Gender Stuff

I hate posting repeatedly on similar topics, but there is so much going on in so many major arenas in our culture right now, it’s hard not to.  Hopefully you’ll bear with me and I’ll have a book review on an old but good book very shortly!

Last week I blogged about legislation in Utah that could pave the way for greater acceptance of at least unofficial, non-legally binding polygamy.  Not to be outdone, North Dakota’s Attorney General last week issued a legal opinion on a hypothetical situation.  If someone in a gay marriage from another state wanted to obtain a North Dakota marriage license to someone of the opposite sex, could North Dakota do it?  What would be created would be a situation where one person was married to two different people, albeit with marriage licenses from different states.  Since North Dakota does not recognize gay marriages from other states, it does not believe the person seeking the marriage license in North Dakota to be legally married already.

The Attorney General’s opinion is that yes, North Dakota could in good faith issue the marriage license for a heterosexual marriage in North Dakota, since North Dakota does not recognize the gay marriage license from another state.  Polygamy becomes technically legally, though as this article points out, the legal and tax implications are mind boggling.  This is a different front on the polygamy war.  The Utah situation paves the way for unofficial polygamous relationships, which as I pointed out, is only a VERY short stopping point to recognition of polygamous relationships under Common Law marriage grounds.  The North Dakota opinion sets states against each other and leaves the IRS to figure out how the hell to tax people like this.  It creates a monumental mess for a tiny fraction of people – a mess that the rest of us will undoubtedly have to pay for in the costs to local and national government to sort through this mess.  Thanks a lot, everyone.  

Next up, this fascinating little essay sure to generate a firestorm of criticism.  The author takes exception to the more radical nuances of modern feminism, particularly its direct antagonism towards men.  Men as  a gender.  Men in general.  Not bad men, rude men, selfish men, lying men – just men.  The Camille Paglia argues that such attitudes are not only short-sighted and defeatist in the end of both genders, they are patently wrong.  Paglia argues that men are still the ones who enable civilization because they are the ones who are far and away doing the hard, dirty, unglamorous work that allows a white-collar economy to flourish.  

Unfortunately, Paglia’s argument also paves the way for further denigration of the male species, seeing them essentially as grunt labor to do the jobs that women physically can’t or do not wish to.  Let me do the dirty work, and let women make the decisions that dictate what dirty work is to be done, and where and when and how.  This isn’t Paglia’s intent, but she inadvertently also denigrates men by ignoring their continued prominence in all aspects of our culture and economy, and inferring by silence that men aren’t necessary at all in these other realms.  

Finally, in case you haven’t heard, Obamacare’s glorious advances in making healthcare available to dozens more people comes at the expense (literally) of a lot of high-priced prescription coverages.  As a means to remaining solvent under the mandates of Obamacare, many insurance companies are reducing coverages and benefits for some top-tier prescriptions, exposing people with very serious medical conditions to financial ruin so that women can have access to free contraceptives and morning-after abortion medications.  

Additionally, some high-priced hospitals and even doctors are being written out of insurance coverages.  You need to look very carefully at the fine print of your insurance plan to make sure that your existing doctor and hospitals are included under the plan.  Ironically, some of those affected would seem to be part of the voter base that propelled Obama into both terms.  True – every insurance plan covers certain things and not others.  But given that Obamacare was touted as a keep-whatever-you-like solution to providing healthcare access to more people, it’s hardly what many folks were expecting.