Leap Day
August 1, 2010 ~ 17 Comments
Not much to say about this one, except that I can’t believe it’s six years later and I we still don’t have our gay marriage rights back here in the Bay Area. This is severely damaging to our reputation as the gayest place in America. My wedding to Andrew was on the same weekend the first same-sex marriages were held in San Francisco, and it makes no sense to me that my marriage is still considered valid while thousands of marriages forged at the same time are challenged.
Also, drawing hands in close-up is really hard.
Check out my Viz bag with the old company logo in the next-to-last panel. Viz used to give out items like that at the annual New Year’s party. Good times.
Speaking of time passing, albeit a little more happily, yesterday marked the ten-year anniversary of Narbonic. Ten years ago, I was editing comics in MS Paint and uploading them late at night in the living room of the family I was renting from in Marin County. In retrospect, I have no idea why I thought this was a good idea or kept up with it as long as I did. But I’m glad I did and want to thank everyone who stuck with me. Thank you!
My friend Tea Fougner drew me this tenth-anniversary cast pic. Thanks, Tea!
Happy birthday Helen & Dave!
The Auld Grump
It’s been a very long decade, but Mell has finally fulfilled her dream of replacing her right arm with a rocket.
That today is the 10th anniversary of Narbonic has (finally) prompted me to register for an account.
Happy birthday Helen & Dave (annnd Mel, Caliban, Artie, et al.)!
And a huge thank you Sharon for creating what is my favourite comic! You have made several weekends completely disappear as the archives (in both dead-tree and electronic forms) required re-reading.
Yes, thanks! I’d say you’re half-right about the distraction factor; the other half is just classic Puritanism — “deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun”. Also, the Rethuglicans just like condemning and abusing people.
Happy birthday, Narbonic!
This has been consistently one of my favorite comics for the last decade.
(TUNE: “Heart Of The Matter”, Don Henley)
I’d heard the controversy from watching on TV,
And talking to a friend …
And protest groups were saying this surely had to be
A sign we’re near The End …
I remember when I found out
How happy I could be
When I found you, and you found me …
Didn’t know just what would be there
So I went to City Hall,
And there wasn’t much to see there,
But what I saw there said it all …
Well, I’m tryin’ to get through
All the noise and the chatter,
But today I saw
That the one thing that matters,
That it’s really about
Commitment … commitment …
All it means, all it means, people saying they’re in love.
Wow, ten years. How time flies. Either that, or some sort of evil time machine.
The GLBT(etc) crowd has every right to “be just as miserable as the rest of us…” 😉 and form a legally binding life partnership. Just call it a Civil Union and sign all the legal paperwork needed to make it so, and we’ll all get along just fine.
Don’t call it Marriage, that’s a religious based term with a very specific meaning. Words do have meanings. And though I’m not one (and fairly neutral on the subject) I can see why the religious right takes great offense when you try to co-opt the word.
And the harder that Gavin Newsom & Co. tries to ram it through, the greater the resistance he’s going to get.
It’s not an anti-gay thing, it’s the vocal minority forcing things on the majority – and crying “Discrimination!” when the majority objects.
Bruce, while I do agree with you mostly, I do have to say that marriage does not have as specific a meaning as people think. And that the inspecific meaning has in fact changed over time and varies on geographic location.
On a slightly different note, my stance on the issue is, “Why do you care if someone gets married? It has no impact on your life, so shut the hell up and let them join the misery of marriage. And don’t bother arguing with me, I am in a kilt. Never argue with a man in a kilt.”
I think my argument went into a weird place at some point there, so here is a cute bunny:
(/)
(o.o)
(>_<)o
Now I can marry my roommate just for the tax returns!
Ed, you’ve amazed, amused, edified and entertained me, but today you moved me to tears. I love this comic of Shaenon’s, and I love your filk. Thank you both.
Ten years! Wow. I “met” you when Narbonic was maybe 9 months old. I met the wonderful woman who became my wife a few months after that. Is it bad that I’ve worshipped Helen longer than I’ve worshipped Margaret? 🙂
I didn’t realized, it’s awesome! A Decade of Narbonic!
A lot of conservative people deliberately distance ourselves from the Religious Right. I know plenty of people who view gay marriage as a nonissue or, like me, actively support it. I support it both because it’s stupid to be that exclusionary and also for legal equality issues (like you said about tax returns, or spousal privilege). If a clergyman doesn’t want to marry a gay couple that’s his or her right, but the state should never base legal discrimination on religious morality.
Bruce: If you believe marriage is exclusively a religious ceremony (conforming to the traditions of YOUR religion, of course), does that mean that only people of your religion should be able to get married? Or only people who share a religion, or only people who follow a religion at all? Obviously not — I don’t see anyone seriously claiming that atheists shouldn’t be married, or that mixed marriages should be illegal. If your religion says that it’s OK to get married to more than one person, or to someone underage, does that mean you should be legally allowed to? No — in fact, I don’t know about the latter, but I know that when Utah joined the union they were forced to stop allowing multiple marriages, religious reasons or not, because that was the law of the US. On the other hand, if your religion forbids marrying outside your faith, or getting divorced, does that mean that it should be illegal for members of your religion — much less people who AREN’T of your religion? No. If a Catholic wants to get divorced and remarry, if an orthodox Jew wants to marry a Christian, or even if a priest wants to get married, as far as I know, US law won’t stop them — that’s a problem for their religious officials to deal with. And you’d be laughed out of the courts for trying to argue that because, for instance, Catholics don’t get divorced, NO ONE should — because why should they be allowed to impose THEIR restrictions on everyone else? They shouldn’t, of course, and neither should you.
So to sum up, there are already legal marriages made every day that would be against at least some religions, and marriage licenses denied, or never applied for in the first place because the people involved KNOW they’d be denied, that are allowed by their religions. LEGAL marriage exists, whether you personally like it or not, and it is NOT dependent on what your church or any church allows.
Would you agree to call YOUR marriage a “civil union” because someone else feels that marriage is a rite of THEIR religion, which you don’t share? Or because their religion says the person you chose to marry isn’t an acceptable spouse? I doubt it. But that’s exactly what you expect other people to do, because whether THEIR marriages make YOU uncomfortable is obviously so much more important than whether YOURS makes OTHER PEOPLE uncomfortable.
this is sweet.
Argh ! Webcomics with socio-politicals comments from the authors ! Hate it ! Hate it so much !
But I appreciate you let them OUT the comic proper. Thanks for that.