President leads us into another pointless debate

It was certainly a relief when Rick Santorum’s quiet exit from the presidential campaign seemed to quiet the “debate” on contraception (one that very few of us were interested in having to begin with.)  Now, I thought, we can turn our attention away from hopelessly divisive and ultimately pointless discussions like that one and concentrate on more practical, down-to-earth issues that affect every American on a daily basis.  Issues like…gay marriage?  Oh boy, here we go again.

The President announced last week that his “evolving” opinion on gay marriage had finally evolved into something that could be put into the form of a declarative sentence:  he’s in favor of it.  I don’t think anyone was shocked to learn that an extremely left-leaning politician has that view on the issue.  The speculation mainly centers on why he chose to announce it now. 

Although Mr. Obama stated that this wasn’t a political move, you can bet that his bean counters ran the electoral math through their calculators and decided this wouldn’t cost him the election.  We’ll have to see how good their math was come November.

In the mean time, we get to enjoy more blather on both sides of an issue about which most people have already made their mind up and probably don’t care much about anyway.  Here’s my contribution to the blather.

The thing that makes this complicated is that even though marriage is a civil contract between two people that is recognized by the state, it is also an institution that has a great deal of religious significance for many of us.  Many Americans believe that marriage was instituted by God as a covenant between one man and one woman, and to mess with that is to trifle with one of the basic pillars of civilization. 

When pressed for proof of that belief you might be directed to check the Bible, where (surely) it plainly states that God only blesses a traditional one man/one woman sort of a marriage.  But if you actually crack open the Bible, you find that it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Polygamy, for example, is very common throughout the Old Testament and is never condemned as a sin.  Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon are just a few of the biblical luminaries who had more than one wife and were never chastised for it (although Solomon was led astray from the true faith thanks to the influence of his 700 wives and 300 concubines, proving that there is always a hazard in getting too much of a good thing.)  It seems like an argument could be made that a biblical view of marriage is that it should be between one man and as many women as that man can afford to keep up with.

Also, the Bible does not condone just any man and any woman getting married - Jews are very strictly prohibited from marrying gentiles.  That point is made very strongly in many places in scripture, yet Jewish people are legally allowed to marry non-Jews in every state of our union.

So I’m not sure we can claim that our marriage laws are strictly based on the Bible.  It might be accurate, though, to say that the law has been greatly influenced by modern Christian morality, and for a very long time most Christians have believed that God only blesses unions between one man and one woman.

I think it might also be fair to say that the influence that traditional Christian morality has on our secular laws has been waning for some time, and I think that that trend is likely to continue.  So I would not be at all surprised if I live to see gay marriage become legal throughout the land in my lifetime. 

But for now, please enjoy the blather.

Sugar, sugar

One of the many exciting things about getting older is that you never know which part of your body is going to stop working as well as it used to.  For instance, when I was younger I could eat whatever I wanted and I seldom gained an ounce or had an upset stomach.  I could exist on a steady diet of pizza, cheeseburgers, and ice cream and my body would take the abuse with nary a complaint.

Eventually (around the time I turned 40) my body decided it had had enough, though.  I haven’t had a problem with weight gain, but that’s only because my digestive system rebels when I indulge in eating too much fat, sugar, or dairy (basically anything that’s fun to eat.)  It’s all well and good to be thin, but when you are that way because eating a whole candy bar at one time makes you want to throw up it’s a Pyrrhic victory at best.

One of things I’ve been doing lately is paying closer attention to the things I eat, and what’s in them.  Let me warn you right now that you should never do this.  If you care at all about your health, examining what you are likely putting into your body (especially if you have a love of junk food like I do) is a sure way to make you very sad.

The thing I’ve specifically been focusing on lately is my sugar intake.  I have always had a sweet tooth and have always been pretty generous to myself about indulging it.  Based on my research, I’ve been too generous in indulging my sugar habit.  Way too generous.

The nutritional web sites I browsed recommended that an adult get no more than 40 grams (10 teaspoons) of added sugar in their diet each day.  Some recommended much less than that, so that would be the absolute upper limit.  Then I took a look at some of the food I like to eat, and how much sugar they contain.  I was in for an unpleasant surprise.

I normally start my day with a bowl of cereal or a couple of Pop-Tarts.  In doing so I am treating myself to pretty much all of the sugar I am supposed to have for a whole day (typically between 25 and 35 grams.)  Not a good start.

If I drink a 12-ounce can of Coke during the day I’ve consumed another 39 grams of sugar.  One of my “healthy” Nutri-Grain bars adds another 13 grams.  And even a low-fat “light” 6-ounce yogurt has 14 grams of sugar in it.

Of course I haven’t even mentioned real, honest-to-goodness desserts yet.  That candy bar I mentioned earlier has 30 grams of sugar in it.  A half cup of vanilla ice cream has 22 grams and a slice of apple pie has another 18, so you can do the math if you like your pie a-la-mode.

I could easily see that my average daily sugar intake could add up to more than 100 grams a day.  And I’m not alone.  The average American consumes between 125 and 200 grams of sugar each day.  Just in the last 20 years our average yearly sugar consumption has increased from 26 pounds a year to an astonishing 135 pounds a year.

The harmful effects on the body from that much sugar intake are too numerous to list in their entirety but include elevating your risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and even psychological disorders.  It is, in fact, an extremely harmful substance when consumed in mass quantities (as many of us do) but we don’t tend to look at it that way.

From the time we are children we learn that sugar is a wonderful, magical substance associated with parties and rewards for good behavior.  It’s only much later that we learn that it is also (like everything else) very bad for us if we overindulge in it.  What a drag it is growing old!