Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

My friend Todd was having a problem with his new MacBook. When he clicked the Spotlight icon in the upper right corner of the screen, the menu popped up, but no results were displayed when he typed a search term. With a little help from the Apple discussion forums, we found out how to fix his problem.

The first thing I did was rebuild the Spotlight index from the command line. This step may not be necessary, but it didn’t seem to hurt. Here’s the command:

sudo mdutil -E /

… which means, as the root user, use the metadata utility to erase and regenerate the Spotlight index on the root volume, AKA Macintosh HD.

Next, we opened the Finder and searched Todd’s home folder for “systemui”. Several preference files (and a crash log) were the result, and we deleted them all.

Finally, we opened /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor. Select “All Processes” from the drop-down in the top right of the window, and then type “systemui” in the search field. A process named SystemUIServer should be listed. Press the “Quit Process” button, and then the “Force Quit” button. The current iteration of SystemUIServer will be killed, and a replacement will be automatically started. The preferences that we deleted a few steps ago will be regenerated anew, and your Spotlight menu should behave normally once again.

Last week, Father Jonathan Morris of Fox News wrote this article about homosexual marriage, and I sent him an e-mail with my thoughts. This morning I discovered that he decided to quote my e-mail in part two of his series. As I knew would happen, certain parts of the letter I feel are important were left out. I understand that people who host such public forums exclude things for space or time considerations, and I’m not under any illusion that I’ll have the final word with Father Morris because he controls a pulpit much larger than mine. However, for the record, I’d like to publish the content of my letter in full.

Sir:

Homosexual marriage is *not* about sexual rights, it’s about the rights of homosexuals to protect their assets and make crucial life decisions for their (would-be) spouse when that spouse is incapacitated. Same-sex marriage is not about disintegrating families or endangering children, it’s about two people’s genuine love for each other and their wish to turn that love into a life.

Please, sir, explain to me why one spouse must be a man and one spouse must be a woman in order to have the usual rights of inheritance and next-of-kin apply? Explain to me why one spouse must be a man and one spouse must be a woman so that hospital visitation rights are unquestioned? Explain to me why one spouse must be a man and one spouse must be a woman when medical decisions need to be made for a loved, life-long partner? Explain to me why one spouse must be a man and one spouse must be a woman for any of a plethora of financial benefits married couples are eligible for, from death benefits to car insurance discounts, to be applied? Explain to me why one spouse must be a man and one spouse must be a woman in order to benefit from spousal privilege in a court of law? In all of these cases, and others, the gender of the joined is irrelevant; it’s the relationship between them that matters. The physical configuration of the people involved plays no role.

Civil unions are not an acceptable replacement for marriage. Homosexuals ask that they be able to enjoy the same legal protections and privileges as heterosexual couples. The United States rejected the premise of separate but allegedly equal long ago for another minority group, and it would be idiocy to codify it into our ultimate instrument of government. The only reason to relegate homosexual marriages to their own particular category of “civil unions” is to discriminate against them, by the very act itself of creating civil unions.

Historically the Constitution has been used to limit the power of government and reinforce the rights of citizens. You mention the Bill of Rights, the abolishment of slavery, non-discriminatory voting, and the limitations of Presidential terms, all of which fit perfectly with my preceding statement. Any anti-homosexual marriage amendment would be directly contradictory to that ideal and, I believe, the intentions of the Constitution’s authors and enactors.

Aaron Adams

Homosexual marriage does not interfere with any citizen’s right to life, liberty, or property, nor does it place any undue burden on government. From that premise alone, any amendment to the Constitution to prohibit homosexual marriage is a gross abuse of the Constitution itself and the rights of citizens who live under it.