The debate rages on.

If you haven't already read it, Joey's blog has an entry that deals with multi-racial couples. It's something that's always been on my mind. My stepmother, for instance, is African-American. My father, is, like me, not. I remember when they first started dating, he thought, mistakenly, that I might be shocked by it. I was cool. I was happy. My dad was smitten, after all. I could care less what her racial make-up was. Although I witnessed how much other people can care- and I was disgusted.

Once upon a time, my dad wanted me to meet my then future step-mom and her 3 daughters. We decided to go to Roseville's oldest Mexican restaurant. I walked in first, followed by my three future step-sisters. It was eerie. Almost every table stopped, looked, and then seemed embarrassed by the fact that they did so. I was glad that they felt embarrassed. I was also pissed that it was an issue at all.

I don't get the hangup over inter-racial, inter-faith, and inter-cultural dating. If people are happy, why should I interfere? It's not my business. I've dated women of different religions, where my "hedonism" was a serious issue to the parents, but my friends never said to me "oooh, Dave, you better get away from that (Lutheran/Catholic/Jewish/Pagan/Wiccan) girl!" If they did, I would have replied "look, I'm happy. Be happy that I'm happy. Next round's on you, jackass."

Sorry to get graphic, but it boils down to this for me: this country was founded with the idea of the freedom to persue happiness. A quote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That's the Declaration of Independence, folks. That how we got this place started. So, if you are happy dating, marrying, or having sex with a member of the same sex, opposite sex, different race, color, or creed, I say it's protected by the ideals this country was founded. George Bush and John Kerry can't tell me I can't marry another man, a Mexican woman, a Russian woman, a black man, or a Japanese woman, because it is contradictory to the pursuit of happiness.

I understand that there are some restrictions that need to be placed on the pursuit of happiness, for instance, child molestation laws and the like, but that's just common sense, in my eyes. Is it so wrong to believe that race and creed and color shouldn't make a difference, due to common sense? Naive, maybe?

Ok. I've clearly entered into the rambling area of my psyche. More on this if I can more properly collect my thoughts.