Marriage, Gay Rights, China?

Place: Jiangsu Province
Plantiffs: Ms. Ge & Mr. Yang
Case: My husband is in love with my brother

Sounds like a bad lifetime movie? It's a real case with real consequences. In 2008, Ms. Ge apparently found the perfect husband. When they were dating, Mr. Yang was a perfect gentleman in every aspect. When he was allowed to stay over, he even suggested that he stay in her brother's room. Such respect and self control, who could ask for a husband better than that. Things progressed, and they wed in 2009. Yet, it seems that the self control Mr. Yang possessed didn't diminish even after they were married. He still preferred her brother's room. Whatever could that mean?

Never-mind the fact that Ms.Ge never found it odd that her husband didn't sleep with her for three whole years after they are married (once again proving that a healthy sex-life is the one true barometer of a healthy relationship),  it wasn't until the poor Ms. Ge found bundles of love letters by her husband to her brother under a stash of gay porn, that she finally wrote a dramatic note stating her intentions: "我要离婚!".

Now, I will be the first to confess that I didn't dig too deep into the story. I just enjoyed this rather interesting Shakespearean comedy unfolding in China. Bloomberg News saw it fitting to use this story to extrapolate this story into a piece about woman's rights vs gay rights in China. The Chinese media however is a lot more nuanced. They chose to focus mainly on the court's decision to not find Mr. Yang at fault for the dissolution of the marriage. Apparently, if you unwittingly married a gay man in China, it's not his fault.

I found the court statement regarding their findings especially amusing (I'm translating loosely and paraphrasing, so bear with me):

According to Chinese marriage laws, a marriage may be terminated due to irreconcilable differences between the two parties. Although, the sexual orientation of one party may cause negative emotional antagonism between husband and wife, it is not clear that constitutes as irreconcilable difference. There are no current precedent in China to grant divorce on the grounds of sexual orientation. The current law only grants compensation in cases of domestic violence, polygamy, cohabitation and neglect, the court can not find Mr. Yang at fault and have him compensate for Ms. Ge.

The judge finally ruled the case as an amicable divorce. Mr. Yang settled with Ms. Ge outside of court for a few thousand dollars for what I could only assume to be emotional (or lack of physical) damages. In the US where we are constantly bombarded with political fights about gay marriage, it is rather surreal to know that in China, at least gay divorce is pretty legal.

Now, I think it's time for everyone to re-watch the Wedding Banquet and have a good time.

Where is Bruce Willis When You Need Him?

A meteorite hit Russia today injuring well over hundreds of people, although no fatalities reported. How does a freaking meteor not kill anyone you ask? Well, the injuries were all caused by the delayed sonic boom of the meteorite entering the atmosphere destroying glass windows as people were rubbernecking the potential apocalypse. The meteor itself hit a Zinc Factory of all things, I suppose the aliens just wanted some sunscreen. The lesson? If you see a giant ball of flame heading towards you in the sky, stay away from windows and wear earplugs.

On a completely unrelated note, a 190,000 ton asteroid is flying by on top of us right now at 170,000 miles. What are the chances that two astronomical anomalies like that happening all in one day? Not as low as you might think. NASA tracks these great balls of ice in space on this website http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/. If you’re into panicking about being vaporized by an asteroid impacting earth instead of dying choking in your sleep, the one with 0.0007 fractional chance of impact looks pretty good. Of course, for that one, you’d have to wait until 2169.

Now that I’ve sufficiently scared myself into looking Wiki-ing asteroid impacts instead of doing my work, I’m glad I found someone just as paranoid as I am, and he’s an astronaut! Mr. Ed Lu has built the B612 Foundation. Their mission: a privately funded satellite which orbits the earth to detect rogue asteroids hell bent on destroying mankind. Their website http://b612foundation.org/ has pretty pictures, and a donation page if you can spare $25 bucks to save mankind from going the way of the dinosaurs. Now all we need is for Intellectual Ventures to upgrade their laser mosquito zapper into the Death Star and we can all sleep better at night.