Your employees are slacking.

"We're not going to stop until marriage between a man and a woman is protected," said Sen. Sam Brownback. Do any of you think marriage between a man and a woman is not protected? It's very interesting how the republiskunks are pandering to the fringe without wanting to actually say they are "homophobic" or "anti-gay". And the sad thing is that it probably actually fools people. Rolling Stone magazine did a huge write up on Sam Brownback a couple months ago. Read it if you get the chance. This is one scary, scary, stupid, stupid dude. Sooner or later he's going to take a shot at the White House.

So even though everyone's retirement is scary crap and health care is even crappier, corporations are killing us (literally) and there's an illegal war that we shouldn't be fighting, those people we pay in Washington have been spending the last couple days arguing discriminatory legislation. They should all be docked two days of wages for this. Maybe three days for the Republiskunks who put this on the agenda.

Here's the heart of the matter. Marriage works. It's been around forever, and its great. And from my own experience, I can tell you there is nothing greater that sharing your life with someone. But if someone ends up finding a special person of the same gender, no protection is afforded. That person is not considered a relation and has no say in your medical decisions. That person has no spousal immunity and may be compelled to testify against you in a court of law. That person can not adopt and raise a child with you. Honestly, those are the people that aren't being protected. Civil rights for all has always been a painfully slow process in this country. But someday it will happen. It's part of the American experience. May we never be stupid enough to pass a Constitutional amendment to limit freedoms rather than add them.

And yes, this obviously is a ploy being used again like it has in the last few election cycles to motivate the Conservative base. But the sad thing is it works. In the hotly contested Congressional race in San Diego yesterday, the Democratic candidate ran on a platform emphasizing integrity and Republican corruption. The Republican ran on xenophobic anti-immigration platform. Part of that whole Republiskunk generate distraction from their failures, and the Republiskunks won.

It's beyond hoping that people will vote wisely. If they simply learned to vote in their own self interest that would be enough.