New Banners and the swinging of the pendelum

I received my banner gift from my secret-not so secret admirer. I really liked it. He said that it was his first attempted and I was pleased. I feel kinda weird about the banners in general. I feel like it�s kind of a cheaters way out. In theory, or at least my theory, your diary should get hits from word of mouth or from others buddy list. I�ve only found one diary from a banner that�s in my list and quite honestly I�m thinking about clearing it out.

Which also brings about strange feelings because I�m not good with rejection. Not that I think that this diary owner is going to be upset or saddened by my deletion, I�m sure they don�t even know that I�m even there with the large numbers of people who have them listed. I just decided to day that I really didn�t get anything from their diary so what was the point of keeping it on there.

JAB and I are back to deciding whether to buy a new house again. We looked around today and saw one house that we really liked but we hated the location. We live in an up and coming area now which is more up than coming. The location of this house is definitely trying to get up but it has a long way to go. Another house that we saw is in a great location but the house is way too small for us. A lot of people wonder why two people need a house as big as ours but JAB and I need our own separate spaces. At least I believe we do. We�re leaning towards just getting a home equity loan and jump into the nightmare of remodeling.

This whole thing about Gay marriages is starting to bug me. JAB and I have no strong desire to �get married.� And in some ways I do think that �Marriage� is meant for a man and a woman. It doesn�t bother me as much that the Pope is rallying his troops to ban gay marriages, even though he didn�t seem too concerned about the pedophilia thing. (I�m Catholic so I can go there.) What bothers me is that the President is putting his two cents in. This, along with the whole affirmative action thing, is the major reason why I can�t vote for a Republican even though they have some financial views that I agree with. I always hear when I�m listening to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck that this country is going back to traditional values. The values of the 50�s. The one thing that a lot of people don�t get is that the 50�s wasn�t a great time for people of color. Yes crime was down and there was a lot more �family values� but I�m not that interested in having to use different bathrooms and sit at the back of the bus. I know a lot of people think that it would never happen again but I�m not sure. If this pendulum swings so far to the right, isn�t it possible. Americans are very good about ignoring things that doesn�t affect them. A lot of people don�t know that the Civil Rights Bill actually has an expiration date sometime in this upcoming decade. Is it so out of the realm of possibility that some slick Conservative could convince Americans that the bill isn�t needed anymore? I don�t know and I don�t want to think about that. Why did I even bring it up?

What I do know is that JAB and I have been together for 11 years. I�m ok with not having a �marriage� what I would want is something that can be recognized by the state so if JAB dies, his sister won�t have a right to take everything we�ve bought together and if JAB and I break up there is a legal way to figure out what belongs to whom. (Not that we have so much stuff.) There just needs to be something legal that recognizes Gay relationships. It�s only fair.

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