Marriage is cool again

Gays wanting to destroy straight marriage? Hardly. Lisa Mundy in the Atlantic (as summarized in Slate) says the opposite is happening. First, gay marriage is making straight marriage cool again. Second, without the hang-ups of gender roles the couple decides for themselves who does what, making the household more efficient and happier.

There is one little surprise. Gay dads are slightly more likely than straight couples to have a full time stay-at-home parent. It makes for a less stressful household.



Many people in Oklahoma are quite thankful of the National Weather Service these days. In some cases residents were given over 15 minutes of warning before tornados struck. Alas, with this spring's hefty federal budget cuts the NWS took a hit like all other agencies. That means: Advances in forecasting technology might not get implemented. There will be fewer employees to make sense of the new technology. Those existing employees will be a bit more frazzled and thus less accurate. So as tornados are being seen more frequently and more likely outside of "Tornado Alley" the amount of warning before one hits will go down.



Pew Research Global Attitudes Project asked the citizens of 39 countries whether society should accept homosexuality. Some of the things they found:

* The more affluent the country the more likely homosexuals are accepted. This refers to broad acceptance in USA, Canada, and Western Europe.

* The more religious a country is, the less likely homosexuals are accepted. There are a few notable outliers in this trend -- China and Russia aren't very religious but still see us as unacceptable and Philippines is religious and approves of us.

* There is strong rejection in the Middle East (except Israel, which is close to evenly divided) and in Africa. Even South Africa, which permits gay marriage in its constitution disapproves of us about 2 to 1.

* When there is a difference between the views of women and men, women are more accepting of us.

* The generation split in approval we see here in America also shows up in most other countries.