The old Mary Tyler Moore show was a favorite of mine and while I liked all the characters it seemed that Lou Grant, the News Director of the fictitious WJM-TV, got some of the best lines. One of my favorites was about relationships. “I don’t know what anybody sees in anybody,” Lou once observed.

Trophy wives (and husbands) aside, I have to agree with Mr. Grant. I don’t know what anybody sees in anybody either. So when Vermont’s legislature overrode Governor Jim Douglas’s veto of a bill that made same sex marriage legal in the Green Mountain State in early April, I took it pretty much in stride. For one thing that makes them the fourth state to do so after Massachusetts, Connecticut and, of all places, Iowa.

That three New England states and Iowa are ahead of California on this question is the kind of irony that amuses me. Since that other coast likes to think it’s way ahead of us easterners (10 to 20 years ahead I believe) in social matters it strikes me as, well, ironic, that the Golden State is hanging back there with (insert your favorite Red State here). You could argue that California is even worse on this one since the state’s supreme court legalized gay marriage then the electorate took it away. I’m sure Rush Limbaugh loves that.

As you might have guessed I don’t care who marries who. There are too many man and woman marriages that make absolutely no sense to me for me to get a knot in my shorts if people of the same sex get married. Most of the time I can’t see why anybody would marry either one of them.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire the legislature is deciding whether to raise fines for speeding. It seems the Granite State has fallen behind its neighbors in fining speeders and some legislators want to put the legislative pedal to the metal so New Hampshire can catch up. Fines for driving one to ten miles per hour over the speed limit would double. Okie Dokie.

Try driving the speed limit on Interstate 93 almost day when it’s not so thick with tourists that nothing is moving much, and you’ll find that you’re just about the slowest thing on the road. I haven’t minded being slow since I realized that long division was about as far as my math skills were going to get me. And I usually drive at the speed limit. Honest. Remember I said usually.

Since I usually drive the speed limit on the highways I, of course, consider anyone driving faster than I am to be a menace to society. . . maybe a couple of notches below a serial killer but only for want of opportunity. I take particular note of these miscreants when they’re driving vehicles with signs on them that say things like “New Hampshire Department of Safety” or “U-S Environmental Protection Agency.” If you’re representing the state government or the federal government, shouldn’t you be the one to obey the law?

I wonder whether police cars are ALWAYS on the way to an accident or some other sort of urgent situation when they’re doing 75 or 80 miles per hour but I at least assume they’re doing something job related. Something more than just going faster because they can and because they know THEY’RE not going to get stopped. If you’re the one who is enforcing the law shouldn’t you set an example by obeying the law?

In New Hampshire legislators get license plates signifying their exalted status. They don’t get much in the way of official compensation so that seems fair. But it does frost me when I’m driving along at the legislatively mandated maximum of 65 mph and a car with legislator’s plates passes me going a lot faster than I am. If you’re a legislator shouldn’t you be the one to obey the law? I mean, if it’s a stupid law, you’re a legislator, CHANGE IT.

That’s what you’re getting $100 per year, plus mileage and those nifty license plates for. If the law doesn’t make sense either repeal it or change it. But you, Mr. or Ms. State Legislator, you of all people should obey the law. Even if it is only occasionally enforced you should either obey it or change it.

That’s why the idea of the legislature increasing the fines for speeding and why the idea of marriage being expanded to be available to same sex partners have become linked in my mind by more than chronology. I keep thinking of the warning, “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.”