Via Jeremy Blachman I found this interview with soon-to-be-ex-Times food critic William Grimes, who's much less of a gourmand than you might have thought (or hoped). But either he's a little confusing, or the editors got the wrong end of this question:

Right. There are only so many ways to say something is “tangy.”
Yeah. And there are two words that I swore I would never use. These two clichés: One is “slathered” and the other is “studded.” I think I used studded once in a weak moment, but I kept to my campaign pledge; I didn’t use those two words. (Emphasis mine).

Note discarded during the writing of Pale Fire:

Student explains that when reading a novel he likes to skip passages 'so as to get his own ideas about the book and not be influenced by the author.'

At the request of the Library of Congress, Vladimir Nabokov apparently agreed to translate the Gettysburg Address into Russian. He declined the $100 honorarium and suggested they donate it to a worthy charity. (You can view it here).

Alright, so let's assume that the "marriage is for heterosexuals" folks concede to a system of civil unions for homoseuals, with the same rights, responsibilities, and divorce codes as traditional marriage. What happens when John marries Jane and when John marries Tom is really only distinguishable in name only. The people who say marriage is by definition a man-woman thing have temporarily won.

But what happens when these couples take their civil union licenses, show up in front of their pastor/preacher/priest/what have you, and ask to be wed in front of God, their friends and family, and in their church's eyes? In many denominations, they'll be denied (such is the church's prerogative). In some, however, the marriage ceremony will be performed. I'm imagining a world where it's not only the Unitarian Universalists who will be so inclusive, but also more traditional Protestant denominations--the Lutherans, or the Episcopalians.

Now John and Tom have a civil union from the state and a marriage from the church. Are they married? The government might still say no. But when John and Tom talk about themselves, do they say "I am united to him" or "I am married to him"? I predict the latter -- if you have two titles, chose the one you prefer and think most apt (I realize, as this article notes, that some same-sex couples do not want the title of marriage). For how long will people who support gay civil unions but not gay marriages persist in considering John and Tom not married?

In general, we take people at their word -- we are required to act as though we believe them -- when they introduce memebers of their family, even if it doesn't meet the traditional image: this is my son, says the parent of a child who is clearly adopted. We don't quibble about appearances and blood ties. How they interact is what defines their relationship (but as Mrs Manners notes, a gentleman introduces a paid companion "whose appearance and behavior are not of a gentleman's customary social circle" as his nephew or niece, no questions asked, no pda with one's "relative", please). So now we have something that walks, talks, and quacks like a marriage, and we aren't allowed to say otherwise. Qualifiers really don't work well with verbs ('United' is too vague, so -- "Tom is gay married to John" or "Tom is married gayly to John" or "Tom is gayly married to Tom"? perhaps there's some permutation I'm missing), so even our tongues compell us to call it by the same name.

There are some people in the unwavering opposition, but eventually we've got a civil system where homosexuals and heterosexuals have the same relationships, only under different terms, and we speak of them in the same way. Given the lack of material differences, will it still be important for same-sex couples to get the piece of paper that reads "marriage license" and will this be harder or easier than if there were never a gay civil unions? I predict yes, for some couples, to the first question, but have no idea how the 'hardly a change' second option will swing.

Van Veen


The Nabokovian Man Quiz
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[For women click here]

David Adesnik has some good questions about David Brooks' Sunday column.

Jeremy Blachman is blogging about the confusion that is substantive due process and the right to die. I myself have always found it a trifle odd that there's no fundamental right to end one's own life even while there's a strongly-protected liberty right of some sort (though perhaps not fundamental) to end the life of one's fetus. Of course the cases can be distinguished, but not, I think, in the way that the court has distinguished them. (The reason Glucksberg (assisted suicide) was supposed to be such a victory for Scalia was that you could apply the reasoning practically directly to Roe/Casey (abortion).)

I haven't heard anybody arguing that a constitutional right to assisted suicide is wrong as a matter of first impression but right as a matter of stare decisis (because of Casey). But I don't think people take the abortion cases and stare decisis seriously enough to actually start using that logic to affect how other cases would come out.