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(February 29, 2004) Well isn’t there always something to fill us with angst? This time, it’s the gays confronting the traditionalists, and the issue is becoming more hairy, and the gays are behaving like anarchists. With the help of certain lawbreaking mayors and judges, and other jurisdictions who are getting into the act, many gays are celebrating their so-called marriages. Almost everyone agrees that same-sex partners will and should have same legal rights as a married couple, that is, a man and a woman. Now gays, unhappy with the wording “legal partnerships”, want their union to be called a “marriage”. Since forever, marriage has been between a man and a woman, and nothing more. When children come into a marriage, they have one mother and one father, and in no way ever can two fathers or two mothers be a marriage. So it looks like there is a stalemate.

There is, however, a reasonable solution. Remember Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, when Romeo said “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”? To satisfy everyone, unions between gays could be called a garriage, with a “g”. That would sound the closest to the word marriage without trivializing the institution of marriage. Just change one letter, an “m” to a “g”, and if gays say the word fast enough, it sounds like marriage – even though it is not. Gays could get garried, hopefully have stable garriages, and celebrate long and happy years of gatrimony together. Isn’t that a really good King Solomon-type solution?

As a pedestrian observer of the human condition, and of the attitudes of society toward the two most widely used recreational substances, alcohol and marijuana, otherwise known as pot, one wonders why alcohol is universally accepted, condoned, and promoted, while marijuana is maligned and, in some places, forbidden. The U.S. Government has declared pot to be illegal, so many caught with it are fined, stigmatized, languish in prison, and are otherwise made miserable. There is documented medical proof that pot can relieve the pain of terminally ill patients and afford their last days a measure of mellow peace. Despite this positive use of the substance, the federal government continues to declare it illegal, even though some states do allow its use for medical purposes. Alcohol, on the other hand, gets a free ride, despite the fact that its legal use has caused, and continues to cause enormous human misery with the breakup of families, neglect of children, loss of jobs, accidents and killings by drunken drivers, and the overall drain on society. One could argue that while both substances are considered bad, alcohol causes more grief in the world than pot does.

During a trip to Jamaica many years ago, our tour guide pointed out the abundant marijuana bushes growing wild alongside the roads, and he attributed the longevity and good health of most Jamaicans to their daily drinking of a tea made from the marijuana leaves. So one could wonder… if alcohol, with nothing good to justify its use, is federally legal, shouldn’t pot, with some significant proven good, likewise be legal? Or, put another way, if pot is illegal, surely shouldn’t alcohol also be illegal? Hmmmmm.