Weekend Reads 7/4/15

The Real Reason Why Conservatives Like Ross Douthat Oppose The Gay Marriage Ruling

Marriage is, bit by bit, becoming more about a partnership between equals who choose each other for the purpose of love and happiness. Which means it’s becoming less about giving men control over women’s lives.

In this sense, Douthat isn’t wrong that “support for same-sex marriage and the decline of straight marital norms exist in a kind of feedback loop.” To accept same-sex marriage is to accept this modern idea that marriage is about love and partnership, instead of about dutiful procreation and female submission.

American Crash: Part V

When Reagan declared in January 1981 that government was the problem, he inflicted a psychological blow upon this country that was in some ways worse than Watergate.

This Year Is Headed for the Hottest on Record, by a Long Shot

The heat was experienced differently across the world. People in the U.S. Midwest had an unusually cool May. But most of the rest of the globe had unusually warm to downright scorching temperatures. 

The stifling start to 2015 may be just the beginning. The National Weather Service predicts that a pattern of unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean, known as El Nino, has an 85 percent chance of persisting through the 2015-2016 winter. And this El Nino could be a big one. A strong El Nino doesn't guarantee record-breaking heat, but combined with the general trend of global warming, that possibility is looking increasingly likely.

Love Is Love: A Way Forward Together

Their own dilemma actually reflects a failure in the way LGBTQ rights have been framed. Marriage, long seen as the final frontier to be crossed, has eclipsed the fact that there are so many issues that are of equal or greater weight...

We could start with LGBTQ youth homelessness. Nearly 40 percent of the youth homeless population is LGBTQ. That is an epidemic.