trochee: (Default)
trochee ([personal profile] trochee) wrote2004-02-17 07:26 pm

semicolon holding open the door to queer marriage in SF

San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren has refused to grant legal action halting the SF wedding rebellion, keeping it alive one more day.

Hallelujah, and let the weddings continue, I say. But he's halting it on the grounds of bad punctuation.

I am happy with the result --another day of rebellion -- but this seems weak and petty. He's now opened what was previously an issue of rights under the law to endless sniping and caviling from the right -- Ann Coulter will never shut up about this -- and I wish he could have had a better reason than a misplaced semicolon (!) to leave the City Hall open to queer couples.

But when in prescriptivist legal Rome, do as the Romans -- but be sure to keep your margins greater than one inch, double-space, Times New Roman or Courier, no more than 400 words to the page, etc, etc, etc...

and check your punctuation!

[identity profile] isolt.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
I was totally amused by it. He knows, I think, that he has to grant the stay, but he'll delay it as long as he can, which definitely makes a point.

[identity profile] solri.livejournal.com 2004-02-18 10:46 am (UTC)(link)
In my flu-ridden state, that cheered me up immensely; a judge who supports gay rights and is pedantic about punctuation sounds like my kind of guy.

It has also occurred to me that it is inconsistent to insist on putting an apostrophe before "flu" but not after.