Doubting a Decision

A couple of years ago, when I was giving serious consideration to actually leaving my marriage, I spent a lot of time thinking about the pros and cons. One of the biggest things was the subject of children. I had three kids from a previous marriage, and I knew that the current wife wanted to have kids.

I was getting older, and the thought of having another kid at my age was not appealing at all. I knew that if I were to have another child, it would be graduating high school about the time I was wanting to retire. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do in life, mostly traveling, and felt that having another kid would put a damper on that.

Christmas of last year, I had gone home to see my family. My sister had a little girl a couple of years ago, and this was my first real opportunity to interact with her. The thing that I remember most about that trip is my little niece sitting on a chair across the room from me and babbling on in her own language.  I started talking nonsense words back to her, which caused her no end of amusement, and I wound up teaching her how to do the YMCA dance. After several iterations, I realized that the entire family was standing behind me, watching. After I left, I thought “That was fun.”

A few months later, my oldest son came to visit for a week. I took him to DC and The Statue of Liberty. While we were sight seeing, I realized that I was feeling the same sense of joy showing him around and sharing the experience with him that I had always wanted to share with a spouse. I started to realize that maybe, just maybe, it was possible to have my dream of seeing the world, and sharing it not only with a spouse, but with kids, and it would be just as special. Maybe more so. I started wondering if perhaps having kids wouldn’t be a damper on the seeing the world experience, but possibly make it better. I started thinking about other people I knew that had kids, and still were able to travel and see the world. I thought about how I was envious of their kids for being able to broaden their horizons, while I never had been able to. I finally realized that it was a bit selfish of me to think sharing these things with my kids would be a detriment to my own enjoyment.

The last thing that took me by surprise happened just before the Memorial Day weekend. We were having a barbecue at work, and one of the girls at work brought her 5 month old little girl. Of course, all the women were passing this poor child around like a bong at a frat party. Once again, as has happened so many times, this little girl caught sight of me and just kept looking and smiling. Her mother was amazed at how much attention was being paid to me by her daughter. As I sat there, watching my co-workers play baby baby who’s got the baby, I suddenly realized, to my amazement, that I wanted a turn holding her.

It kind of freaked me out.

I have technically been out of my marriage for a year. It was almost a year ago that I left on the five week assignment, after which I left my wife. Except for the two weeks when I was back, telling her I was leaving and packing everything up, I have essentially been separated almost a year. It has been long enough that I have been thinking about the possibilities of getting into a relationship again. One of the things that had been bothering me was that the likelihood of finding someone who didn’t already have kids, and who never wanted kids, was very very slim. So I had to take a look at how I felt about getting involved with someone who already had kids, and if they didn’t, how I felt about the fact that if they didn’t have kids, they probably would.

Mulling this over in my mind, I realized something. It wasn’t the kids that I didn’t necessarily want, it was child support. Child support, more than anything, has been that thing that has kept me from doing many of the things that I wanted to do. I simply didn’t have the money. I realized that it wasn’t that I didn’t want kids , it was that I didn’t want kids with the X2B. I knew how that would turn out. I knew that she did not have the capacity to be a good mother. I also knew that there was a really good chance that we wouldn’t last, and I didn’t want to start paying child support all over again. I also realized that, because of the failure of my first marriage, I have never had a chance to raise a child of my own. My oldest was six when we split, the youngest was under two. My ex and her new husband raised my kids. It has caused a lot of problems in my head. Every time they screw up, I blame myself since I wasn’t able to be there for them. If they do good, I am unable to take any credit for it since I really didn’t have a big part of their upbringing. The best I could say is that I was the “cool dad.” I was the one that could relate to them better. I kind of had that grandparents attitude of “love them, spoil them rotten, then send ‘em home.”

So, here I sit, getting ready to see a lawyer in a week or two to get the divorce papers ready for filing as soon as I legally can. When the judge signs, I will finally feel like I can get involved again, and I have doubts about my decision to not bring any more kids into this world. Right now, it kind of feels like I would not be opposed to the idea, as long as I felt there was a reasonable certainty that I would be able to raise them, and not just pay for someone else to do it.

Of course, this whole thing is rather academic. You cant be thinking about having kids if you cant find anyone willing to have sex with you.

It’s Official

Last night, extreme boredom and a healthy desire for any kind of company drove me once more into the fray of forced socialization.  I decided to go have a beer or two, and to try out the last of the bars in town that had been recommended as place to hang out and meet people. The sports bar attached to the bowling alley.

Yup. The bowling alley. That should give some indication regarding this damn town, the bowling alley is one out of three recommended places. Don’t get me wrong, I love to bowl. I started bowling when I was six years old, and at one time I was pretty good. But bowling alleys are places you go with people you already know, not to try to meet people. The bar was nice enough, very spacious and big screens all over the place, a typical sports bar. They even have a Wii hooked up to one of them so you can drink and play video games. Guess what game they had up? That’s right… BOWLING. In the bar attached to the bowling alley you can virtually bowl. From what I could tell, the place does not get a lot of business because I watched the bartender get seven strikes in a row on the Wii. Obviously he has had a lot of practice. The first problem I had with the bar was the bar stools. The seat was almost four feet high. I felt like I was four years old again. I had to step up onto the brass boot rail near the floor, then onto the lowest rung of the stool before I could swing my ass onto the seat. I expected my beer to come in a sippy cup.

The second problem was the customers. There were about a dozen people in the place, four of which were female. Three of those were with a group that was playing darts, two guys for every girl. The last was sitting with her husband playing the trivia game. The crowd in the corner playing darts seemed to be having fun, the kind of fun you get when you are getting away with something. Like being underage in a bar. I sat and watched the video juke box playing rap videos while I nursed my beer, thinking things might improve as it got a bit later. The crowd grew, more and more people came in and started talking to each other and laughing. They were all guys. Now there was about five guys for every girl. I finished my beer and used the thoughtfully provided rappelling gear to get off my stool and went home. That was when I decided that it was official: I hate this town.

The next morning, I went to the coffee shop for breakfast, and talked to the one male waiter there, who actually has the appearance of someone who likes to go out and have a good time. He confirmed every observation I had made regarding the town. First and foremost, if you didn’t grow up there, you were an outsider and the only way you will have a conversation with someone is at gunpoint. He also confirmed that 99% of the women that he either worked with or knew because of his job were married or dating. And he also confirmed that this town sucks.

Being a glutton for punishment, and still bored out of my mind with no idea what to do with myself all weekend, I decided to waste some time. Normally, for me, this would have meant going to the various pawn shops and trying to find a hell of a deal on something I never knew existed, but could no longer live without. But there are only two pawn shops in the area, and their merchandise hasn’t changed since I got here. So, I decided to take a look at the Swap Meet.

Wow.

There were the usual people that you expect to see at a swap meet, the ones that don’t have enough for a full garage sale so they spend twenty bucks for a stall and try to get rid of all the baby furniture left over after the tubes got tied. But the thing I used to enjoy about swap meets were the regulars. The ones who are there week after week, who have a permanent stall and try to make a living out of selling shit nobody wants. VHS Tapes, old DVD’s, LP’s, knick knacks, candles with the Virgin Mary on them, rusty tools, knock-off designer clothes, bins full of dollar store items half off. There was one guy there who actually had some German WWII stuff, Nazi pins and medals, army helmets, and even a mold for making your own .50 caliber black powder ammo. That was the only tempting booth. The one that made decide to leave was one of the knick knack stalls. I wanted to take a picture of this, but the lady behind the table scared the shit out of me.

You know all those pairs of shoes you see hanging from power lines? You ever wonder what happens to them? They hang there in the breeze for months, then they just disappear. I always thought that the power company removed them if they happened to be doing work there, or the shoe laces would eventually rot through and they would fall to the ground, possibly hitting a car in the windshield. But now, I know the truth. This lady takes them. She somehow gets those shoes down from the line and takes them home. Then she fills them up with dirt. Then she plants something in the dirt, and when it sprouts, she takes it to the swap meet and sells it for twenty dollars. Twenty. Frickin. Dollars. For an old shoe with dirt in it. Normally, I would have just laughed at the idiocy of this. But there was a lady there trying to haggle a discount price for a matched set.

I weep for the species. And I hate this town.

Mathematical Improbability

I was recently talking with two of the ladies I work with, and we were discussing various things. I mentioned that I had bought a Play-Doh Fun Factory for the express purpose of making Space Invader cookies. The younger of the two, in her early twenties, was amazed that I knew how to make cookies. I then went on to describe a few of  other baked goods that I am able to make. I knew that many of the terms I was using were going over her head when she described an egg separator that had been given to her by her grandmother, and I had to tell her what it was for and how to use it. Then she asked why you would want to separate the egg yolk from the egg white. The first thing that popped into my head was that egg whites are used for meringue. I then also told her that I use a egg white and water mixture to dip chicken into before coating it with my own special blend of corn flake crumbs and various spices and seasonings. I explained that by doing this, I was able to get a crispy outer coating, while the chicken inside remained moist and juicy when baking, rather than frying. At this point, she turned to the other lady and asked, “Are you hearing this?”

The other lady looked me in the eye and asked, “How in the hell are you living alone?”

Further discussion reiterated what I had been told in the past. Women who are already attached see me as the embodiment of what they wish their current partner was more like. While I am not currently ready to start dating again, the conversion did get me to thinking about the time when I am ready. As things stand right now, I am still married, even though I have been separated for over six months. I cannot change that fact for another six months, due to state laws regarding divorce. But that even outs, really. Most “professionals” state that you should give a year after a divorce before you start thinking about dating, so by the time I can file for divorce, that year waiting period will be over. Once the Judge signs the paper, I can date again and not violate my own personal standards regarding cheating on a spouse, and will have completed the recommended period of  “alone time.”

As I went through the rest of the week, going to stores or restaurants, I began to take a greater notice of the females I encountered. Things didn’t look good for the future. The ones that I saw that met my indecipherable criteria for interest all had a similar health issue: A huge tumor growing on the ring finger of their left hand. More commonly referred to as an engagement or wedding ring. Since a friend of mine has been studying statistics and probability and we have had several discussions about it, I thought I would run the numbers and see where I stood.

I pulled up the Census data, as predicted for 2008 and then looked at the demographic breakdown for different categories. I then used my own “rule of thumb” and “SWAG” estimates on the hard data. (If you don’t know what SWAG is, it is an acronym meaning Scientific Wild Assed Guess)

I used population data for the county rather than the small town since it gives a much larger sample to work with. The county population is 14 times higher than the town, and the county is so small that nowhere in it is a drive of more than 20 minutes. The county population is 42,190 people, with 50.5% being female. So there are more women than men, so far so good. I now have a group of 21, 306 women to choose from. But wait! Not all of them are in my age range. Luckily, the census data had already selected a age range that fits my personal age range of date-able women, the 25-44 bracket. Only 29.9% of the population falls in that range, so now I am down to 6,370 date-able women. But I do have standards, and I will only date unmarried women, so combining the demographics of “single, never married” and “divorced,” there is only 32.4% out of those that I can look at. This leaves 2063 potential subjects.

Not bad. Even if I assume a 1 in a hundred chance, there are still 20 to pick and choose from, and that is based on the hard data. But I haven’t added in the SWAG data yet. Based on information gathered from various sources, basically meaning that I got to know a few people at area restaurants and bars and flat out asking them about women that met my attractiveness quotient, approximately 60% of those without rings on their fingers are currently involved in a serious relationship that has been going on for quite some time. Eliminating those, we have 825 remaining possibilities. Keeping my eyes open in grocery stores, restaurants, etc, I have concluded that I only find 1 in 3 women in the area attractive. Now I am down to 272. Given my own quirks,  I would estimate that only 10% will either share or be able to accept the odd hobbies and interests that I have. Now we are down to 27 possibilities.  Assuming that there is only a 10% chance that two people will have a mutual attraction for each other, I am down to 2. Then we figure in the possibility of a chance meeting putting these people in contact with each other, which I calculate by adding myself to the number of possibilities and dividing by the total population, I am down to a .0007% chance.

What is the point of all this? Nothing really. Nothing more than a diversion into applied mathematics. A very complicated story problem. “Given the above data, how many one dollar bills Tick will need each month for the tipping in strip clubs? Solve for XXX.”

Blog Frustrations and Legos

Before I ever started this blog, I had been reading several others. They were interesting, funny, and on occasion, insightful. This is what I wanted to be. I thought that as I used the blogas a venting location for the frustrations I was going through withmy marriage and other things, I would be able to be witty and bitter, kind of like old school Denis Leary. Angry rantings of a bitter person that turned out to be hilarious. In the beginning, I had a moderate amount of success with this as I told stories about what had happened. I had continued using a moniker that had been placed upon me by coworkers, Bitter C.

Since I left my wife, the amount of things that have happened for me to be bitter about has decreased to almost zero. Of course, the things that could   be happening in my life that would make for an interesting blog has also dropped to zero. I really don’t have a social life in my new locale, the people here frighten me. I thought I would be used to rednecks and hillbillies. I grew up in Idaho, and have lived in Arizona and Texas. The people here in West Virginia are a different inbreed of redneck and hillbilly. One evening, not long after I arrived here, I was sitting in a Chinese Buffet restaurant, in a booth behind a man and his two young daughters. They were all very loud people, and it was impossible to not overhear. The first indicator that I was in a different world was when one of the girls made a comment regarding an earlier incident of her fathers flatulence. “Well, that’s why your mom left me,” was his reply. After that, I heard the following: “No! It’s your birthday, and we are NOT going to go to the damn Dollar General! We’re going to Walmart!” and “Boy, I wish I had had smart kids.”  The apple cant fall far from the tree when it doesn’t fork. It reminds me of the joke where a man was trying to console his brand new ex-wife as they left divorce court by saying, “Don’t be so sad, we’re still cousins!”

So, the blog has suffered. you are supposed to write what you know, but if I were to do that, all I would talk about is what I do when I get home after work. It doesn’t amount to much, and it doesn’t vary much from day to day. Boring life, boring blog. Occasionally, I will find an off the wall story on Fark or Digg, and it will fire me up enough to write a post about it. That doesn’t happen very often. Things that interest me are typically fringe or niche topics that the general populace doesn’t “get.” Things like Anime and Lego’s. But, just so I can post something,I am going to talk about Lego’s anyway.

I have been a huge Lego fan for a long, long time. After my first marriage ended, I bought a lot of Lego sets. It was a way for me to spend my weeknights at home. I hadn’t wanted my first marriage to end, and it really tore me up. I was on anti-depressants for a while, until I found that they were doing more harm than good. I was using sleeping pills nightly to go to sleep. The hours between work and sleep were the problem. My brain wouldn’t shut the hell up. It would interrupt TV shows and movies, making me wallow in the events that caused my depression. Reminding me that at that moment, my ex-wife was in bed with the boyfriend that she had left me for. Lego’s were an escape. It gave me something for my brain to focus on. I was able to occupy my brain so it wouldn’t have time to show me imagined scenes of what could be going on a thousand miles away. It was too busy trying to tell if the brick in the instruction manual was dark gray or black. It was busy trying to figure out what step had been screwed up so it could be fixed. The number of dollars spent on Lego’s was directly proportional to my level of depression. The more depressed, the more Lego’s were bought.

After the depression eventually faded, I was able to actually enjoy Lego’s for what they were instead of as an escape. I had moved on to a higher paying  job, and was able to afford bigger (and cooler) Lego sets. After ten years of this, I had accumulated a huge bucket of Lego’s. I decided to put the whole lot on eBay so I wouldn’t have to move them again. I sold them as a lot since I had not been saving the boxes, and when I took the models apart, I just threw the parts in one big bin. I sold the whole collection for around $1100. This was the biggest mistake I have ever made on eBay. Since then, I have attempted to obtain some of the sets that I had sold, and found at least three that are selling for more than I sold my entire collection for. I learned my lesson.

After I was laid off in Washington, I went back to Idaho and then Texas. I had been unemployed for a long time, and wound up working at Walmart to try and keep up with the wife’s medical expenses, child support and car payment. Depression had sunk in again. Working at Walmart did have one advantage, the head of the Toy department really liked me and would let me know when Lego sets were going on clearance. I was able to start collecting again at a discount. After leaving Walmart and getting a better job, I kept an eye out for Lego bargains, and the collection grew again. None of the sets were as cool as what I had before the eBay mistake, but the sets were able to turn my brain away from the deepening depression I was falling into as a result of another failing marriage.

In 2007, Lego announced a new set to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie. They already had the Star Wars license, and I had several Star Wars sets, but this was the pinnacle of Star Wars Lego’s. It was a detailed model of the Millennium Falcon, scaled to the same proportions and the famous Lego mini-figures. It would be the largest Lego set ever made at 5,195 pieces. This was the acme of geekdom for me, and I had to have it.

Lego Ultimate Collectors Edition Millennium Falcon

The big problem was cost. It was only available on the Lego website, not in stores, and would run $500. As much as I loved Lego’s and  Star Wars, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money. So this purchase has been a dream of mine for two years. One of those “someday” things that you hope you will get around to, but fear you never will. Well, this year’s tax return was probably the largest I have ever received. I followed one of the rules that I have tried to ingrain into my kids, “Do the have-to’s before you even think about doing the want-to’s.” I used the tax return to pay off my motorcycle, which gets me an extra hundred dollars a month in my pocket. I paid off two old debts so that they would get off my credit report. I put a decent chuck of money into my savings account, giving me my safety buffer that had been lacking since I moved up north. And I still had enough left over to finally get the Millennium Falcon.

There is a mall about an hour away from my house that has one of the few Lego Stores. You can get the “Lego Exclusive” items there without having to buy them over the Internet and wait for shipping. As an added bonus, if you buy in-store, they have those little cards like coffee shops that they stamp for every x  number of dollars which entitles you to gift cards. I have a policy to never spend money I don’t have in pocket. I don’t spend money based on the anticipated arrival of more. I had received the tax refund, paid the bills, and could finally make the long drive to get the Lego set that weekend. And… I had to work that day. One of the rare occasions where I need to be in the office, even though the likelihood of anything happening was slim. So I sat, all damn day, thinking about how I could have already gone to the mall and gotten home with my dream Lego’s and be putting them together. Finally the end of the day arrived, and I went to the mall. I walked straight to the counter, where I was courteously asked if I could be helped. “I would like one Millennium Falcon, please.”

It was a long walk through the mall back to the parking garage, that box was heavy! It weighed around thirty pounds, and was awkward as hell to carry through a crowded mall. If I hadn’t been so enamored of my purchase, I would have used it to start smacking people. I simply cannot believe the society we live in. More than once, I saw the slow moving people in front of me turn and see me walking behind them with this huge box on my shoulder, and not move to the side. I even had one idiot walk a bit faster to get on the escalator before me. Dude, there will always be big soft pretzels available, I don’t think the extra two seconds would have caused your death by starvation. Fucker.

I got my purchase home, and finished up the previous Lego project. I have been assembling every Lego set I have so that I can document missing pieces so I can replace them from the Lego web site. Then I started sorting the Millennium Falcon pieces. With almost 5200 pieces, this is not a set where you just dump them all in a Rubbermaid container and start building. Well, OK, you could, but it would increase the build time immensely.

I have been taking a digital photo of every single step of the assembly, and will be posting it to another web site, once I get it done I will post a link here. In the meantime, I just have to remember to take the time to eat while I build. And I have already picked out my next Lego purchase. The Eiffel Tower.

A Question of Faith

Let me make a couple of things clear at the outset of this post, in the interest of clarity. I am a Mormon, but not a good one. I disagree with the LDS Church’s stance on gay marriage.

I was born and raised in a community that is about 95% Mormon. I was born a member, I attended church for most of my youth, and I took voluntary Seminary classes that taught doctrine and Church history. I was never what they call an “active” member. At this point in my life, I violate a few of the important teachings. The biggest violation is what is called the “Word of Wisdom.” This is the teaching that most non-Mormons know about. Essentially, this is the teaching that says don’t drink coffee or a soft drink with caffeine in it, don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol. If you take the religious aspect out of this, it could be the teachings of a health club.  The only other things that I do that cause me to be a “Jack-Mormon” is I don’t attend church regularly, and I don’t pay my tithing. Other than that, I pretty much follow the teachings. I don’t cheat on my taxes, business dealings or spouse, I try to treat others the way I would want to be treated, and I believe in the strength of family. I may not be a “good” Mormon, but I believe myself to be a good person.

The reason I stopped going to church is because of the people. Too many of them had a holier than thou attitude that was rather incongruous with their actions. Without going into too much detail, here is an example of the kind of behavior that caused me to not go to church anymore. When I was 17, my first child was born. I wasn’t married. This meant that I violated a pretty important teaching of the church regarding pre-marital sex. I was confronted by a fellow student at school, who informed me that I was a bad Mormon, I should be excommunicated from the church, and various statements indicating how much better he and his family were due to their church standing. A month ago, he went on the run for ripping off about $50 million in a Ponzi scheme. These kinds of people were prevalent in the community. With so few people in the community, and most of them in the religious community, church standing easily correlated to social standing. It wasn’t necessarily about how much money you had, but how important your church calling was.

With all that out of the way, I can get to meat of what I want to talk about: The recent uproar regarding the involvement of the LDS church in the California Prop 8 vote. As I stated in the first paragraph, I disagree with the Mormon stance. Let gays get married. It isn’t hurting anyone in anychurch, and if your church doesn’t want gay people in it because of their doctrine, kick ‘em out of the church. I do not, however, believe that gay marriage is a constitutionally guaranteed civil right. To be clear, I don’t believe that heterosexual marriage is a constitutionally guaranteed civil right. Marriage is a social agreement that has been granted certain governmental privileges in the way of taxes, health care and property rights. I have talked about this before, and I wont rehash it here.

From what I understand, the Mormon church sent a letter to some of its members requesting that they provide monetary support to organizations opposing the legalization of gay marriage. The church has disclosed that it provided almost $200,ooo in “in kind” donations, meaning airplane tickets, hotel rooms paid for, etc. But so far, no actual cash donations have been disclosed or uncovered. The monetary donations were made by members of the church, not the church itself. This has not prevented the proponents of gay marriage from blanketing the media with the fact that the Mormon church violated the separation of church and state by providing somewhere around $25 million to defeat the measure. These people are also pushing for the removal of the churches tax exempt status on the basis that they got involved in politics. This basically amounts to a fundamental, possibly deliberate, misunderstanding of how things work. These people are screaming about how their rights are being violated because a specific group of people donated money to a cause. Their response, punish those people by taking away their right to donate to a cause. Now we are getting into actual violations of rights. If we can agree that it was members of the church donating money, and not the church itself, these people want to say that members of a certain church do not have the right to donate money to a cause they believe in. This is just as discriminatory as what they are claiming has been done to them. They don’t seem to realize this.

Religion is a very powerful thing. Not only in terms of personal belief, but also in exerting muscle in the form of followers. I don’t even know how many members the Catholic church has, but if the Pope says it, they follow it. The Pope spoke out against abortion, was this political, or was it a statement regarding the belief of the Catholic church? If it is a tenant of the church that abortion is wrong, and the followers of that church then go out and vote against abortion, has the Catholic church become involved in politics? Indirectly, yes. Implicitly, no.

I think the reason so many speak out against the Mormon church has to do with church history. Yes, it is true that the “official” Mormon church once practiced polygamy. They no longer do, yet anytime there is a polygamous community on the news, they are referred to as Mormons. Yes, it is true that one of the teachings of the Mormon church involves special undergarments, referred to as just Garments inside the church. Yes, it is true that the church believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God who translated physical written records from the time of Christ. Yes it is true that until 1978 blacks were not allowed to hold the Preisthood. This does not mean that they weren’t allowed in the church, they were not granted the “Power of the Preisthood.” And yes, it is true that Mormons believe that if you live righteously, you will be granted the ability to form your own world, just as the current God did.

Here is where things get skewed by misinterpretation and deliberate distortion of fact. The Mormon church is very focused on family. I think it is safe to say that everything in the church centers around this concept. The believe is that the structure of life on earth is a replication of life in Heaven. God is called Heavenly Father. He is the father of all life on earth. There is a Heavenly Mother. Christ was the chosen son of God, and we are all children of God. We are Gods family. The whole concept of living right and getting a world of your own is no different than hoping that your own kids grow up good and prosperous, get married and have kids. In other words, getting a world of your own is a existential version of moving out of your parents house and raising your own family. The deliberately misleading thing that get spewed into the public consciousness is that instead of world, the word Planet is used. I had never heard, in almost 20 years of Mormon teaching, that God lives on the planet Kolob. A recent conversation with my first wife informed me that they are teaching that the name of the place God lives is Kolob, but by calling it a Planet, it is much easier to label Mormons as wacky. Looking at it in this light, making fun of Mormons for believing God has residence that has a name makes as much sense as making fun of Catholics for having a city where the Pope lives. Its an address for crying out loud.

The bottom line is this: All of those people who want to impose some kind if punitive measure upon the Mormon church and its members are advocating the kind of discrimination they are claiming to be the victims of. Americans are guaranteed the right to worship who they want, to believe what they want to believe. You don’t get to choose what people believe for them, especially if the only only reason you have is that their beliefs don’t correspond with yours. The grass roots campaign that rose up was more successful at influencing the vote than yours. If we were to follow this line of reasoning, we should be challenging the election of President Obama on the basis that his campaign raised more money, or that his grass roots campaign was more effective.

Just like the presidential campaign, there will be another chance to bring the issue up again. You got the issue on the ballot once, you can do it again. Next time, do a better job of campaigning. But crying about how your rights were violated because you didn’t win is as stupid as saying it isn’t fair that the other guy can run faster and that’s the only reason he won the race. To use the same argument that the general Democrat public is using, “You lost, get over it.”

Oh, and one more thing: Until you quit attacking the young men in white shirts on bicycles, quit calling the Mormon church a “Hate Group.”  If it’s a Hate Crime to beat up a person because of their sexual orientation, it’s a Hate Crime to beat up someone based on religious belief.  In other words, quit being fucking hypocrites.