Same Sex Marriage

It's time to have another serious blog post. They only come around about once every five years, or every 40 posts. But I've been feeling compelled of late to voice my opinion instead of standing idly by. The topic is same sex marriage. I've dabbled in this discussion in the past, and I'm often left wondering how to better present myself and my opinions. Hopefully a thoughtful blog post that's only read by approximately my mother and my two sisters will suffice.
It's quite apparent that the American media has decided that they are pro gay marriage- which is understandable, they're allowed their opinions- except for how they paint the opposition. In our society it is assumed and believed that if you are anti gay marriage than you are intolerant, a bigot, and homophobic. It saddens me that this is how all opponents of gay marriage are seen through the media's portrayal. If a prominent American voices their opinion against gay marriage they could lose their job (as did the CEO of Mozilla Firefox, Brendan Eich) and they most certainly will be seen as intolerant. I don't believe that is the case. I consider myself an opponent of gay marriage while still being an accepting, loving individual. I remember clearly a high school assembly on tolerance where a classmate of mine said "It seems pretty stupid to use 'gay' as an insult. I mean, just the other day I heard someone say 'This test tube is so gay; it doesn't work at all' and I thought to myself, 'that's a weird way to describe the test tube. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any sexual feelings whatsoever!'" That one story, told over a decade ago, still rings true in my ears and ever since I have vowed never to use 'gay' as an insult and I've kept to it. I have tremendous respect for many gay people. In fact, unbeknownst to me at the time I moved in, I live in a gay neighborhood. Two of my immediate neighbors are gay couples, and the house two doors down is two gay men. I don't agree with their lifestyles, but I also don't hate on them in the least because of it. Many of my friends from high school are gay, and some of my former classmates at BYU are gay (WHAT?!).  I grew up in Massachusetts. My fiancee is from California. We're not exactly strangers to friendly, loving, good people who also happen to be gay. I love these people and want no harm or malice towards them. I welcome their friendship and service to our communities, while still disagreeing with their lifestyle. Perhaps the same could be said of a cheating husband. I wouldn't agree with his actions in the least, but that doesn't mean I hate him or will deny his friendship or hand of service if offered.
So why am I opposed to gay marriage? It would be difficult for me to put forth a scholarly, persuasive argument filled with facts and evidence, so I'm not going to try. Instead, I'll just tell you what I do know. As a  member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I believe in a living, modern-day Prophet who has the same authority and calling as did Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, and all the other Prophets in the Book of Mormon and the Bible. The Prophet today is named Thomas S. Monson. Before him the Prophet's name was Gordon B. Hinckley, who died in 2008. In 1995, many years before gay marriage was a prominent issue in the US, President Hinckley declared through revelation from God that 'Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.' I believe the Prophet's counsel and wisdom that marriage should be only between a man and a woman. I believe that the first married couple on Earth were Adam and Eve. I believe that God only wants marriage to be between a man and a woman. I believe that He commands all of us to love one another and be tolerant, and reserve marriage to be between a man and a woman. Noah probably couldn't give a very factual argument as to why he was building a boat during dry weather, but he did so anyway with the faith that following God would lead to happiness. I may not be able to offer a factual argument against gay marriage, but I believe it's what the Prophet has commanded us and I believe it is the path to happiness. I have NEVER been let down by following the Prophet. He's not perfect, I recognize that, but his counsel comes from God and will not lead us astray. President Monson and President Hinckley both taught tolerance and love, and taught that God's will is for marriage to be reserved strictly between a man and a woman. I agree with this.

Wedding Planning.

Wedding Planning. It's an amazing thing. It's sort of like planning for a bar mitzvah, but for Jews and non-Jews alike, and you're not 13. The basic ideas- such as Stars of David, kippahs, cakes, and family- are pretty much exact parallels across the two different types of parties. I am blessed to be betrothed to a truly incredible planner and organizer, so she's taken the reins in pretty much all things wedding planning. She's by far done the majority of the planning but she runs things by me and I give them a יאָ or קיין. Here's what I've gleaned from two months of conversations about weddings:

• They're not actually at all like bar mitzvahs. This was a surprise to me. At all the bar mitzvahs I've been to there's been some lengthy Yiddish recitations. I guess that doesn't happen at Mormon weddings. When Caity told me that I was like, "וואָס עמעס!"
• Planning a wedding requires a lot of emails and internet searches. I don't know how they did it before the Internet. Maybe people just didn't get married before the Internet? I can't think of a single wedding I ever went to before its inception, and as such I'm forced to conclude that they just didn't happen before the mid 90s. Sure I've seen pictures of weddings in the 80s and earlier, but that's all they are- pictures. I've never seen a wedding invite from the 80s or catering from the 70s- clearly demonstrating the improbability that weddings as party events actually happened previous to the world wide web.
• There are a lot of similarities between the bride's experience and the groom's experience in the planning process. Allow me to shed light on one or two of these:

1. The bride has 3-4 fittings for her dress. The groom has 0-1 fittings for his suit.
2. ...

I guess I can only think of one difference. It must be the exact same experience for bride and groom.
Thus far I've been super impressed with Caity's planning. She's taken total control of the planning, and not in a Bridezilla sort of way. We still have three months before the wedding and we've already done the following:

• Signed a lease on an apartment (true)
• Got her wedding dress and my wedding suit (true)
• Ordered the invitations (true)
• Scheduled a visit with the cater, baker, florist, and interior decorator (true, true, true, false)
• Started retirement funds for our future children (false)

Caity and I have decided to take some less traditional wedding moves as well. I'm planning on taking her last name and she's going to take my last name. We feel that that's an appropriate compromise. That way we'll both be giving a little bit of ourselves to one another. We've also decided that she will get a dog. It will have to go to work with her and she'll have to take it out and entirely take care of it so that I don't even know it exists, but I've agreed to buy its food as part of the sacrifices that must happen with marriages. Yes, we definitely feel prepared for the selflessness of marriage.

Flying!

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

-Leonardo da Vinci 

Oh dear. Someone please intercede before I become one of those people. You know, the ones who start their blogs with quotes and then have pictures of dolphins, wildflowers, and cute, dressed up babies on them.  I already do the dolphins and costumed babies thing, but once I start posting pics of wildflowers all will be lost. Knowing me, the quote above may not even be at all relevant to anything. But it is! See the great influence my engagement has had on me in the short time-span of three weeks?

This is me and the backside of Tal's head.

For Christmas Caity got me an introductory flight lesson at the Gaithersburg, MD airport and we cashed it in yesterday. The Gaithersburg Airport is by far one of the busiest airports in Gaithersburg (Pop: 60,000) and the central hub for such airlines as "Gaithersburg Airport Flight School" and "Gaithersburg Airport Flight Academy." Being a Saturday, it was packed. Commuters, pilots, students pilots, and athletes returning from Sochi were all up in that terminal. The baggage check easily had 2 people waiting impatiently. No one had the heart to tell them they'd be waiting indefinitely  there is no baggage service in Gaithersburg. In addition to those two crowding the place up, the security lines were ridiculous. At one point my instructor took me straight out to the airfield and took two tries- yep, TWO tries- to remember the padlock combo to get us on the runway. But finally we made it out to the runway with our instructor, Tal. Tal is not tall, but he is Israli so he's got that going for him. After the combo-lock mishap I was a little reticent about flying a plane with him as my copilot, but seeing as he'd logged over 10,000x more flight hours than me, I decided I ought to give him a chance, and I followed him out on the runway. We almost got run over by a plane. Then we almost got hit by a car that was driving on the runway. Then we nearly got clipped by a motorcyclist using the runway as  a drag strip. Then a bicyclist ran over my foot, all in the 30 feet from the gate to the Piper. Apparently the Gaithersburg Airport has been short on cash recently so they started renting out their runways. The only problem is they are still being used as runways, and there's no control tower so it pretty much felt like I was back in Thailand trying to navigate the streets of Bangkok on my beach cruiser: utter chaos. I realize that is not the scene being portrayed in the photo above, but that just so happened to be an uncharacteristically calm moment.

This was the Piper Archer I flew.

Once at the Piper Archer (180 hp) I was amazed at how small it was. It's a one door vehicle so you have to enter single file, and climb over the wing to do so. Caity sat in the back and Tal and I were in the front. It would be too generous to say we were in the cockpit because the cockpit, cabin, first class, and business class were all the same. I would have been really mad if I'd bought a first class ticket and then seen my seat. In addition to we three, there was a fourth, rather bulky man in the back next to Caity. He went un-acknowledged the entire time, but when we entered the plan Tal gave me a look as if to say, "We should be safe this trip; we've been randomly selected to have an undercover air marshal on board." I immediately felt better about our safety, knowing that we three would be safe with this armed man. It was awkward not being able to talk about it, but I guess that's the point of being in disguise.

Getting ready for takeoff. 

The takeoff went very smoothly: we only hit one motorcyclist (there were at least six in our path so I was immediately impressed with Tal's ability to only strike one). Once in the air it was breathtaking. Tal did some flying and then I took complete control of the airplane and did some flying. I worked the yolk, pushed the pedals, spoke in the headset, turned the plane, emptied the trash in the plane, served a tray dinner to Caity and the air marshal, and pretty much did everything else you do in a plane. IT WAS SO AMAZING! I loved it! I loved being up in the air at 2,500 ft. turning the plane, climbing, and descending. Tal let us feel a negative G and dropped us like a hot potato. It was incredible being weightless up in the sky. You can get a similar feeling on a roller-coaster  but even then you're still attached to the ground. Here we were just floating! It's amazing that when you're up in the air all the perspectives change. I really couldn't tell how fast we were going, or if we were climbing or falling. I couldn't tell the difference between 1,000 feet or 2,000 feet. Turns out all those instruments in the cockpit are real. Until Saturday I always thought they were just for show! Yes, I think flying could be a great hobby. I just need a little more time and a little more cash. I'm going to start by following Tal's example- I've already applied for Israeli citizenship. It worked for him and put him on a trajectory to be a pilot, so I'm going to start there too.
I am so grateful for Caity for this ingenious, creative, perfect Christmas gift. It was so clever of her to think of it and I LOVED it. I would highly recommend flying to anyone doesn't get motion sickness and who has lots of cash lying around.

Here I am actually flying the plane; Tal was preparing the mid-flight meal so he gave me complete control.

Caity, looking beautiful as ever, holding down the back seat.

A large lake we flew over. I tried to land on it but the air marshal interceded just in time to prevent me. I thought our plane had skis on it, but apparently it didn't.