My newspaper column for this week: Texas weddings and illegal water

[flowomo]

also online at:
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/11/10/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


Amendment reads like marriage ban
By Rich Lewis, November 10, 2005

I was involved recently in writing some new rules for an organization to which I belong. We were setting up procedures for electing and appointing officers.

You know, it’s not an easy thing to do.

Often when I wrote a sentence, I realized it might be misinterpreted and had to be worded more carefully. Or it led to a bunch of other questions that had to be addressed — which led to other questions. In the end, what I thought could be handled in a few paragraphs ballooned into two full pages of clauses, conditions and exceptions — and it’s far from complete.

I was reminded of just how tricky this business can be — and how disastrous the results if done badly — while following the election returns on Tuesday night.

As you might have heard, the citizens of Texas adopted an amendment to their state constitution that was designed to ban gay marriage in that state. It was approved by an overwhelming 76-24 percent.

Here’s what Proposition 2 said:

Sec. 32.

(a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.

(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

For once, that old cliche fits like a glove: “Houston, we have a problem.”

As many observers have noted, the problem is the amendment clearly makes all marriage between a man and a woman illegal.

A typical amendment or law begins with a definition (here’s what we’re talking about) and then prescribes an action (here’s what we’re going to do about what we’re talking about). In the Texas amendment that formula is followed precisely:

The (a) part says: This is marriage.

The (b) part says: You can’t make marriage (or anything like it) legal.

Oops.

You’ve heard of those Moonie “mass weddings”? Well, Texas just conducted the world’s first “mass divorce.”

My goodness, who’s going to tell the children?

Now, some people say the Texas courts will look at the amendment and realize that it was intended to preserve only “the union of one man and one woman.”

But it doesn’t say that, either in word or logic — and to achieve that interpretation you would need a little... um... “judicial activism.” Of course, such “legislating from the bench” is exactly what Texas’ favorite son, the president, declares is wrong with our courts. He insists that judges should abide by the “strict” wording of the Constitution.

Presumably, most Texans agree with that, including the wording of their own constitution.

Lots of other states have banned gay marriage and all of them avoided this error. As they say, everything in Texas is bigger — including their mistakes.

The other thing that can go seriously wrong when you’re trying to solve a problem by writing rules is that you can carelessly throw the baby out with the bath water. Or, as in this case, throw the water out with the beer.

It seems that Siena College, a Catholic school near Albany, had a problem with people getting drunk at campus parties and making a lot of noise and doing other undesirable things. I’m shocked, shocked. Who ever heard of such a thing on a college campus?

Anyway, according to reports in the Albany Times Union, Siena officials decided to solve their problem by declaring that students were “no longer allowed to consume alcohol or any other beverage in any type of container outside of their townhouse or in any public area on campus.”

Yikes. That meant no coffee, tea, orange juice, lemonade, Yoo-hoo or even water could be imbibed anywhere outdoors on campus, or indeed in any “public area,” although, wisely, the dining halls were exempted.

You can imagine the response from the students. For example, the Times Union notes, a cartoon in the student newspaper showed a student engulfed in flames begging for water. A passerby says to the human torch, “And get caught with an open container? Are you kidding?”

One student was apprehended by the campus gendarmes and ordered to pour out his cup of Starbucks. Another had his bottle of spring water investigated as though he was smuggling a bomb aboard an airplane.

I read an article about all this on Sept. 28 and immediately sent the story around to a bunch of friends because it was so amazingly dumb. Then I lost track of it until yesterday, when I thought I’d check back and see if there had been any new developments.

Yes, there had.

One day after the Times Union story, Siena rescinded its ill-considered dehydration program. The school’s vice president announced the abrupt reversal to students in an e-mail, which ended by saying, “Thank you for your patience as well as common sense as we review our policies.”

If only the administrators had shown equally common sense in the first place.

So, if you get stuck writing rules for something some day, please be careful you don’t bust up a lot of happy homes or leave flaming students to perish.

And if you happen to be looking for a spouse, I hear there might be a surplus of used ones in Texas soon.

Rich Lewis’ e-mail address is [e-mail]

[WilliamPitt]

1. Dear God.

This is poetry:

You’ve heard of those Moonie “mass weddings”? Well, Texas just conducted the world’s first “mass divorce.”

:)

[flowomo]

2. yeah, I try to have one good line a week....

sometimes two... but that's greedy.