There’s still an effort in the works by the California religious right to add an amendment banning marriage rights for same-sex couples to the state constitution, but I’m thinking it will find little success if it even makes it to the ballot. Especially if this decision leads to a sudden boom of same-sex marriages. If Massachusetts and foreign countries which have established marriage equality are any indicator, once people see gay couples marrying and realize the sky isn’t falling, they tend to stop opposing it.

Of course, the question remains as to what effect this might have on the Presidential election. In the last presidential election, anti-gay sentiment gave the GOP a big bonus, but I’m not so sure it will be as big of a deal this year. First of all, most of the states in which a anti-marriage amendment could pass, have already passed them, so there won’t be that incentive for the bigots to hit the polls like there was last time around. Second of all, we have had legal gay marriage in this country (in Mass.) for years now. As I noted above, fear tactics don’t work when the target is revealed as just not really being all that scary. It will however almost certainly make the candidates lay out their views on marriage equality, but if the scare tactics have indeed lost their teeth, will the majority of straight America even care?

Update: It appears that the decision does in fact make California the second state to establish marriage equality. The courts reasoning is the same that I’ve stated numerous times:

“There can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state’s general legislative policy and preference,”

That is to say that the only decisions a court can possibly make about marriage laws without contradicting equal protection clauses is to either strike the marriage laws from the books completely (nobody can marry) or strike gender-specific language from the laws. Clearly, the preferred method is the later and that’s just what the CA Supreme Court has done.

What I’m talking about is what seems to be the polarization of the population in just about every major aspect of life. It’s like the bell curve is reversing. The number of middle-of-the-road’ers is decreasing while the number of outliers is spiking. The obvious example is of course politics where it seems there really is no such thing as a “swing voter” anymore, and those on the left are REALLY on the left and those on the right are REALLY on the right. Not only that the the number of mutally agreed upon issues is getting smaller and smaller. But it’s not limited to politics (perhaps the polarization of politics is as much a symptom of a larger phenomenon that anything else). Look at spirituality. People have been flocking to spirituality and not just the mainstream religions (though for the most part they have been growing too). The so-called “casual christian” (I’m using the common christian term, but I really think it can be applied to any spirituality) is dying out, while people of every spiritual path are starting to more actively incorporate their respective paths into their daily lives (whether or not they are appropriately interpreting or executing their claimed belief system is a separate question). Meanwhile, atheism is growing nearly as rapidly and the atheists are staying quiet any more. And true agnosticism is a rare find with most “agnostics” being atheists who don’t want to call themselves atheists. For the record, I’m not casting judgement here on anybody, simply noting my observation.

Any of the GOP faithful will be quick to tell you that we’re not technically in a recession, and yet average folks can’t afford to feed their families. If the market is busy making rich folks even more money, yet even most white-collar families are having to tighten their belts, then where exactly is the “middle-class?” Seems that the paychecks that used to make folks “upper-middle class” are now only barely bumping them into the “lower-middle class” range, if they are lucky. Gas and food prices don’t show any signs of dropping, which is just going to price more and more folks out of the middle class. Yet those prices are in part the very thing lining the pockets of the rich.

Healthy habits are doing the same thing. Grocery stores shelves are lined with the latest organic foodstuffs, health food stores are expanding, vitamin and supplement sales are increasing and people are learning how their bodies work, what they’re bodies need and how to stay healthy. Yet at the same time, McDonald’s is packed with people who eat there 7 days a week and restaurant portions are enough to feed a small country. Even intelliegence seems to be flipping the bell curve. The smart people I know are incredibly brilliant, where as those who aren’t so smart, well, just leave it at them being not so smart.

So there it is. Don’t know what it means. Don’t know if it’s right. Don’t know why I keep noticing it here and there.

In one sense, that’s because, like dinner and evening plans, I’m really just not that picky over it. I want a house that is modern, or at least close enough to modern that the inside can be decorated with a modern aesthetic and still match the house. I want a very nice master suite (I’d rather dump my money there because it’s been my experience that except when we’re actively entertaining company, we tend to spend most of our time in the bedroom). That’s my requirements, and that’s all my requirements. More or less if the house design meets those, I’m content.

Now, I’m not sure if TheBoyfriend™ is having a hard time finding something he likes in general or just a hard-time finding something he likes within the criteria I outlined above, but one thing I do know, if we don’t get the thing built ASAP, it is never gonna get done because he’ll never decide on one. When he announced on Friday that he wanted to nail down a house plan (by which I mean rough floor plan and structural shape, not architectural blueprints) to send on to some of the modular builders we’ve been considering, I was thinking he meant he wanted to go ahead and flip the floor plan (which we had decided would fit our lot better) of our third and most recent pick and email it on out. I didn’t know that he was looking for a brand new plan until he called me over to his computer saying, “What do you think of this?”

Well what did I think of it? It was beautiful aside from the $800,000 price tag!!!!! He managed to convince me that if we took only the very top story and made that the whole house, along with dropping the (nice to have, but unfortunately prohibitively expensive) ultra-”green” building materials, we might be able to knock it down to something doable financially, maybe; at least enough so to make it worth mocking up to send to the architects to find out. So then it became my job to take out all the interior walls of the floor plan and rearrange them to make one story of a multi-level house usable as an entire house (also, along with getting rid of the rest of the house, so thoroughly changed the plan as to make any copyright issues non-existent).

Now that it’s done I’m thinking I need to make sure I get it to a build as soon as possible or it will join the ranks of the last 3 plans that were (I thought) agreed upon, then discarded. On the other hand, since we’ll likely be there for a long time, I do want it to be a house he’ll be happy with so going through number of designs might not be a bad thing. Plus, stylistically, it seems time is on my side. The first house we looked at I thought was a good mix of our styles as it was kind of a modern take on a cottage. The second one was more of a Mountain Chalet style. The third was classic Mid-Century Modern. And this latest is quite Modern-Contemporary. With each new plan he suggests we’re moving closer to my preferred aesthetic, and since he’s the one suggesting them, I can only assume that means the modern look is growing on him.

Gryphon is the only one of the three who is able to get on top of the fridge (or at least he’s the only one who has realized that he can). So for now, that’s where his food bowl will reside. I think he’s a bit confused as to why all of a sudden he’s eating up so high and away from the other cats. We still have to pick him up and place him up there at meal time, but he’s knows his food is there and he does go back up on his own when he gets hungry to finish his leftovers. And most importantly, it’s out of Sigyn’s reach.

=^..^=

I’d initially planned on taking today off of work, but, it kinda crept up on me and before I really thought to get it done, it was too late. It would have been a good day to take off to as it was a pretty busy weekend. My dad came up on Saturday to spend some time with me and take me out for dinner for my birthday. Which was nice but it meant that I spent Friday night cleaning house.

Yesterday, an old friend of TheBoyfriend™’s was in DC for a conference so we took a day trip up there to see him. It’s so refreshing to just get a significant change of scenery every once in awhile, if even for just the day (and it’s nice to be able to hold hands in public). Strange thing about DC is that, having never lived there or in the immediate area of there, I always randomly run into someone I know when I visit. Yesterday was no exception. As we were just leaving, actually getting our Metro farecards for the trip out (we decided just to park in Fairfax and ride the Metro into the city), I hear my name called, and turn to see someone I knew in college.