Vancouver V. Virginia February 24, 2010March 17, 2017 NOT A BIG DEAL BUT . . . Turns out the President and CEO of the 2010 Olympics is gay. (We’re good at running things – hotels, weddings, cities, Olympics.) And he threw us a party. Asked later why he felt it was important to hold a party specially for the LGBT community, he replied: “We’re wanting to showcase Vancouver and British Columbia and Canada, and the LGBT community’s a vibrant part of our society here. Really we want to celebrate our diversity and the tolerance of our culture and also showcase ourselves to the world. There’s also kind of a business imperative here. Gay tourism is worth 60 billion dollars in the U.S., so there’s some good business networking that can occur. But aside from that, it’s just a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate those Canadian values of tolerance and diversity and what creates such strength in our culture here.” ☞ Our good neighbors to the North. What must they think of the new Governor of Virginia, who last month specifically rescinded his predecessor’s anti-discrimination order? It’s now okay again in Virginia to fire a government employee – however good his or her job performance, however long he or she has been on the job – simply because of his or her sexual orientation. And they use, as their slogan, Virginia Is For Lovers? I prefer this slogan: Boycott Virginia. And while I have your attention . . . SOME GOOD NEWS OUT OF CPAC (NO – SERIOUSLY!) True conservatives favor government that doesn’t intrude on the rights and freedom of the individual. (Barry Goldwater famously only cared whether a soldier shot straight, not whether he was straight.) Here a young conservative makes that point in two-minutes at CPAC. (Most of the booing comes from one guy near a microphone.) There follow two minutes by a “natural law” advocate. (Most of the booing comes from . . . everybody.) And if I still have your attention . . . “GLARRIAGE” Roberto: “I believe strongly in equal rights for all. I do not like the use of the word marriage as it relates to a same-sex wedding. The word marriage means the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law. Couldn’t we have the same exact thing for people of the same sex but just use another word to describe it?” ☞ Yes! Just pass a Constitutional Amendment requiring that – for the purposes of the tens of thousands of federal, state, and local laws and hundreds of millions of private contracts that refer to “marriage” – the word you choose will be deemed equivalent. But Constitutional Amendments are hard to pass. (The last one, in 1992, though completely trivial, took 202 years.) Also, “separate but equal” is un-American – in contrast to “the separation of church and state,” which many consider bedrock American. So I prefer this solution: Let’s set in stone that the government will NEVER tell a religious institution whom it must or may not marry. But that government will also never discriminate in issuing civil marriage licenses (or driver’s licenses, hunting licenses, liquor licenses) based on race, religion, disability, fertility, sexual orientation, intent to have children, inability to have children, prior divorce, prior multiple divorce, near-certain incompatibility, or pretty much anything else. If there is an age requirement, it should apply to everyone, equally. If a sobriety test is required – likewise. The good news: more and more people are deciding, What’s it to us if we allow gays equal rights? Here, indeed, is last Friday’s Salt Lake Tribune – no less – advocating much the same approach: “Religion should be kept out of what is essentially a government-sanctioned legal partnership. And government should not be involved in religious marriage rites.” Amen. GLDD The stock dropped as low as $4.36 yesterday on disappointing quarterly earnings. Here’s the press release. I still like it for the long haul and bought more.