Game? What game?

Another cartoon in The Daily Iowan!

For all the Hawkeye fans who agonized over Iowa's one-point loss in the final 45 seconds to Central Michigan...at least you got your drink on.

I actually had this idea for a cartoon a long time ago, but was waiting for an Iowa loss before I could use it. So in a way, I've been actually rooting for Iowa to lose so that I could draw this cartoon, haha. And, it seems like a Big 10 loss to a Mid-American school was a good opportunity for this.

Over the weekend I finished two other cartoons that should appear in the paper this week. So keep a lookout!

Dr. Freeze

Another cartoon in The Daily Iowan!

The opinions editor Benjamin Evans especially liked this one, because it was super local. Super local cartoons are a challenge, since I'm new to the campus and being a law student makes me less connected to the campus as a whole anyway. But that's more of what they're looking for at The Daily Iowan, so I'll keep trying to come up with more.

Hot Air

Just because I graduated from BYU and left The Daily Universe doesn't mean my days of political cartoons are over.

I have a cartoon in today's The Daily Iowan!

I emailed the paper a couple of weeks ago asking if they had any interest in having their very own cartoonist, and I shared with them some of my greatest hits from the Universe. Turns out they were interested, and I did a few cartoons over the weekend. This was the one they published first! (If they don't publish any more from that original batch, I'll post them on the blog later.)

The challenge has been coming up with cartoons specific to Iowa. Since I've only lived here about a month and a half, I'm not caught up on Iowa news. But I have definitely seen firsthand the campaign ad fervor in a swing state, something I never got in Utah. So that was a fertile source for a cartoon.

Now with a cartoon in The Daily Iowan, my name has been in 10 different newspapers.* My media empire continues to expand. I'm the next freaking William Randolph Hearst.

*That's if you count journalism websites, and if you count being quoted in a newspaper or web article. For those of you keeping score: My byline or cartoons have appeared in The Dalles Chronicle, The Daily Universe, the Deseret News, KSL.com, The Brooklyn Paper, the New York Post (on the website) and The Daily Iowan. In addition to that, I've been quoted in the Hood River News, The Oregonian and ESPN.com.

Why I Root for BYU

(Obviously, this cartoon doesn't apply to this football season. This is from 2009, the year of Andrew George.)

I don't know why anyone would root for the Utes.

Obviously, people do root for them, so there must be some reasons. And I'm sure some of the reasons, maybe even  most of them, are good. I certainly understand if someone grew up in Salt Lake City and the Utes are their hometown team, or if someone's family has been going to the University of Utah for generations.

Of course, if all you care about in choosing a football team is if it wins, then Utah would be the clear choice. Utah has beat BYU three years in a row, for the first time since 2004, and since the rivalry started in 1896 Utah has won 60 percent of the time. And now, Utah is a BCS school, which by default makes its wins more valuable in the eyes of many beholders.

But it's hard for me to imagine how someone would consciously choose to support the Utes, when so much of what they stand for is the polar opposite of what BYU stands for.

What makes BYU football unique is that it doesn't even stand for football. Tradition, spirit, honor, character, morality, service, intellect, faith, family, friends and everything else aren't just marketing buzzwords. I have seen evidence of it time and time again. Coach Bronco Mendenhall doesn't just pay lip service to these ideals because otherwise he would be fired. It is honestly a part of who he is and the program he runs. And the grand majority of BYU's athletes are exactly the same way.

It makes BYU pretty strange, I'll admit. And probably even annoying to some. BYU sports won't play on Sunday, and the Honor Code severely limits BYU's recruiting possibilities.

Maybe another football program and its fans are glad or relieved to not have those additional hoops to jump through. But programs outside of BYU at the very least should admire BYU's methods, even if from afar.

Many, if not most, college football programs across the country are also admirable and deserve their devoted fan bases. But there is also an ugly side to college sports. With the inexhaustible drive to increase profits, campuses with football stadiums on the side are increasingly mutating into football stadiums with a campus on the side. From my vantage point, it seems like President Samuelson is the only university president who has duties other than dealing with conference realignments and clashes with the NCAA. The zeitgeist that puts football on a pedestal and says it can do no wrong has caused a lot of wrongs. Penn State isn't the only college culture that needs a reality check.

In some ways, Utah isn't any more at fault than a typical university, because it is a typical university. It tries to build a football team that will win championships any way it knows how within NCAA rules (begrudgingly or not), largely because that's what fills the coffers. But Utah has made a deliberate effort to contrast BYU.

The university and the athletic department go out of their way to hire coaches who aren't members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's in the name of "diversity," but it also gets all those pesky standards out of the way. (The school made an exception for Kyle Whittingham, mostly to keep him from accepting a job offer at BYU. And I'm sure Whittingham does keep those standards. But he isn't exactly forthright with it, even to the point of mocking BYU's no-Sunday play that you would think he would hold some respect for.) The athletes are more at the mercy of the university, where they and their coach don't have as many conflicts. No one has a problem with playing on Sunday or selling beer around the sporting events. The campus community makes money, no one complains, everybody wins.

Whittingham and the University of Utah don't hold back in appreciating their "flexibility" in recruiting. When a coach only has to look for players with talent, character and maturity optional, it does make his job easier. They join the ranks of other schools to whom laws and bylaws are no longer the bare minimum of decency, but bothersome inconveniences. (And even then, it's only a bothersome inconvenience if a cover-up is uncovered.)

And then there are the fans. I know there are rude and ruthless fans on both sides of the Point of the Mountain, which I'll talk about in a minute. And I also know that many Ute fans are respectable human beings. A couple of my favorite mission companions are Utes. But when a fan base is, again, cheering for all that BYU is against, it causes embarrassing, immature, senseless and extraneous outbreaks. I know a few BYU fans, including my own mother, who were hit with beer cans for no reason other than they were wearing blue at a football game. A few journalists two years ago were pegged with ice and snow, ice and snow that was aimed at coach Mendenhall. (If you click on the link, go to page five.) It's one thing to have a snowball fight with another fan. But to hit someone just trying to do their job, while aiming at one of the most well-known figures in the state of Utah? These kids might as well have thrown ice at Gov. Gary Herbert or Larry Miller. And these are just the few incidents that I am distantly connected with. Add to it the breadth and depth of all other blows struck by Utah fans, and it becomes more and more natural to sympathize with Max Hall.

I know BYU fans can be just as harsh, although from another direction. I would guess that a lot of Ute fans' animosity toward Cougar fans is caused by the perceived "holier-than-thou" attitude coming from Provo. And I'm sure there are a few BYU fans who exemplify that. I apologize for their behavior and don't condone it at all. BYU fans shouldn't step down from their higher ground and rub it in the faces of Utah fans, and when they do I believe they are no longer true BYU fans.

But I still believe a true BYU fan is on higher ground.

BYU isn't perfect or beatified by any means. The school still does things that I disagree with and that get on my nerves. But when a football coach's routine the night before a game is to give a fireside and spiritually uplift the community (if you click on the link, go to the bottom of page one), or a basketball program keeps its standards even at the risk of cutting short its run in the NCAA Tournament, or a women's rugby team forfeits a tournament because a game is scheduled for Sunday (go to page three), I am grateful for a university that makes an eternal perspective part of its very core. There are plenty of Utes with that same perspective. But when the eternal scheme of things is a part of a university's DNA, the sinews that hold it together, the fibers of its being, it makes a difference.

---------------------------------------------------

Whether these words consoled you in the wake of a heartbreaking loss, or only fueled your fire of rage against BYU, you gotta admit: the two-year hiatus in the rivalry after 2013 might help everyone just simmer down.

One Day Down

Well, I did it. I'm here in Iowa City, with Erin and Allisyn, and I'm going to law school.

My first day of school!

At the University of Iowa, 1L students start nine days earlier than the rest of the law school. It's for more than just orientation or "welcome freshmen!"-type activities. I had some of that yesterday. (Yeah, on a Sunday. Weird.) But I also actually take a course, Intro to Law and Legal Reasoning. It's a week-long class, with an exam on Saturday. It counts for one of my 15 credits this semester. It seems like a pretty good idea. I feel like with this "mini-semester" before the real semester starts, I get a lot of the "first time" stuff out of the way. Law school is challenging, and different from any type of education I've had before. But a lot of the jitters that 1Ls get is simply because they haven't been 1Ls before.

I've heard from multiple sources that this first week at Iowa is the worst week ever, and the rest of the semester is a breeze by comparison. But from what I can tell so far (admittedly, it's only been one day), it's nothing I can't handle. Where the exhaustion comes is that I'm in class all day, and in one class all day. When the real semester starts, I'll have four classes that are more spaced out through the week.

The reading takes more effort than what I'm used to, but it's interesting so far and it doesn't usually go over my head. For this first class, we read "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers." Have any of you read it? It's a fictitious case that takes place in the year 4300 in a made-up country and made-up judicial and legislative system. It was written in 1949 and published in the Harvard Law Review. Besides being an allegory of the law and how ambiguous it can be (and how flawed it can be in the hands of the judges charged with interpreting it), it has a real dystopian, dark humor kind of feel to it. It actually reminded me a lot of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

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I'd even recommend it to someone outside of law school.

Another reason this intro course isn't overwhelming is because I was lucky enough to have a professor who's more benign than average when it comes to the Socratic method. For those of you who don't know, the Socratic method is what law students will tell you is the most terrifying thing about law school. In the most nightmarish scenario, a snobby professor will choose a student at random to interrogate about the reading assignment, in front of the whole class.

I'm sure I'll have a real run-in with the Socratic method later on, when my real semester starts. But for now, I have a professor who simply calls on students in order of where they are sitting, starting with the back row. I sit in the middle, so I haven't been called on yet. But so far, every question I've been able to answer pretty well in my head. And a few times, I felt like I could give a better answer than the student who was called on. (One observation: if the reason someone gets nervous about being called on is because he or she wants to sound confident in front of the professor and not mess up, don't you think that person would want to not answer with an upward inflection in his or her tone, like he or she is asking another question? It seems like a lot of classmates did that today.) I think as long as I come to class prepared, I won't feel like I'm handcuffed to a chair under a dangling light bulb.

"We can either do this the easy way, or the hard way." 
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Again, it's been just one day. So I'm no expert and I still don't know what I've gotten myself into. We'll see if I change my tune a little later in the semester.

One thing I was not prepared for was the information session about the bar exam. I don't know how it is in every state, but at least for the Iowa bar exam I'm supposed to sign up for the bar exam before November 1 of this year, even though I wouldn't be taking the bar exam until 2015. (I can register later, but the fee will double every so often.)

I didn't expect to even think about the bar exam before my third year. Part of what made choosing a law school difficult for us was that we don't know where we want to settle down long-term. We thought we were putting off that decision for at least three more years, and that with a high-ranked school like Iowa I would still be likely to land a job where I wanted, wherever that may be. But if I need to plan for the bar exam now...

What I might do is just register for the Iowa exam, as a back-up at least, and because it's less expensive to pay the registration fee without taking the test than it is to pay late fees when it turns out I want to take the Iowa bar exam after all. After a couple of summer internships, maybe one will lead to a job out of state, in which case I'll forget the Iowa exam and chalk the Iowa registration fee up to just another education expense (it's cheaper than buying another textbook). And passing the bar in Iowa could count for other states (although it costs a lot of guita), and some of my scores could transfer to other states, so taking it here wouldn't rule out the other 49 states automatically. And I could always take more than one state's bar exam. (Although, after learning more about the bar exam's format, I wonder how the whole exam can fit into a single day. It seems so intense. Two bar exams in proximity to each other might give me a heart attack.) And, who knows? Maybe I'll want to spend the rest of my life in Iowa and I'll want to take the bar here anyway.

Any other ideas, fellow law students?

Anyway, time to get to tomorrow's homework!

Double Big News

Big news, everyone. You'll want to sit down for this one.

WE'RE PREGNANT!

WITH TWINS!!!

We're not kidding either.

Ultrasound from June 1. That's two sacs with a baby in each of them!

Ultrasound from June 20. The bottom photo is the baby on the right, the center photo is the baby on the left. In the top photo you can see both of them together.

That's two babies in there! We still can't believe it.

Erin is due January 10, 2013. But, since it's twins, it's very likely they will come much earlier than that. Maybe even around Thanksgiving.

We had been hoping a new baby would come around now. Allisyn is almost two, and we wanted about two years in between her and our next baby. Erin took a pregnancy test on our last day of staying with her grandparents in West Valley, and it was positive! Erin did the calculations and figured out the baby was due on January 10.

Our first Sunday after arriving in Texas, we told Erin's parents in person and then called up my parents, to tell them the news as a Mother's Day gift. It was a little earlier in the pregnancy than the last time we told our parents we were pregnant, but the chance to share it on Mother's Day was too opportune to pass up. Plus, since we would be staying with Erin's parents, it would be helpful for them to know. We needed to find an OB/GYN in Texas, and we needed to explain why Erin would be sick and have to hide in the bedroom every time there was meat cooking in the kitchen.

So knowing another baby was already coming was factored into our househunting in Iowa. But during our trip, we didn't know yet there were two babies coming. So the house we found was even more of a blessing and an answer to our prayers - an answer to prayers we weren't even saying yet.

Our first OB/GYN appointment came after we returned from Iowa. And we were lucky enough this time to get an ultrasound during our very first appointment. It wasn't long after the ultrasound machine was up and running when Dr. Itam blurted out, "There's two in there." We couldn't believe it, especially Erin. She kept asking, "Are you kidding?!" and "Are you serious?!" Dr. Itam told her, "If I were kidding, I would have stopped by now." And there they were, two adorable blobs, right there on the video monitor. We could tell that they are in separate sacs, which was good news. We don't know if they are fraternal or identical twins yet. Also, we still need to find out if there is one placenta between the two of them or if they each have their own, and we'll find out at an appointment tomorrow. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I told Erin that it could be fun to keep the twins news from our parents, so that when we told our siblings we were pregnant there would still be something to surprise our parents with. But Erin said there was no way she could live with her mom and dad and keep a secret like that. So Erin showed her mom the ultrasound photos right when we came home. She's like, "Mom, count!" Her mom, of course, couldn't believe it. She said, "I always wanted twins in the family! And I'm glad it's you and not me!"

Way before we were pregnant, Erin had a great idea for how to announce the news. She wanted to make a shirt for Allisyn that said, "Promoted to Big Sister, Effective [whenever the due date is]." But now, we had more news to put on that shirt! So Erin's idea was for me to draw Allisyn holding two babies and put it on the back of the shirt. We didn't know if they were two boys, two girls, or a boy and a girl, so I gave their baby blankets the gender-neutral colors of red and green. Which, Erin pointed out, was perfect, because these babies might be born around Christmas.

We had already told Erin's parents this T-shirt idea, and we went to work in making this shirt immediately so that we could use it to tell Erin's dad we were expecting twins. After our masterpiece was done, we showed him and told him, "Look, this is how we're going to tell Braden and Dallin." He said something about how very nice the shirt was, and then when he saw the back, he asked, "Why are there two babies there?!" Haha. Success.

Next up was my family. Erin, Allisyn and I went to Oregon for two graduations, my sister Chrysta's from high school and my sister Kandis' from Oregon State University. Lucky for us, even though my family is starting to grow up and spread out, all of us were there at the same time for Chrysta's graduation, including my brother and his wife and my sister at BYU, and my grandma from Colorado. Some of my sisters figured out that Erin was pregnant, with both their feminine intuition and with Erin having her own ginger ale in the refrigerator. But they still didn't know it was twins!

Everyone was gathered together for a family home evening, and we put the shirt on Allisyn and let her loose in front of the fam. We were hoping for a big reaction, but nothing really happened. I think some of my family saw the shirt, but for some reason they thought they weren't supposed to say anything - when we were hoping for the opposite! Finally I announced that everyone should look at Allisyn's shirt. Then they got it. And of course everyone was excited. (And it was nice to have a whole house of people who were in on our secret!)

We got back from Oregon this week, so then it was time to tell Braden and Dallin. We put Allisyn in the shirt again, and called the boys over to see her new shirt. They were both so happy for us. Dallin's birthday is December 18, so he's hoping to share a birthday with them. "I'll pay you $20 if they're born on December 18," he promised.

Then, Erin called her grandparents. Her Grandma Ayers has a tradition of making a new quilt for each of her great grandchildren. So Erin brought up our news by asking her Grandma, "I was wondering if you could make me a couple of baby blankets for me for Christmas." It took Grandma a second to realize that Erin was asking for two. But then she was so excited, and like Erin's mom she said "I always wanted twins!"

Then today, we had another appointment with Dr. Itam. We got another ultrasound, as well as heard both of their little heartbeats. The ultrasound was really cool, because even though it had only been three weeks since the last one we could really see how much they had grown. We could see that one of the twins (the one on the right in the photos above) even had the hiccups! And Dr. Itam kept telling us how adorable they were, haha.

Tomorrow we will get a radiology ultrasound, which will tell us if the twins are sharing a placenta or if they each have their own. Either case would be fine, but two placentas would help things go a little smoother during the pregnancy and birth. We still won't be able to tell if they are fraternal or identical twins (but if there is just one placenta, then we'll know for sure they are identical).

Wow, can you believe we're having twins?!?! In one fell swoop we are tripling our number of children. And we will have three children under the age of 2 1/2.

We're lucky the twins will probably be born before December 31, so then we should get an extra big tax refund that we can put toward getting a new used minivan or something! Because three car seats in the back of our Taurus will be pretty cramped. And now, we'll need to get a double stroller, and another crib, and who knows what else! All of a sudden, just using the stuff we got for Allisyn won't be enough.

Like I said earlier, how lucky for us that we found that house! The townhome we found would have been nice, but it would have felt real tight real fast if there were five of us living there. Now we'll have three bedrooms and a fenced-in backyard to raise our young but big family in.

At least Erin will be out of school this time, so in that way things will be easier. But of course, three kids instead of one will fill in any free time that a college graduation gave her. I won't be working for a little while, but law school will take more of my time and energy than my undergrad studies did. Fortunately, I get about a month off in the winter between semesters, so I'll be around more. This does mean that we won't be going anywhere for Christmas this year.

As you can see, there's a lot to think about! If any of you have had twins and have any tips, we would love to have them!

Even though there will be a lot to figure out, a lot more to pay for, and a lot of hard work and stress, we couldn't be happier. We're just a young family, but we already know that family is the greatest source of happiness and joy we could have in this life. We love our little Allisyn so much, and we love being her daddy and mommy. So we know we are going to love being a daddy and mommy to two more.

Hardware

Even though I haven't worked at The Daily Universe for almost six months, my name showed up in the paper again.

Daily Universe claims ten awards

At the award night for the Utah chapter of the SPJ, The Daily Universe won 10 times in the Division B category, which from what I can tell must be all of Utah south of Salt Lake City.

The DU won first place in

Spot News (which I think must be breaking, on-location news) - for Jordan Carroll's story from Ground Zero last summer, when Osama bin Laden's death was announced

Arts and Entertainment - for Court Mann's profile of Fictionist

Business/Consumer Reporting - for Lindsey Larson's "Mythbusters" story on whether a pair of Levi's really could withstand a team of horses trying to pull them apart

Education Reporting - for Kelly Bluth's story on low teacher salaries in Utah (that's one of my old sports reporters!)

Medical/Science Reporting - for Emma Penrod's story on a BYU study about polar bears

Military Reporting - for Allie McCoy's story on veterans and what they go through at home

Minority Issues Reporting - for Stacie Carnley's story on the Church's involvement with the Daily Dose English Program

Personality Profile - for Brooke Ward's profile on Alexis Kaufusi, a member of the BYU women's basketball team who was diagnosed with cancer (To read the profile I did on Kaufusi two seasons ago, click here)

Opinion Column - for Jade McDowell's column on Utah's GRAMA law (click to page three, it's the one called 'They're killing GRAMA')

... and, for Editorial Cartoon, I won first place for this cartoon:

The judge said, "The cartoonist captured the hysteria that briefly surrounded Jimmer-mania with a clever concept."

To read more about the cartoon and the reasons it came about, read here.

Pretty cool! I don't know if I get any real certificate or trophy or anything. But just bragging rights are fine by me. And I'm proud of all my old DU colleagues who won too.

Oh, I almost forgot...

... a few weeks ago I finally received a letter from UC Davis. I got in!

So, even though I had already decided on Iowa well before the news came, it was still pretty cool.

Here's the final count:

12 accepted
3 waitlisted
2 rejected

Whoo hoo!

Evolution?

Well, the question of who to vote for in 2012 just got more complicated for me.

If the election were before yesterday, I probably would have voted for Barack Obama. Not especially avidly or ardently or with any fire in my belly, but simply because life for me and my family during the past four years hasn't been that bad. In fact, it's probably been better than it would if John McCain were president. Erin's and my being able to stay on our parents' health insurance until age 26, a tangible result from Obamacare, has actually directly affected and helped me, a head of household who made fewer than five figures last year (and not for lack of work ethic).

I like President Obama's plan for supporting education and making student loans less burdensome. Although we only know through retrospect, the auto bailout worked. The economy isn't great, but it's better than it used to be. In the realm of foreign policy, under President Obama's watch the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tapering off, and both Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi were toppled. And in the case of Gaddafi and Libya, not a single American soldier was lost and the operation was only a matter of months.

Maybe Romney would be a better president, especially in relation to the economy. And he also supports lower interest rates for student loans. But in almost everything else (taxes, immigration, foreign policy), he's either the typical rich snob, the typical Republican, or both. It's hard for me to be a big fan of someone who has an elevator for his cars, says "corporations are people too" and calls himself a fan of "sport." Maybe I'm just skeptical and hesitant when it comes to people whose wealth is in another stratosphere, and who don't know how to relate to people whose wealth is closer to earth.

I disagree with some of his political beliefs, but I wouldn't bemoan Romney becoming president, and I don't think he'd be a disaster or anything. He could even be great. Who knows?

And, since yesterday, I might be more willing to give him a chance.

Barack Obama came out in personal support of same-sex marriage yesterday, in an ABC News interview. He said that his views on the subject have "evolved," and after talking with his family and pondering about it, he has decided that same-sex marriage should be legal.

That in and of itself doesn't bother me. Of course he's entitled to his opinion.

And, a vote for President Obama doesn't necessarily mean a vote for same-sex marriage (yet). He said that politically, legalizing same-sex marriage should be left up to the states. And I can live with that. I wouldn't flee the country even if a majority of states legalized it. Heck, I'm about to willingly move to a state where same-sex marriage is legal. Iowa can legalize it if it wants to, and North Carolina and California can make it illegal if they want to. And I'm fine with that.

But here's what does bother me:

1) There was some discussion, definitely warranted, on how when Romney changes his mind on something, it's "flip-flopping," but when President Obama does it, it's "evolution." I usually think Romney does flip or flop according to what is most politically opportunistic. He's a capitalist, in the sense that he likes to capitalize on any situation and make any statement that will get him votes. But, on some of his positions, I think Romney probably did genuinely change his mind. So does President Obama, and so does any human being. The media should remember that in their portrayals of both Romney and President Obama, and should be fair to both sides. And by portraying Romney and President Obama in this way, it's a dead giveaway of media's liberal bias.

2) What bothers me more than that, however, is this will add momentum to the sense that universal support for same-sex marriage is inevitable, and that it's only a matter of time before everyone else will "come around."

In many ways, I think the change in opinions and understanding about homosexuality is progress and evolution. And I've progressed and evolved too.

But no matter how much knowledge I gain about the issue, I don't see myself ever voting for same-sex marriage.

Just in my own short lifetime, I have seen a shift in public opinion on this issue. Support for gay rights and same-sex marriage rights have moved from being represented by folks on the extreme fringe to being shared by people in the mainstream. I remember when someone who wanted marriage for same-sex couples was radical. Now, someone who doesn't want same-sex marriage is widely considered a backward-minded bigot.

Some gay rights activists see themselves in the midst of a revolution, and compare themselves to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In reality, the Mormons and others who supported Prop 8 in California are more like the civil rights crusaders than the gay rights activists are.

"After a significant majority of California voters (seven million - over 52 percent) approved Proposition 8's limiting marriage to a man and a woman, some opponents characterized the vote as denying people their civil rights. In fact, the Proposition 8 battle was not about civil rights, but about what equal rights demand and what religious rights protect. ...

"The marriage union of a man and a woman has been ... the core legal definition and practice of marriage in Western culture of thousands of years. Those who seek to change the foundation of marriage should not be allowed to pretend that those who defend the ancient order are trampling on civil rights." - Elder Dallin H. Oaks

No matter what side of the debate we are on, we have to realize that fighting for same-sex marriage is not the same as fighting for human rights. The freedom to marry is not the same as freedom from oppression or tyranny. Sexual orientation is not the same as race or ethnicity, and being gay is not the same as being black or white.

Being in a homosexual relationship or marriage has always been a choice. Even if someone is born with a susceptibility to the temptation, acting on that temptation is still a choice. Being tempted by homosexuality does not define us any more than any other temptation or sin defines us.

“You serve yourself poorly when you identify yourself primarily by your sexual feelings. That isn’t your only characteristic, so don’t give it disproportionate attention. You are first and foremost a son [or daughter] of God ...” - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

I can't help but see this issue through the lens of the understanding and knowledge I have, whether that be secular or spiritual knowledge. I don't want to force or impose that knowledge on others, but at the same time I don't have to embrace something that is contrary to and conflicting with my knowledge.

On a lot of political issues, there isn't any cut-and-dry knowledge, secular or spiritual, to make an obvious choice. But you won't be seeing me voting to legalize same-sex marriage, marijuana, taking the Lord's name in vain, coveting or anything else I know is wrong.

At the same time, if other voters choose differently and put me in the minority, I won't hate them. I'll just have to work harder to follow what's right and teach what's right to my family.

3) President Obama said that he talked about this topic with his daughters at the dinner table. And what they said surprised me. The president's daughters had friends who had same-sex couples as parents, and to them it was completely normal.

"It wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently. It doesn't make sense to them," the president said in the interview.


Before that, when I imagined Allisyn and my future children growing up and learning about the world around them, I was expecting that I would need to teach them to be tolerant and respectful of people who choose to live a homosexual lifestyle.

But now, I wonder if maybe Malia's and Sasha's and my children's generation lives in a different world than I do. I might have to teach my children from the other direction, guiding and reminding them that although we should be tolerant and respectful of others' beliefs, God intended for marriage to be between a man and a woman, and there are reasons for that. I agree that "their friends' parents" shouldn't "be treated differently" by my children. But those parents and their lifestyle shouldn't be treated as just another viable option, because according to what I know and what I want my children to know, it isn't.

It's not necessarily a problem that I would have to teach that way. Just an interesting factor to add to my future parenting methods.

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I don't know yet whether all of these thoughts and feelings will make me vote any differently this November. But, I'll put it this way: spending the summer in a house with a Mitt Romney sign on the front lawn might not be as bad as I thought it would have been a couple of days ago.

Did done gradjiyated

The lack of blogging activity over the past three weeks hasn't been because of lack of activity.

The same week as my Daily Herald finale, BYU had its graduation ceremonies. Even though Erin and I both graduated in December, we wanted to participate in the ceremonies. We were in town anyway, staying in Provo while I worked and while we decided where we would be heading after leaving Provo. And, even though we already had our diplomas framed and everything, it was still nice to have some more formal recognition.

Both of our families came to Utah to see us and celebrate with us. On Thursday we had commencement, which was a gathering in the Marriott Center for all of the graduates. Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke. Then on Friday we divided by colleges for our individual convocations. Even though Erin graduated with a major in family studies, she joined me at my communications convocation. I loved having her with me (and I'm sure our families appreciated not having to go to two convocations!).

The convocation was nice too. I thought the speeches by Ray Beckham, Briana Carr and Christine Clark were great and inspirational.

I just had two complaints about convocation:

1) When Erin's name was called, it was mispronounced. Even with phonetic instructions on the name card, it was messed up.

And, 2) there was no recognition of the existence of The Daily Universe. I'm not saying The Daily Universe is the end all be all of the BYU Department of Communications. But I never understood why the newspaper is treated like an afterthought when it should be treated like a flagship. I'm sure most of the parents and alumni there remember The Daily Universe from their BYU days, more than the Ad Lab or BYU Eleven News. (Maybe I'm just jealous that I didn't get to speak at convocation, haha.) Anyway, it brought up some of the emotions I had when I wrote this post back in January.

But, all in all, it was fun to be a part of graduation.

Thanks to Beth Mathews for taking pictures!

This one is a meme waiting to happen.

So that was just one big event in our family that week. We also moved out of our apartment, which was a bigger task than I imagined. We did it in stages, which was nice. We moved some big stuff a month earlier, most of our stuff when Erin's dad and brothers and their big muscles were in town, and the rest of it when it was time for the landlord to prepare the place for new tenants.

But at the same time, it seemed like it would never end. I was working, and so I didn't actually do a whole lot of packing or cleaning. Which makes Erin the hero for getting all of it done.

What we came up with for our plan to transition from Provo to Iowa City was to store most of our things at Erin's grandparents' place in West Valley. And then we stayed there for about a week and a half, while I worked at my other job making money right up until the bitter end of living in Utah, and while Erin waited for Jamie's homecoming from her mission in Peru.

Then, we drove from West Valley to Erin's family's house in Tomball, Texas. This will be "base camp" for a couple of months. We still haven't been to Iowa to look for a place to live, and it will be easier to do that from here, where we don't pay rent and where I don't have to ask for time off work. Plus, between Erin and I we have three siblings graduating from either high school or college, and it will be nice to not have to ask for three weekends off in June. I don't highly recommend unemployment, but it does make your schedule more flexible!

Like we did last summer, we accomplished yet another successful Despain Family Road Trip. (We will have photos on our family blog soon, but I'll post a few here.)

After going to church with our ward in Provo one last time, we spent Sunday night at a hotel in Page, AZ. We first tried getting there via Highway 14 from Cedar City, but it was closed for some reason. So we instead got there with Highways 59 and 389 through Tocquerville and Hurricane, and still got there before midnight (thanks to Arizona's opting out of Daylight Savings Time). We're pros.

From there we went to the Grand Canyon and spent the morning and early afternoon there.

We wanted to get to Four Corners Monument before it closed, but we weren't sure if we would make it. From the park we had more than 200 miles to go, not on a freeway, and only about 3 1/2 hours to do it. But due to my expert driving, we made it just in time. The lady at the gate even let us in for free since they were almost closed. It meant we didn't get any Navajo tacos or fry bread, but we did get some pictures of us standing in Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico at the same time. And we got to our motel in Cortez, CO, nice and early.

The next morning we went to Mesa Verde National Park. I was excited about this one, because finally I was taking the well-traveled Erin to somewhere she hadn't been before. For those of you who haven't been there or haven't heard of it, the national park preserves cliff dwellings built by the Anasazi Indians about 800 years ago. You can hike to some of them, but all the stairs and ladders would have been too much for Allisyn. So we went on a driving tour that had some good views.

We spent that night at a motel in Tucumcari, NM. Then, yesterday was spent just driving. We went through Amarillo, Fort Worth and Dallas on our way to Tomball.

In about a week, Erin and I will fly to Iowa and spend a few days there getting to know Iowa City, and we hope to find our new home while we're there. We plan on moving to Iowa with another road trip sometime in July.

And that's our summer so far.