What's Chapping My Ass This Week: On Tiger Woods, Afghanistan, and Gay Marriage

Now, if I was a more fastidious blogger, I wouldn't have to do these compound posts. But the realities of my profession (not just the stress, but the time necessary to come down from said stress), is such that I don't blog as much as a I should. So, again, without further ado, I'm unveiling a new-ish feature on this blog: What's chapping my ass this week. Its a feature dedicated to whatever the hell bugs me.

Tiger Woods: I have to admit that I'm following this story for the sheer spectacle of the thing. Watching Tiger Woods the past few days is like watching Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, etc. And to be honest, when I first heard the news, I assumed that Woods was drunk. After all, why else would someone drive into a tree at 2:30 a.m.? Being caught by your wife cheating (allegedly) is a pretty good reason too. But here's what chaps my ass - people are saying that Tiger Woods should apologize, as if he owes the world something or another. That's completely ridiculous. Tiger Woods is a golfer and a corporate spokesman. He doesn't tell people how to live their lives, he doesn't necessarily hold himself out as a perfect person, and he certainly doesn't moralize about other people's choices. So, who cares what the man does with his time? Well, his wife does - and believe me, its going to hurt if she divorces him - but I certainly don't feel betrayed. And neither should you (provided, of course, that you're not related to Tiger Woods or his wife).

Gay Marriage: Speaking of moralizing. . .Actually, this post has less to do with gay marriage than with the recent happenings in Uganda. Apparently, Uganda is about to pass a law that would make homosexuality a capital offense. Worse yet, this law comes as the result of lobbying by American Evangelicals. So much for hating the sin but loving the sinner. In the last few days, a Catholic cardinal, in direct opposition to Church doctrine, stated that gays never enter the Kingdom of God.

Here's my point, and what chaps my ass - is that more than a few "protectors of traditional marriage" don't want to protect traditional marriage, but rather, want to recriminalize homosexuality, which I find repugnant. I think that there are basically two types of anti-gay people out there - the ones who see homosexuality as strange and scary, and those who hate gay people. The first type, hopefully, are the majority, and the longer there there is an existing gay culture, the less this type will freak out. If I had to predict anything, I'd predict that same-sex marriage will be legal in all 50 states at some point in my lifetime. But that said, we can't forget the second type - those that have taken hatred into their hearts and call it religion.

Afghanistan To be honest, I'm entirely conflicted about Afghanistan. On one hand, I want to see Osama bin Laden, Muhammed Omar and every other Al Qaeda bastard dragged through the streets of New York and then ritually killed. . .err. . .given a "fair trial," and then sentenced to death. Went too far with my Italian roots. Sorry everyone, sorry. At the same time, Afghanistan is the epitome of a quagmire and I don't want the U.S. to stay there any longer than absolutely necessary. That said, what chaps my ass here is that if we took Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, like we could have, we wouldn't need to be in Afghanistan.