OK, I can already feel this one’s gonna get messy, so hold on tight folks.

I admit, I’ve put off talking about gay marriage here for a while, in part because, well, I went to a liberal arts school in NYC – I have way too many gay friends to really be impartial here. Then last week, the assistant managing editor of the Notre Dame student newspaper resigned during the controversy over an anti-gay joke that appeared in the paper’s comic strip and I realized that this is an issue that still affects us all, and we need to talk about it.

Now I’m not going to get into a moral argument here – I doubt that I could change anyone’s opinions one way or another about that particular issue; my questions instead are logistical – is gay marriage inevitably going to become legal and if so, what’s the point of fighting it?

Right now, five states allow gay marriage and several other have passed bills allowing it only to have them repealed. Regardless of your moral standpoint, the legal (and yes, marriage is considered a legal institution, not a religious one in the US) arguments for gay marriage are persuasive. Now, admittedly, there’s a lot of strange and old-fashioned laws still on the books that just hang around (did you know that it’s illegal to let a donkey sleep in a bathtub in Arizona?), but that’s mostly because people forget about them. Same-sex marriage is one issue that people are fighting for and are probably going to continue to fight for, so why not just let it go?

On one side, we’ve wasted enormous – like huge, gigantic – amounts of money fighting about gay marriage in the courts. Plus all of the money that’s been spent on propaganda on both sides is way up there too, which seems ridiculous given our current economic climate. Why not put all of that cash toward social programs and just admit that the battle is lost? Same-sex marriage would mean equality (supposedly the most American of all virtues) and it could also help clarify a lot of sticky legal situations about partnership rights and help ease up the burden with the foster system by allowing gay couples to adopt more easily. After all, 70% of Americans believe that the LGBT community deserves the same rights as straight individuals, so it just makes sense, right?

But at the same time, (and this one shocked me) the same percentage of Americans are opposed to gay marriage. And we have always been a country where, if nothing else, your opinion matters and you fight for it. So if that much of America – the “by the people, for the people” nation - doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage, should we really make it a law? I mean, ultimately we Americans have always been about doing what we believe is right – sometimes that has led to bad things, but it’s also the spirit that pushes us to pitch in and help big time with things like the disaster in Haiti.

OK, you tell me, same-sex marriage – yay or nay?
Should we go with the flow, or keep on fighting?
What would you vote for?
Keep it clean people, but duke it out!

Amy Winehouse returns to London. The Caribbean celebrates.

Flirting 2.0

Ms. North Dakota arrested in Iran for buying a bottle of wine.

Thank god there are cute exercise clothes out there.

Jack Osbourne’s mustache make him looks like….

That’s what she said. On Twitter.

Your Facebook status can get you fired.

NYU supports unions...and not companies who don’t.

Maybe Miley should consider more appropriate clothing for a jog with her boyfriend….

You enjoying all that snow, Northeast?!

Sex is….awkward.

With the Go Green revolution, a lot of us have been making the effort to protect and preserve our environment: trees, animals, reservations. Hemp jewelry is so in right now and vintage is your new passion, right?

Well, guess who’s more passionate than you are? The Neo-hippie, better known as The Empathetic Activist.

The Empathetic Activist feels the pain of the distressed, whether it is animal, mineral or vegetable. When a mouse-trap is set up in the dorms, he or she will be there to protect the rights of our furry friends. When soda cans are thrown in the cafeteria trash, he or she will be there to lecture their peers on the perils of cans in dumps around the world. When a tree is cut down to expand your campus, he or she is there screaming murder through blurred vision…or at least collecting signatures to stop the madness.

The Empathetic Activist cares, but not about material objects. While we’re all spending what little money we have on a spring break wardrobe, the E.A. is perusing the local consignment/ thrift/ vintage shops while munching on some tofu, as he or she is also most likely vegan/vegetarian. (“Animals have rights too!”) And when your favorite neo-hippie is not purchasing vegan Birkenstocks, you will find him or her working for social consciousness, whether it be through debates and discussions with friends or long and heated monologues during class.

The Empathetic Activist writes for an alternative paper about subjects such as child exploitation, or the effects of racial discrimination in the workplace. He or she has more causes on Facebook than friends, and is constantly updating his or her status to advertise the latest and most pressing issue. Fundraisers are organized, protests are made, and marches are formed!

Admit it or not, the Empathetic Activist will inspire you, if only just a little. You may feel unqualified or ignorant when listening to a discussion about the way “the man” is still active and bringing us down, but you will learn something.

The Empathetic Activist is probably the most open-minded person you will ever meet: he/she is pro-interracial dating, pro-foreign films, pro-culture…pro-a lot of things. They are good people to have around, except when you consider the ones who may also be pro-water conservation. The biweekly shower schedule isn’t always ideal for those around them.

[Photo courtesy of Boomelcha on Flickr.]

Personally, while I don’t agree with all of her views, I am a fan of Ann Coulter. I admire her courage to speak her mind without fear of consequence, and her strength to continue putting forth her opinion boldly even when a vast majority of Americans absolutely cannot stand her. I disagree with her on some of her stances, and my views tend to be less extreme than hers, but overall I support her whole-heartedly. So, with that in mind, I’m putting forth an opposing argument to the accusation that Ann Coulter is the anti-feminist.

In the early 1900s, when suffragettes were working tirelessly to grant women the right to vote, they were often treated horrendously by the male-dominated world around them. They were jailed for their protests, and force-fed when they went on hunger strikes to protest their treatment. The suffragettes were treated as deviants by society, and derided as being radical lunatics trying to usurp male authority. While they had a base of support from women, they were despised by male authority figures, and other women turned against them.

Ann Coulter would not want to be called a feminist, as Gloria Steinem would define it. She does not support abortion, has never burned a bra, and will never use affirmative action as a weapon to suit her own ends. She is not, however a force detrimental to women. If a political slant was removed from her writing, she would be hailed as a woman breaking the somehow ever-present glass ceiling, and her satirical tone would be portrayed as “edgy” and “revolutionary,” not “antagonistic” or “condemning.” But because she uses an “edgy” tone that goes against the grain of a sizeable portion of politically conscious citizens, she is demonized and slandered by her critics. In a liberal-slanted media, the negative focus is fixated on Ann Coulter’s blunt conservatism, and similar liberal pundits, such as the charming and soft spoken Arianna Huffington, are spared a harsh public eye and actual criticism of shallow, vacuous writing.

You may not like what Ann Coulter says, or writes, or thinks. But it is undeniable that in the formerly male-dominated world of politics, she is a force of nature. She speaks her mind without concern for popularity, without padding her words with compromises and concessions, and has never allowed a man to get the best of her in a debate. She even earnestly supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential campaign, turning against the Republican nominee to support a fellow “glass-ceiling demolitionist.”

You may call her series of books irrelevant, but the mere fact that she has authored six New York Times Best-Sellers is an indication that her opinion is far from irrelevant, and especially not in the area of American politics. Labeling her as batsh*t insane is a baseless act, and one that demeans politics from a mature playing field to childhood playground taunts. It is also a violently anti-feminist act, because it supports the idea that bold, vocal women should be stifled in their opinions and labeled as insane, social deviants incapable of independent thought. To criticize her for how she dresses and portrays herself, when she is styled more conservatively than the vast majority of our society, is wrong. It is in fact, a one- way ticket back to the 1950s.

Is she good for women, or bad?

Ann Coulter is good for women because she proves that a woman can succeed in a male dominated world without compromising her femininity in order to gain respect. She is strong, beautiful, and very intelligent, all traits that should be valued by women, and certainly meet the requirements of a female role model. She is not a twisted, bitter, and man-hating drone of Third Wave Feminism. Instead, she is a bold, vivacious, and well-educated woman who represents traits modern women should strive to achieve. Whatever opinions other pundits have about her, they still value her opinion enough to continually invite her on their shows to have intelligent, and, at times, loud debates with her. Her arguments are intelligently constructed and witty, which are received as abrasive and “crazy” to those on the receiving end of her opinions.

I am a conservative, Christian Republican, and I am very proud of Ann Coulter.

Typically, a strong woman with intellect and the ability to articulate that which is on her mind is a positive thing. Regardless of beliefs or heavy opinions, the ability to reasonably debate should be held in high regard in a world where feminism seems taboo to much of society and many men are still uncomfortable dating a better-read or better-versed woman.

A smart woman in the public eye should be revered. A smart, BEAUTIFUL woman in the public eye should draw even more attention to herself if the data I’ve collected on the correlation between beauty and attention is correct.

And hence we have the problem with Ann Coulter.

She happens to be remotely intellectual, well-read, able to debate, and beautiful. She should, theoretically, be a feminist icon for all strong-willed and curiously-minded women. She should, regardless of party or religion, be a demonstration to society that women can think in a calculative manner and speak freely, as well as intelligently. She should be these things because she is gifted and qualified to be these things.

Yet instead, she exploits her talent and intellect. Instead, she sabotages her own ability to speak on behalf of women. For those of you who don’t know, Ann Coulter is a best-selling author about as relevant to literature as Marilyn Manson is to music. Like Marilyn Manson, the woman sells her books because of shock-value and shock-value alone. Without hesitation, Ann Coulter sums up liberalism as “the opposition party to god.” She has claimed that societal problems are based on single motherhood, that liberalism is a religion, and that democrats are incapable of fighting a war on terrorism. Ann Coulter refers to President Elect Obama as B. Hussein Obama and writes off her blatant attempt to brainwash her listeners into associating him with Saddam Hussein as humor.

And funny, she does seem. For a woman as capable of linear thinking as Ann Coulter should be, I find it easier to assume that she is a brilliant artist of satire than an embarrassment to women…but I’m afraid that assumptions aren’t relevant in the case against Ann Coulter.

Is she good or bad for women?

She is bad.

Unlike her average or below average intelligence level fellow female starlets, who also share in the molding of minds via the media, Ann Coulter is actually worse for women than they are. Heidi Montag spews something utterly ridiculous from her mouth and it doesn’t tangle society’s perception of women nearly as much as what comes out of Ann Coulter’s mouth. Why? Because Heidi Montag is an idiot. And that’s what she sells herself on. Ann Coulter, however, is clearly smart, but also batsh*t crazy, and this is a dangerous weapon against women as a whole.

She is bad for women because she furthers the assumption that women are crazy, smart or not. She is bad for women because she doesn’t thoroughly think before she speaks and often times contradicts herself. She is bad for women because she cares more about selling books than she does about meaning what she says.

I am a liberal, not a Christian, and ashamed of Ann Coulter. Predictable, right? But I am not ashamed of her as a liberal or a non-Christian. I am ashamed of her as a woman. Women should use their opportunities to speak their mind to the entire world, not make a mockery of them.