Papers Please/What Has Really Damaged 

Papers please: Dud­ley Hiibel case
Web site recount­ing the case of a Neva­da ranch­er who was arrest­ed for fail­ing to pro­duce ID after a police­man request­ed it. The legal bat­tle that result­ed has reached the Supreme Court. Video of the event is avail­able for view­ing, as are many court documents.

An Unholy Union
by Emil­iano Antunez

While the cler­gy, the faith­ful and some self pro­claimed moral politi­cians watch in hor­ror, same sex cou­ples con­tin­ue to line up at San Fran­cis­co City Hall for a shot at tak­ing the plunge. As the hap­py cou­ples emerge from city hall in mar­i­tal bliss, many com­plain that the holy sacra­ment of mar­riage is being demeaned. The truth is that the once sacred vow was soiled long before the fren­zy in Frisco began. The dam­age the pious claim gay nup­tials have wreaked on mar­riage pale in com­par­i­son to the ones inflict­ed by orga­nized reli­gions in their quest for earth­ly power.

Mar­riage has been around in one form or anoth­er for near­ly five mil­len­nia; by com­par­i­son, gov­ern­ment par­tic­i­pa­tion in the union is in its infan­cy. In fact, it’s the pas­sion­ate desire of orga­nized reli­gions to merge with and con­trol gov­ern­ments that has led to the fes­tive atmos­phere on the steps of city hall. The only rea­son gov­ern­ments can actu­al­ly per­form mar­riages is because believ­ers in posi­tions of earth­ly pow­er have imposed their beliefs on their sec­u­lar con­stituen­cies. The sep­a­ra­tion of church and state has become a fig­ment of our col­lec­tive imagination.