Wikipedia’s “On this day” feature is so much better than a lot of other similar ones out there, because otherwise I never would have realized that today, October 23, is the day that was at one point fixed as the exact anniversary of Creation (Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC, 9 am. Please don’t ask which time zone).

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of literal interpretations of the Bible, not in the least because there are two different stories of the Creation in the Old Testament (see: Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2). In addition to all of this, of course, is the fact that the Jews, from whom we (I say “we” as if I’m a practicing Christian, which I’m not this week) acquired the text, don’t consider it to be the literal truth, but rather chock full of divine metaphor that requires careful study and meditation in order to be properly interpreted.

But why let a little fact and logic get in the way of a good witch hunt?

Speaking of which, the always inflappale Andy Towle points us to a fun and exciting story developing in Houston in which a landscaper and his wife decided that they couldn’t work with a gay couple because it violated their religious beliefs. The gay couple was so astonished that they forwarded the turn-down e-mail on to some friends, who forwarded it on to some of their friends, and you see where this is going.

The suffering couple (the landscaper and his wife, not the gay couple — please! This is Houston — you don’t think the press would be sympathetic to the gay couple, do you?) says they feel “privileged to see just what happens when you make the homosexuals and the devil mad.” Allow me to barf quietly in this corner over here if I may. This is, of course, not to say that all of the people making threatening phone calls are in the right, however. The gay community does have a tendency to be its own worst enemy in cases like this.

The most astonishing thing about this article is that I didn’t realize that even El Paso has laws on the books prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Houston doesn’t. So, while the poor landscaper and his wife suffer from phone calls and e-mails from angry homo-sinuals, according to Houston law, they (the landscaper and his wife) did nothing illegal. Them gay folk, on the other hand … well, it’s no longer illegal to be gay in Texas, but I’m sure there’s someone in the state legislature working on a way to fix that. There always is.

Gotta love Texas. I’m pretty sure that Round Rock (the ‘burb where we live) doesn’t have such a law on the books, either. We’re across the county line from lib-url Austin into deeply Republican Williamson county where all campaign signs have to have as a slogan is something like “A Real Conservative for Office.” I’m waiting for the day there’s a bitch-slap fest up in Georgetown between two candidates duking it out over who’s the more real conservative. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Anyway. The state gubernatorial elections are coming up, and I’m not sure who to vote for. Kinky Friedman has been a long-time favorite, but, as the Austin Chronicle pointed out last week, Friedman doesn’t really seem to have much of an interest in politics past one or two key issues, and the last time we voted in a governor like that he wound up moving on to the White House (after leaving the state in a hell of a mess — the great improvement in education that GW keeps going on about is that Texas moved up in the education rankings from 49 to 46 among the 50 states).

I don’t care for Carol Keaton Strayhorn, nor the fact that she sued to be listed as “grandma” on the ballot (and lost — the judge pointed out that Richard Friedman has been going by “Kinky” since the 1960s, whereas Strayhorn has been using “Grandma” professionally since … never). I particularly don’t care for the fact that she’s a Bush appointee who became an independent to run against Governor GoodHair … I mean, Perry.

So, I guess by default I’ll wind up voting for the Democrat, who doesn’t have a chance in hell even though the incumbent’s numbers in the polls are under 40%. This is what happens when there’s 3 other candidates running for office.

Anyway. This is a long rambling message to point out that all is weird in the land of Texas, and not in a good way as we start the last week in October. But the cool season has finally started (well, what we consider cool, anyway), and I get to work out of the office today and tomorrow. So that’s something to look forward to, anyway.

I hope YOUR Monday is off to a good start, too.