Fixing problems with legislation

That’s what legislation’s for, isn’t it?  I mean, that’s how it works, right?

Here’s a pair of links from SayUncle:

• Texas’ gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages (McClatchy)

Can’t be.  So many opponents of marriage equality say they’re doing it to protect traditional marriage, not to ban it.  And we all know that legislation does what it was meant to do.  So how’d this happen?

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

(Emphasis added.)

Oops.

kbiel notes in comments that this is a rather old issue, and has merely been raised as a political football:

If this amendment had banned all marriage, we would have already seen test cases. Certainly four years is enough time for some idiot to file a ridiculous lawsuit and get it thrown out of court or taken all the way up to the Supreme Court of Texas.

But there’s no statute of limitations on political idiocy.  How long did it take for Heller to get the DC gun ban thrown out?  It doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to suspect that Texas has fewer idiots than DC.

——

Next we come across this gem from, of course, Marko:

• No shit, Einstein (The Munchkin Wrangler)

Mohammed Atta et al. hijacked three airliners (and temporarily a fourth) with box cutters on September 11th, 2001.  Then the government prohibited us from carrying knives and nail clippers through airport security, and we were all safe.  Until Richard Reid brought a pancake of PETN onto an American Airlines 767 on December 22nd, 2001, at least… but then the TSA compelled us to take our shoes off whilst passing through security, and we were all safe.  Until London-based terrorists plotted to bring dubiously-effective liquid explosives onto ten airliners in August 2006… but then our guardian angels in government made us carry our toothpaste and our shampoo in separate plastic bags, and we were all safe again.

Er, well…

The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology figures out what some of us have known all along: you can’t get rid of everything on airplanes that can possibly be used as a weapon.

(They stabbed a few dead pigs with various everyday items, such as pens and broken glasses. Shockingly, all of them can inflict lethal wounds.)

But… but…

 

If it weren’t for the fact that I have to fly in a few weeks, I’d be laughing my ass off right now.