Will they be providing the cake?

I should just stop reading the local news as all it does is aggravate me. I do not like the direction my state is headed.

(Side story: on my recent travels, I found a set of "cause" bracelets. They each say "I care about" on one side and then offer a variety of causes on the other side. I bought the one that said "the arts" and elicited gasps from the sales clerks when I explained that my state had recently become the only one not to have an arts commission.)

But I keep reading the paper. I really am a glutton for punishment. And today, I saw this: that our recently decimated, slashed, reorganized, and generally made useless Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services (SRS) is now going to focus lots of energy on encouraging marriage. Not successful family units or good parenting or stable homes. Just marriage. So all those single-parent families aren't desirable. And forget about families headed by same-sex couples 'cause of course, they can't really get married and marriage is the root of all that is good and pure in the world from the beginning of time. (We'll just agree to pretend that one man, one woman marriage has always been the be all and end all, even though deep down we all know that just ain't true.)

So, to recap, socialism (meaning any kind of sharing of sacrifice and burden) is bad but social-engineering is good. So much for keeping government out of private realms. I don't understand this administration's idea about the proper role of government at all. Government shouldn't be involved in funding the arts, regulating business (except, of course, the family planning business and abortion services), or limiting guns in any way. But government should micromanage the script a doctor must read to a patient contemplating abortion and should encourage marriage (but only of the opposite sex variety, of course).

I'm not opposed to marriage. (Well, ok, maybe I'm just the tiniest bit bitter about it, but I really don't begrudge anyone who wants to get married.)  But I'm not ok with my state so readily shoving marriage down our throats. A public relations campaign on the benefits of marriage? Really? Make it possible for people to get married, sure, but don't spend taxpayer money, my money, to encourage marriage. Especially not the agency that is charged with helping all children and families. Of all agencies, this one should not set the tone that one type of family is preferred to all others, is better.

It kinda makes me want to have a child out of wedlock. And I'd really like to answer some of their questions about my attitude toward marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and children born out of wedlock (which would necessarily include children born to same-sex couples).  Because I wouldn't mind giving them my two cents. I might even include the point that whatever money they're spending on this public relations campaign could have been much better spent funding arts programs for kids in Iola.