Same-Sex Couples

I am uncomfortable when I see two guys making out. I have your attention now, don't I?

I don't consider myself homophobic or against homosexuality in any way. In fact, one of my favourite people happens to be gay. He even lived with me for a while. I'm totally cool with it, as long as I don't have to see it.

I have a theory about why it makes me uncomfortable. I actually enjoy watching attractive females taking part in public displays of affection, or just doing inappropriate things to seek attention. Yes, I am that guy. It isn't because of my feelings regarding homosexuality that I'm uncomfortable watching guys, it's simply that I'm not attracted to them, so it's weird. I'm attracted to women, so it's cool. I'm not attracted to men, so it's awkward. How about that?

Anyways, I am strongly in favour of same-sex couples. Congratulations on getting together with someone who makes you happy. If you want to marry them, power to ya! And the more gay guys, the better. Less competition for us not-as-sexy straight guys. I already won and found myself a beautiful wife, but I still cheer for my former team.

When it comes to same-sex marriage, I don't think it's the government's place to tell us who we can and cannot marry (as long as they're both human consenting adults mentally able to make the decision). I also don't believe that the government should tell marriage commissioners, religious or otherwise, who they have to marry and who they can't. I think the marriage commissioners have a moral responsibility to not marry anyone they don't think should be married. Whether that reason is that he doesn't like them, or if he doesn't think they're a good couple, or if he suspects abuse, a marriage commissioner should make that responsible call. If the couple seeking marriage disagrees with the commissioner, they should find a different one.

I found a video on YouTube about gay marriage that made me giggle. I couldn't embed it, but here is a link to it:

http://youtu.be/X-YCdcnf_P8

Labelling Sex Offenders

I had to write this in response to something Phillip DeFranco recently said on his YouTube channel. I'm a huge fan and I have a lot of respect for him, but I have to disagree with him on this.

Here is the video:

Phil's source: http://bit.ly/WVHeve

While I am a strong supporter of seeking justice and strong penalties, I do oppose the Sex Offender Registry. I also disagree with announcing the release of sex offenders via local media.

Especially in Canada, our Criminal Justice system is moving away from punishment and towards rehabilitation. I support this movement. I believe that justice is having an offender honestly seek forgiveness and make amends to his victims, and then reintegrate back into society to be a productive member. A more punitive system isn't so much justice as vengeance. Don't get me wrong, I believe vengeance has its place, but as a society, we haven't really figured out where that place is, yet.

If you keep to my theory of rehabilitation and reintegration, labeling and registering criminals is counter-productive. If someone is convicted of a crime and does his time, he should be able to reintegrate into society. He cannot reintegrate back into society if he is labelled as a rapist and shunned by society. If we aren't prepared for him to reintegrate fully into society, then we shouldn't be allowing him in society at all.

Of course, before you can even attempt reintegration, you must successfully rehabilitate. You can't reintegrate if you haven't rehabilitated. If the offender hasn't been completely and successfully rehabilitated, he should remain institutionalized and we shouldn't even try to reintegrate him. In fact, if he has been deemed incapable of rehabilitation, he should be put down like the dangerous animal he is.

In a Criminal Justice system of my design, you would have to meet certain criteria before being reintegrated into society.
1) Be deemed to have been successfully rehabilitated by a an unbiased panel of experts.
2) Have made amends directly to the victims of his crimes.
3) Have received sincere forgiveness from his victim(s).

I think as a society, we would ultimately benefit from this school of thought. How do you feel about it? Please feel free to comment.

Minimum Wage Increases

I think that increasing minimum wage in Alberta hurts the economy. I'm sure some people are going to work at setting me straight, so I'm looking forward to the education. The reason I dislike minimum wage increases is that there is no value in increasing it, as I am working on a concept called relative wage.

You absolute wage is how much you make. For instance, if you make $12/hr, you make $12/hr. Your relative wage is how much you make compared to minimum wage. Currently in Alberta, if you make $12/hr, you make $2.25 more than minimum wage ($9.75). Therefore, I will refer to your relative wage as $2.25/hr. I may later change my definition of relative wage to mean a ratio of minimum wage, but the difference will suffice for the point I'm trying to make.

When I first put both feet in the workforce, minimum wage was $5.90/hr. I remember starting at the River Roadhouse as a doorman at $7.00/hr. That was decent for me at 18 years old for what I was doing. I was listening to awesome live music, drinking free pop, eating discounted food, helping out the waitresses a bit, and dealing with the occasional drunk guy making a bad decision. Cool. Nowadays the absolute wage of $7.00/hr doesn't sound very good at all, but my relative wage was $1.10/hr. For the job I was doing, I found that to be just fine.

Now, back when the minimum wage was $5.90/hr, a $12.00/hr job was actually a relative wage of $6.10. Not bad, right? Now here's where my problem with minimum wage increases: $12.00/hr jobs are still $12.00/hr jobs in absolute terms, especially in tertiary industries. All we manage to do when we increase minimum wage is decrease the relative wage of everyone not on minimum wage. That job which paid a relative wage of $6.10/hr when I first started in the workforce is currently paying $2.25/hr.

Now, we can't blame greedy employers for this problem. At first, I wanted to. I have learned a lot about business over the past few years, and you simply can't blame owners. A line cook making $12/hr is going to keep making $12/hr so long as you're not willing to pay more than $10 for a burger and fries. I know several restaurateurs, and I can't think of a single one of them that would be opposed to paying their line cooks $25/hr, but nobody wants to pay $37 for a caesar salad, so it just isn't possible.

Now what about the people making minimum wage? How can they earn a comfortable living? They can make a comfortable living by bettering themselves. By learning, climbing the corporate ladder, working hard. Increasing minimum wage does them no favours because their relative wage stays exactly the same.

The problem employers face when minimum wage is increased is that it hurts the bottom line. Especially in the bar and restaurant industry, you can't increase your prices. Nobody wants to pay $5 for a beer, and nobody wants to pay $20 for a burger. You can't offset that cost. The entire industry is hurting right now. The bar I started working at when I was 18 used to be a huge party every weekend. 160-180 people at any given time after about 10:00 on Friday and Saturday. Now it's closed. While I'm sure it's not the only reason, I know the effect minimum wage has on the bottom line is a factor.

Write your MLA's. Ask for a freeze on minimum wage. It's the only way to protect your own relative wage.