Monday, June 12, 2006

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth

The other thing I saw recently was An Inconvenient Truth. It's the global warming movie with Al Gore in it. Jeff, my partner, wanted to see it last Saturday and I was a little reluctant at first because I already knew about the topic, but I ended up really enjoying it. It's more than a movie about global warming. I was surprised at how good a speaker Gore is and I liked that he took on an important issue after the 2000 election. It apparently is having a positive effect on people. The movie touched me and though I don't like to admit it because I was taught that "boys aren't supposed to cry", I was teary-eyed near the end. I'd recommend seeing it.

The Daily Show, Bill Bennett, and Gay Marriage

Bill Bennett on TDS

I saw a couple of things this last week that I wanted to blog about. One was John Stewart, host of The Daily Show, who did a great job of debating Bill Bennett on the topic of gay marriage. Thanks to the person who posted the clip to youtube. BTW, the other parts of the show were pretty good too and I noticed that you can buy it from the itunes store for 2 bucks.

In any case, one of the good points he made that I never thought that much about is that being gay is part of the human condition. I certainly didn't choose to be gay -- it's just the way I am and it took me a long time to realize that there's nothing wrong with that. I've lived with my partner, Jeff, since 1995 and we were dating for a couple years before that too. So even though it is more difficult to be gay now, it's not something I want to change. I'm in a happy stable relationship and we do want to get married not just for the civil contract aspects of it, but also to support the equality aspects of it. I think it's important that most people in society acknowledge that gay people belong in society as equals. It's happened before with race and gender discrimination and it's time that sexual orientation is included too.