Is It Wrong to Marry a Fourteen Year Old Girl?

After reading my blog on "Texas' Kibosh of Big Love" a fellow sauna hog asked me to answer this question, a question he disgustedly said was skirted by a polygamist on national television. It was this, "Is it wrong to marry a fourteen year old girl, especially to old men?" While I kept him waiting to the end of my argument--for my family and community who are not a captive audience--let me answer this question now and present my diatribe later.

Answer: No. Fourteen year old girls (or boys) generally should not marry--especially not my daughter and especially not to old men (unless she's eighteen, she consents and he is filthy rich and about to die and leave her and I everything). Moreover, no kid should have children or marry until age twenty or older and then only after passing an exam on the following subjects: balancing a checkbook, planning a budget on the groom's projected wage; the origin of electricity; the origin of pork; and on child bearing and child rearing. Also, before marriage and having children, both males and females should be subjected to a simulated birthing and should be confined for a year and forced to raise a monkey. Then after a drug free, drug-hair analyzes, and the monkey is potty trained and on its way to College, then they can get married.

Diatribe: But this is not because it is "wrong," for fourteen-year-olds to marry or that it's "right" they marry at some later age. Anything that must be prohibited or banned by the force of law because it is "wrong" "contrary to God's law," or is "offensive" should be left to the individual conscious as guided by a person's chosen religious persuasion or personal philosophy. Fourteen year old girls should not marry, not because it is wrong, but because of the harm such marriages cause to the parties involved and to society. However, if you asked me this question while I was chewing on a Gazelle hock 10,000 years ago when humans didn't have to learn computer science to bring home the bacon and lived to age 22, I may have had a different answer.

My fellow sauna hog also asked, "Is polygamy wrong?" Granted, its excesses and extremes are patently dysfunctional but the same can be said about many mainstream heterosexual monogamous relationships and many practices like--consecutive polygamy (a la Larry King), 70 year old millionaires marrying 24 year old girls, singles having multiple liaisons they justify because they are not constrained by marriage, or legalized brothels in Nevada, etc. So, is whatever family or relationship arrangement people choose wrong? This again is not the proper question.

A better question is, "Is the harm that polygamy causes sufficiently severe that we should sanction its practice by force of law?" Or, similarly, is monogamy "right?" When both these questions are addressed in civil society, outside of religious circles, they should not be analyzed in terms of "right" and "wrong," but in the context of their benefits and harmful consequences. Without endeavoring to engage in this analysis at this time but to provoke discussion, I will simple state that while I believe that monogamy is the ideal that our modern society should champion, reinforce and promote, there is nothing inherently evil about polygamy. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, monogamy has not been the norm throughout human history.

Consequently, when government is constrained as it should be from interfering with religious activities, it is not proper for a democratic diverse society to proscribe a practice merely because we find it offensive or unwise. So, as long as our governmental coffers are not burdened by Polygamy (or any other relationship choice) and the practice thereof is engaged in by fully consenting adults, it should be ignored and only discouraged by the strength of our superior ideas and exemplary examples. As to its extremes, our law enforcement should very assiduously prosecute its adherents who engage in welfare abuse and practice underage marriages. I suspect that if this were done, the superiority of monogamy as a choice would render polygamy a rare practice only engaged in by those it makes sense to in their individual circumstances.

Loren M. Lambert, Copyright May 31, 2008

I Am a Culturalist

I am a culturalist. I am adverse to some cultural influences. I believe that some cultures (including our own), some subcultures and many micro-cultures, have negative elements that must be resisted. Cultural influences, like a diseases, are dangerous and are carried across borders by humankind.

I have experienced some of these dangers here in my our own back yard. Some immigrants would welcome a theocracy, others tribal vigilantism to enforce their religious laws, and still others a drug-cartel-culture of brutality and bribery.

Hence, although we should be tolerant and open to the world’s dispossessed, even if accused of bigotry, we must also be highly selective of those we invite to share in our way of life. If in our immigration policies we are not careful and reverse the trend I and perhaps others have experienced, we may find in the not so distant future that we too, as has occurred outside our borders, will have our police forces replaced by drug cartels, our neighborhoods terrorized by religious fanatics or our beliefs being dictated by a theocracy.

Loren M. Lambert (c)
May 22, 2008

The Idiots Guide to Voting

Since I am not a presidential candidate nor an affable radio program host, I can safely say the truth without fear of losing my job or the votes of an unfortunately large block of Americans. This is it. Those who think that Senator Obama is unpatriotic, Godless and prejudiced against all non-blacks because he does not always wear a flag lapel pin, has attended a church with an undiplomatic pastor, and his wife once had the audacity to indicate that she has been less than proud of America, are ignorant.

This segment of our citizenry has never made any serious study of our mostly proud but checkered history nor ever thought too deeply about what it truly means to be an American who champions the equality of all and who honor humanity’s rights to civil liberties and freedom of speech, association, and religion. It is this same voting block that perhaps would have been persuaded by the unflaggingly patriotic rhetoric of Adolph Hitler who, not only always wore several flag lapel pins, ensured that all Germans wore their patriotism on their sleeves and swore their undivided and unquestioning allegiance to the Third Reich. That is not the kind of patriotism that any thinking American should admire.

So if you decide your vote based upon a candidate’s flag lapel pin, membership in some mainstream religion, CTR ring, WWJD ring, NRA membership and unblinking praise of all things American, you are an idiot. As an idiot, please feel free to continue the Bush legacy by voting for a president who talks of God, wears his patriotism on his sleeve and who blindly thinks that America is always right regardless of the morality of its choices. (Fortunately, neither Senators Obama, Clinton nor McCain fit this description--they are all thoughtful, patriotic Americans).

On the other hand, if your vote is based upon whether a candidate’s heart and actions would be worthy of the God you worship, bears his patriotism in the depths of his soul, and will lift and guide America into actions that will make it worthy of every living creatures praise and every American’s patriotism, than look beyond the superficialities and study the substance of the candidates’ positions. “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature. . . : for the Lord seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” I Samuel 16:7. If you do, I am confident that Senator Obama, despite his outward appearance, will be capable of winning your vote by appealing to both your heart and your intellect.

Loren M. Lambert (c) May 18, 2008

Blood Draw

Several weeks ago I had to have some blood drawn, which I hate. The technicians who draw blood are called phlebotomists. Not a user-friendly name. Anyway, usually blood draws from me go without a hitch and sometimes, with a really good phlebotomist, or just because on that particular day my nerve synapses are feeling lazy, I don't feel a thing. Most often I do. But on really bad days, when the phlebotomist is feeling frisky or I’m bouncing off the walls, it goes badly.

I pick a place from a list of labs my doctor gave me. I arrive early and am informed I have two choices, the hospital lab or a private lab up a couple of floors and over. I pick the hospital lab since I’m lazy and there already. I hand the receptionist my doc’s instructions and ask what it’s going to cost me. She doesn’t know and squints at me like I’m asking her the color of her panties.

"Is it cheaper up stairs?" I ask. She doesn’t know this either.

Looking bored and upset that she has a customer, she starts to ask me questions like we’re in forced couples therapy.

"You know," she says, "We have to ask all these questions. They don’t upstairs."

"So do I get a discount," I ask, "or a free shopping spree if I answer correctly?" She is not amused. Given the out, I tell her I’ll try my luck upstairs.

Once there, it’s no ninety-nine questions but neither do they know what it is going to cost me. Defeated I stay for the blood draw. Soon a green-lab-coated lady takes me in the room with the funny chair with the arm rest for blood draws. I imagine that it would be amusing to buy a couple for my clients to sit in at my law office just to let them know what they’re in for. I sit, roll up my sleeve, position my bare arm on the rest while she gets the needle ready. She paws my arm.

"Wow, you have great veins," she says.

"Thanks," I acknowledge. "I was the vein model for the last Grey’s Anatomy tome."

"No," she gasps, "That was my favorite."

"Yep. That was me."

"Wow," she continues, "So what about, huh, the huh."

"Yep, me too." She blushes.

"You’re kidding," she states.

"Yes, sorry. I am," I admit.

"You’re funny. You almost had me going. Well, here goes," she states as she plunges in with the needle. It hurts.

"Oh, that’s weird," she comments.

"What?" I ask.

"Look, no blood. Let’s see," she says as she starts probing around with the needle under my skin.

That’s when I looked. I don’t know if it was what I said that holds the clue or seeing the needle probe around like a sci-fi-under-skin creepy crawler, but I remember saying, "That hurts," and that’s all. I came to with a cold pack on my head and one of those nasty ammonia sticks thrust to my nostrils. I apologize for passing out. She then mentions that she found out that her lab is cheaper for blood draws and testing than the hospital’s but that the cost of the cold pack and smelling salts would bring it up to be about the same. Since I didn’t authorize them, I ask her if they have to go on my bill. She says yes because she had implied consent while I was unconscious.

I then start to leave.

"Where you going?" she asks.

"You didn’t get any blood?" I ask.

"No," she answers.

"So, can we use the same needle and cold pack to save on expenses?"

"No," she responds smiling. I groan and roll up my other sleeve.

"Don’t worry," she soothes as she gets the second needle ready, "It was a bad needle."

"So how much for a lobotomy?" I jokingly ask. Her eyes light up.

"How did you know I have been trained to do those?" she asks.

"Well phlebotomist sounds like lobotomist."

"Bingo," she says, "I'll Tell you what, if you pass out again, I’ll assume I have implied consent and I’ll do it for free."

Now I’m worried.

Loren M. Lambert
© May 11, 2008