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 Gifts
for all occasions in the Galleria!June 11, 2006 Coulter, Marriage and Zarqawi By Jan A. Larson In an event-filled week, three subjects dominated the headlines. First, the release of syndicated columnist Ann Coulter's latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, ruffled more than a few feathers. Having read some excerpts, a couple of reviews and seen several interviews with Coulter, my take is that while her points in the book are on target, she did step over the line in chapter five when discussing the so-called "Jersey Girls," when she asked, "how do we know that their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?" and stated "they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy." She didn't step over the line with respect to the statements themselves, but rather because her acerbic and sarcastic style doesn't always seamlessly transfer from the spoken to the written word. These statements would certainly have been met with some degree of breathless indignation had she delivered them during a speech or interview, but at least they would have then been perceived as consistent with her overall tone. Seeing them in print does remove them from that context and distracts from her message. Her message is, of course, that the four women gained their public platform by happenstance and their respective political views are not deserving of any more attention or reverence than those of any other "man on the street." On that point, Coulter is correct, but in my view, her message is lost as the reader is taken aback. Coulter's bombastic style is both an asset and liability in that it gets attention, but can also obfuscate her message. To the surprise of few (I am not one of those), the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage failed in the Senate. In the narrow view, I really don't have a strong position on the issue of gay marriage. It boils down to whether a legal recognition of gay unions would somehow present a cost or benefit to me personally. If my taxes would increase, for example, I'm against it. If health care costs, the price of gasoline, etc. would go down, then I'm for it; at least I could be for civil unions, if not necessarily an appropriation of the word "marriage." In my view, the lifestyle that two people choose to live is up to them, but no matter how the issue of gay marriage is spun, there is clearly a slippery slope to be considered once the issue reaches the judiciary, as we've already seen in Massachusetts. Should the United States Supreme Court ever rule, as did the Massachusetts Supreme Court, that there is no "constitutionally adequate reason" to deny same-sex marriage, then the doors will be open to the legal recognition of every type of arrangement. That is, the number of people, two, that could enter into a "marriage" would undoubtedly be determined to be arbitrary, opening the doors to legalizing polygamy. We have already seen that the breakdown of the traditional family has had devastating consequences in the African-American community where a majority of births are now out of wedlock. A legal recognition of multiple person "marriages" would be extremely detrimental to society as a whole, although certainly divorce attorneys would be the big winners. Advocates of gay marriage pooh-pooh this idea, stating that their goal is the legal recognition of same-sex couples, but should that ever occur, all bets are off - just wait and see. Terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's reign of death came to an end as a result of 1000 pounds worth of well-placed smart bombs. When the initial reports of his demise were being broadcast, I commented to my wife that it was too bad that he didn't get to experience any of the same terror before the moment of death as did his many victims. Later reports, however, indicated that al-Zarqawi was still alive for a while after his "safe house" (a misnomer if I've ever heard one) was hit and was apparently cognizant of American military personnel on the scene before he expired. One can only hope that he knew that he had been defeated. Some have suggested that al-Zarqawi's demise is largely symbolic and may not affect the operation of al-Qaeda, but this is poppycock. The extermination of this barbarian is a significant victory and there is simply no way to legitimately put a negative spin on the elimination of this decidedly evil individual. He now joins other notorious killers such as Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Vlad the Impaler to name a few, in a place where there are no virgins, but is instead, quite warm. The world is now a better place. -- Send feedback to the author. The "What is the Deal?" column will appears weekly on the Pie of Knowledge website. Guest submissions are welcome and encouraged. To submit an article to "What is the Deal?" click here. To subscribe to the "What is the Deal?" mailing list and receive early notification when a new column is available, click here. The Pie of Knowledge will never, ever divulge email addresses to any third party for any reason unless so ordered by a court of law. Contributions to the Pie of Knowledge are greatly appreciated. 
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