LET US HAVE NO MORE MARRIAGES: The current question at MarriageDebate is this: “Some advocates across the political spectrum are making the radical case for separating the civil and religious dimensions of marriage entirely. Let religions keep the word ‘marriage,’ they say; the state should merely provide civil unions for all. Lawmakers in New York and Massachusetts have already proposed this move.

“This radical proposal has won a surprising amount of support from religious believers who think the definition of marriage should be left to the churches; gay-rights supporters who want all couples to be treated equally; and some who believe it’s the best way to prevent alternative family forms from being enshrined in law.

“What’s your view?”

You can find a really excellent quote from Jonathan Rauch on this subject here. You can find a much less excellent post from me here.

Now, I ordinarily do not push my Day Job on you people. But I think a couple of the constituencies who read my blog (libertarians? hardcore crazy theocons? I’m so looking at you…) have a lot to say about this issue. Look: For a lot of reasons that I think are really, really bad, the more extreme libertarian and theocon positions are getting a mainstream hearing w/r/t civil marriage. Surely you want to take advantage of this opportunity. So tell me what you think.

Jim Henley: Hello, yes, staring fixedly in your direction. I am sure you have cogent commentary on all this.

TITLE TK: Yep, another post about good titles–and this time I don’t even have a good title for it!

First off, I’ve been reading many author-bloggers’ theories about titling, and I haven’t yet found anything especially illuminating. Maybe there’s nothing to be said about titling, and the only way to learn what works is to ruminate on a list of beloved titles? But I’d be interested to see if you all have more articulated thoughts.

Second, God of the Machine has a good post here, although I should point out that he misreads my “in context” note on some titles. I don’t mean that these titles are great if you’ve read the work already–I think that’s a separate, third category–but rather that the titles are great once you know a basic, one-sentence statement of the plot or theme. I haven’t read several of the books whose titles I listed as great in context: Atlas Shrugged, No Exit, The October People; and I read Childhood’s End so long ago that all I remember is that it’s about First Contact. But that’s all I need to know to like the title. (Wow, I hope I’m remembering that right!) Admittedly, I did fudge a bit on A Winter’s Tale–for that title to be as great as it is, you have to not only know the very basic plot outline, but also know the line, “A sad tale’s best for winter.” So I was sloppy with my “in context” notes…. Anyway, I just say all this to point out that there are at least three categories of great titles: great before you know anything about the book; great once you know a tiny bit; great only once you’ve read it.

And finally, an anonyreader (of whom more presently) points out that she sent me THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN yesterday, and yet I claimed it as my own discovery! In my defense I must explain that Yahoo Mail only brought her email to me late this afternoon. Why? Like the Trinity, it’s a mystery.

Now, your lists! Nothing that follows is written by me, except for the little asterisks, which indicate titles I love.

GOTM gives us a Wyndham Lewis-fest:

The Apes of God (which used to be the name of my fantasy baseball team. Not that I have a thing about omniscience.)

Snooty Baronet

Malign Fiesta

Revenge for Love

* The Vulgar Streak

The Doom of Youth

Men Without Art

* The Art of Being Ruled (The last three are non-fiction, so they may not be official, but I mean, come on.)

Lewis, I note impartially, can also lay claim to possibly the worst title ever, The Jews: Are They Human? His answer, incidentally, was yes.

The Anonyreader:

* The Life You Save May Be Your Own

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

* Brave New World

Infinite Jest (stealing from Shakespeare seems to be a good strategy)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (more theft!)

The New Atlantis (Bacon and Ursula LeGuin)

* “Aubade” (Larkin, in context)

“Love Draws Us to the Things of This World”

“Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (Bob Dylan)

“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (ibid)

The Sound and the Fury

The Dragons of Eden (Carl Sagan)

Paradise Lost

* The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Fear and Trembling

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Le Morte D’Arthur (when you realize it’s several hundred pages and Arthur only dies at the very end)

* Stranger in a Strange Land

* The World Is Not Enough (too good for a Bond movie)

Gravity’s Rainbow

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Woman Beware Woman

“The Circus Animals’ Desertion”

Things Fall Apart (stealing from poetry in general seems to work well)

* “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”

* “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” (Melville)

* Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (no desire to read the book, but the title is a great rhetorical device with a Greek name I’ve forgotten)

From Don at Mixolydian Mode:

M/F

The End of the World News

Snow Crash

Titus Groan

Hexwood

Loitering with Intent

* Cold Comfort Farm

At Swim-Two-Birds

* His Monkey Wife

Morte d’Urban

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

thinks . . .

Free Live Free

Neverwhere

The Miner’s Pale Children

The Holy Thief

Not to Mention Camels

* The Pedant and the Shuffly

The Egg and I

Iron and Silk

* Fabulous Small Jews

Stormbringer

Lion Country

* The Demolished Man

The Eve of St. Venus

Lost in the Funhouse

Rogue Moon

Neuromancer

[Eve notes: Ooh, he has another post here, with titles of SF short stories, Frank Zappa songs, and Celtic tunes!]

And from Sara Asmann: Douglas Adams had a great series with : Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Life, the Universe and Everything (overly general if you ask me)

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish

GOOD NEWS ROUND-UP of various pro-marriage initiatives on the state and federal level.

“As it happens, I experience my homosexuality as a (mild) disability. If I could have designed myself in the womb, I would have chosen to be heterosexual, because I feel I am missing out on something special and irreplaceable by not being able to conceive and raise a child with the partner I love. On the other hand, I say the disability is mild because most people need to do without some important opportunity. Life is like that. We play the hand we’re dealt.”

–Jonathan Rauch, Gay Marriage; can’t remember the last time I heard anyone say that.

RauchWatch 2004: Book is good. He has now talked about sex quite a bit, and on page 144 we even get our first (fleeting) reference to the existence of actual human bisexuals. Now the words I want him to use are “mother” and “father.” He has 52 pages in which to do this.

DahliaWatch 2004: It’s now more depressing than cheerful, so I should chuck it out. Well, that was quick.

“The marriage certificate is a kind of currency, like paper money. We value it because others do.”

–Jonathan Rauch, Gay Marriage. Still quoting bits I like.

RauchWatch 2004: In chapter three, we at last get sex! And it’s really well-done. (Yes, I do feel like a thirteen-year-old skimming Ulysses looking for the “good parts.”) But it’s immediately followed with, and possibly supported by (I need to think about how heavily Rauch’s claims about sex rest on this historical/psychological account), some just astonishingly fatalist, unsourced, melodramatic, and just-not-true! fake history. I would love some footnotes here to see where Rauch is getting this stuff. I expect much, much better from him. …More when I’ve finished the book.

DahliaWatch 2004: Mostly dead. But as Miracle Max tells us, mostly dead is partly alive!

“Most of what are usually thought of as the legal benefits of marriage are really gifts with strings attached. Or maybe strings with gifts attached.”

–Jonathan Rauch, Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America

I’m going to refrain (mostly) from arguing with this book until I’ve finished it, so I figured I’d quote you a true and nicely-put bit instead of one of the more problematic bits. I will note that if Rauch doesn’t start talking about sex soon, instead of only about caretaking, I will either scream or propose to him (since, after all, it’s not like we’d have to have sex or anything).

Blogwatch, it’s not a blogwatch so you feel a bit insulted…

Camassia on blogging and faith: “Book learning is, I’m sure, deeper than blogging for people who already have had in-person experience with faith and church. But for those outside, with no idea where to start, blogging is a much better way in.

“If Telford had never started his blog, not only would I never have met him, I most likely would never have met anyone like him.”

Family Scholars: Beautiful post from Elizabeth Marquardt about marriage and gift-giving. This is the opposite perspective from that standardized one that always must point out how “gift” in German is “poison.” Marquardt acknowledges how much most of us want to give gifts; in fact, to refuse someone’s gift is often a grave insult because it is like a refusal of the person and his affections. We want to be gifts to one another. And more here, from a different writer: “Keeping a running tab on your partner’s contributions doesn’t exactly make the heart grow fonder. And depending upon your partner for nothing but emotional sustenance does not necessarily bind you together when the going gets tough.”

Kross & Sweord: “What a difference four decades makes! In 1962 Leander Perez and several other Catholic politicians in Louisiana were excommunicated by New Orleans Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel. Their offense? Opposing Rummel’s pleas to end racial segregation in schools.”