My Sunday haiku (and gripes):

On Veteran's Day--
Memories of sacrifice
And many big sales.

And now, the Sunday gripes:

If it weren't important to me, I wouldn't keep flogging this dead horse. Things keep showing up in the news that convince me we need separation of church and state in this country.

The institution of marriage is an example of the confusion created when we mix up religion and politics.

People are married in church, a preacher performs the ceremony, and God figures prominently in the discussion. That's the traditional idea of a wedding, and there's not a thing wrong with it. The problem is, once the ritual is over the newlyweds get a whole new set of rights, privileges, and responsibilities in the eyes of the law, their income tax filing status being one example that sticks out immediately.

We spend a lot of time in this country dithering over what homosexuals are up to. In fact, we even elect the people who decide on war vs. peace based on how we think they'll handle the queers. For a lot of people, homosexuality is a sin condemned by God; I don't have a problem if people who think like that want to deny gay people the opportunity to hold a wedding in their church. But what about all the rights and responsibilities under the law that married people have and gay people don't ? That's why I generally favor something along the lines of civil unions, the option of changing laws to eliminate the marriage benefits being DOA.

A recent article in the Dallas paper says that Texas leads the nation in teenage birth rates, and suggests this might be an unanticipated consequence of the state's emphasis on "abstinence only" instead of practical sex education. If so, it's another example of why public policy shouldn't be designed primarily to keep the Southern Baptists happy.

The big story in political campaign news this week was Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, the conventional wisdom being that Pat's wink and nod gives Rudy some necessary cover on his right.

If Pat Robertson wasn't so dangerous, he'd be laughable. This is a guy whose theology is based on the idea God spends his time thinking up ways to get even with the human race. Still, I can't underestimate any lunatic who shapes the thinking of nearly a million people on any given day, and can fool thousands into mailing regular cash contributions.

The idea that a televangelist's endorsement could put Rudy in the White House may not bother you, but it totally pisses me off.