gone with the Orrin Hatch amendment, which reads:

Civil marriage shall be defined in each state by the legislature or the citizens thereof. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman.

This has a much greater chance of passing, now, and as I said, the longer we wait, the harder it will be to pass any amendment. This would have forced the issue into the state legislatures, and presumably removed the courts, state and federal, from the equation. By doing so, it would have ensured that gay marriage would be debated and enacted or denied by the will of the people.

Right now, it would take a supermajority of the people to stop gay marriage, since it seems that nothing short of a constitutional amendment, on the state or federal levels, can stop the courts from enacting it. The amendment would change the equation, so that it would take a majority (but not a supermajority) of the people to enact gay marriage. I take it as obvious that this is the way it should be, and it saddens me that it will take a Constitutional Amendment to make it so.

I don't know whether Pete Abrams, the artist behind Sluggy Freelance, is a hawk or a dove, a liberal or a conservative, a Republican or a Democrat, but I do like the way he thinks. You get the impression that his head's on straight when it comes to the War on Terror, at least.

Take for instance today's comic. For a bit of background, the Dimension of Pain (represented by the ugly guys in the first couple of panels) has invaded the Dimension of Lame (the happy, peaceful dimension that has no concept of violence or good food). Torg--the blond guy with the sword--is from our dimension, and finds the whole DoL annoying. He's also the guy the DoP invaders came to the DoL to find, mistaking it for his dimension. It's all very confusing, but you can get most of it by starting at the beginning of this storyline. Or you could just start reading the archives from the beginning.

What I find most telling, however, are the first few panels, where Psyk (the pinkish cyclops) says, "I observed over time that most of these mortals seek peace out of fear, not honor or hope." He then proceeds to tell Horribus, his boss, about his plan to take over the entire world.

Now maybe I'm just reading too much into a webcomic, but you can see that the attitude that Pete is slamming as both dishonorable and ineffective is alive and well in the world. For instance, read what La Shawn Barber has to say here about how the Philippines are giving in to terrorists.

If you're wondering why the blogging has been slow today, it's because I've been working on finishing the third revision of Part II of A Phoenix in Darkness. Well, it's done now, and after some significant work, I've got all the necessary web resources needed to make the story available up and running. In the meantime, Part I is available and free, so enjoy.

The twenty-sixth Christian Carnival is up at From the Anchor Hold. Check out what other Christian bloggers are saying.

In case you're curious, I am still looking for a position once the funding runs out for my Postdoc, which will be happening in just a couple of months. While it's certainly frightening, it's also exciting to consider new job possibilities. I've been doing most of my searching online, using various internet job posting sites, such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and BostonWorks. I have each of them mailing me daily with job possibilities that meet my criteria. For the remainder of this month, I plan to complete one serious job application each day--a serious job application being one where I think I'm well qualified and that I would enjoy the work. That doesn't preclude additional applications to jobs that I think I would enjoy but where my qualifications are iffy, such as the Bioware job, but I want to make sure I have plenty of applications out for those jobs for which I think I have a good chance. As always, if you know of any leads, please let me know. And your prayers are always appreciated.

The Carnival of the Bush Bloggers is up at Blogs for Bush. It's a day late, but check it out. You may notice my post on Kerry's inability to understand the separation of Church and State, along with other posts on politics.

You may notice that I'm only really good at linking to carnivals when I have a post in there. I'm just better at remembering when I'm in the carnival. Sorry about that.

Serge at Imago Dei has some thoughts on in vitro fertilization in a series of posts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (Unfortunately, I can't get the link to Part 3 to work, so I just gave a link to his front page. I'll update it as soon as there is a valid link.). I first thought seriously about in vitro fertilization when I was leading the Responsible Technology discussion group at MIT. At the time, I thought that while there is nothing inherently wrong with in vitro fertilization, there is something truly abhorrent in its wastefulness. Many more embryos are produced than are ever used, and this practice should be an outrage to those who believe life begins at conception. The sad truth is that the pro-life movement, while opposing the deliberate destruction of the embryos, makes little effort to address the practices that lead to it. And I cannot say that I myself have done any better, since I saw the practice as terrible, but at the time it was easier just not to think about it too much: I had more than enough things to become outraged about already. I'm glad to see that Serge has put some serious thought into the matter, going so far as to offer practical advice to thoughtful Christian couples whose fertility problems lead them to consider in vitro fertilization:

My advice for those who are having fertility problems would be the following:
1. Talk about how far you are willing to go for infertility treatments PRIOR to attempting to conceive a child. Clear thinking and a plan is important.
2. Clearly indicate your beliefs to the IVF clinic and ensure that they understand that you do not wish to have embryos killed in this process. If they do not want to play ball, go somewhere else.
3. Prayerfully determine whether you want to go through all of this, or to adopt a child that needs a loving Christian home.

In addition, you may have noticed that I've added Imago Dei to the blogroll. Serge's thoughtful essays on bioethics make him a must-read. Plus I noticed that I was on his blogroll. (While I do not have a reciprocity policy, I do tend to check out blogs that link to me, and I'll add them if I like what I see.)

Joe Carter has a post up about Galileo, going over the history which I've covered before. The comments on his posts have degenerated into name-calling right now, but before they did, someone did bring up the question of what all this history proves. That the church wasn't quite so narrow-minded as they were thought to be? They still punished him for his heresy.

I think what it proves is that, as in any story, we have a tendency to find both heroes and villains, and we tend to simplify the story until the villains are truly villainous and the heroes are truly heroic, ignoring the inconvenient contradictions. Heh, I'm sounding like a post-modernist. The Church did not handle Galileo well, but they did not mishandle his case as badly as they are accused. By simplifying the story into a myth, we do a disservice both to the Church and to Galileo. The Galileo story is used to turn the religion into a villain and science into a hero, fueling contempt for religion by turning science into something it's not: a clear truth that is obvious to anyone with an open mind. Science is never obvious--it is difficult and murky and a lot of hard work separating the wheat from the chaff. We scientists are done a disservice by those who want to turn science into a quick and easy answer. Society as a whole is done a disservice when science is no longer considered debatable, where all ethical considerations are swept aside in the breakneck race for scientific progress. Laying the Galileo myth to rest would do a lot to curb this attitude.

If you've read Lileks's column that I mentioned below, you may remember this part:

[Moore:]For too long now we have abandoned our flag to those who see it as a symbol of war and dominance, as a way to crush dissent at home. Flags are flying from the back of SUVs, rising high above car dealerships, plastering the windows of businesses and adorning paper bags from fast-food restaurants. But these flags are intended to send a message: "You're either with us or you're against us," "Bring it on!" or "Watch what you say, watch what you do."

[Lileks:]I knew a paranoid schizophrenic once. He believed that the New York Times was sending him personal messages through its front-page headlines. He might also have believed that car-dealership flags were telling him to watch what he said.

If flying the flag is intended to crush dissent at home (as opposed to abroad) it’s not doing a very good job, is it? Personally, I fly my flag on holidays because I love this country. If you asked for secondary reasons, I’d say it’s to show support for the troops and their mission. I gave my daughter a flag to wave on the Fourth as part of a long careful education in what sets the American experiment apart from the general nature of human history. (Details to follow.)

Now Dean Esmay has a very funny post illustrating the Mooreish attitude:

Haha! I showed you an American flag! You know what that means! You cannot dissent anymore, that's what it means! See how the flag is stopping you frrrom dissentinnng?? You can no longer dissent! I have crrrushed your dissent with my fingers and with the flag!

Okay, it's funnier when you read the whole thing, with the pictures.

Meanwhile, Dave Barry's column (free registration required) covers dying pets. It's funny, mainly because it's about the sort of impersonal, short-lived pets no one gets too attached to:

I say all this to explain why I recently bought fish for my 4-year-old daughter, Sophie. My wife and I realized how badly she wanted an animal when she found a beetle on the patio and declared that it was a pet, named Marvin. She put Marvin into a Tupperware container, where, under Sophie's loving care and feeding, he thrived for maybe nine seconds before expiring like a little six-legged parking meter. Fortunately, we have a beetle-intensive patio, so, unbeknownst to Sophie, we were able to replace Marvin with a parade of stand-ins of various sizes (''Look! Marvin has grown bigger!'' ``Wow! Today Marvin has grown smaller!''). But it gets to be tedious, going out early every morning to wrangle patio beetles. So we decided to go with fish.

I think even Dave Barry would have a hard time writing a funny column about dead cats or dogs.

I've just been working on Part II of A Phoenix in Darkness. It should go up this Saturday as scheduled, despite complications in my life. Meanwhile, you can find Part I here.

It's been a fun week. Here's what I've been talking about:

How I almost became a computer game designer -- I recount a fun job interview, and the reasons why the job didn't work out.

Should I be moving? -- Dean Esmay is strongly encouraging people to move off of Blogspot, and the trouble it's been giving me has made the concept tempting. What will I be doing? Stay tuned.

John Kerry on Abortion -- Kerry still hasn't figured out what separation of Church and State is all about.

The Supreme Court and Saddam Hussein -- Will the Supreme Court move to free Saddam Hussein? Does it even have jurisdiction in this matter? Saddam's lawyer hopes so.

Farscape is back! -- Farscape is returning to the SciFi channel. I suppose caring about that makes me a geek, but if I were a true geek I would have found out about it back in April.