The most fascinating aspect to the Supreme Court’s upcoming deliberations over the issue of “gay marriage”—and I’ll get to that nonsense in a minute—is this: How many jokes will it be possible to hear in a week containing the phrase “oral arguments?”
But seriously. These phrases, “gay marriage” and “same-sex marriage,” I want to take them out back and light them on fire. These phrases do not even approximate the real issue and they throw open the floodgates for the buffoonish “slippery slope” objections that made “man-on-dog” Rick Santorum’s middle name. Call it what it is, “marriage equality,” and objections based on polygamy and unsavory husbandry arrangements dry up and blow away. It’s just this group that wants and is being denied what the rest of youse have, and that isn’t right. The slope is now crisp and dry. On your bike.
I have a cousin I think of regarding this issue. I can’t tell you this cousin’s whole entire story as it’s not my right. Suffice it to say his parents are, how you say, “same-sex,” and in a state not nearly as enlightened as the one in which I live now. I often imagine the pallor that must exist over this cousin’s life, constant, subtle reminders that the family is somehow not at all okay on paper, that they always get the “air quotes” gesture, not to mention the perils this child actually faces because the family’s rights are simply not recognized in the same way that Jane’s and Eddie’s family’s are down the street.
That is your bottom line. Children. Not make-believe children who are one way or the other hypothetical parts of an intellectual argument. Now children. Today children. And if you’re opposed to marriage equality, I’d advise you not to cement your position until you’re prepared to explain it face-to-face to an eight-year-old with two daddies. Only then will you have subjected your argument to the proper scrutiny. And if you can come out of a room having looked into a kid’s big eyes and explained how the bedrock that sustains their entire being is somehow not legitimate and not feel a little gut-punched, well, friend, I think you should probably consider putting in for a job at the CIA.
I will say, if I were bringing this case to the SCOTUS and if I were offered the indulgence, I would offer into the record a certain feature-length film.
Namely: All Aboard: Rosie’s Family Cruise
I don’t think there’s a document available that is more informative regarding this issue. The stories therein are of families, real families like the ones I was talking about. With children and stuff. Just like you always had or needed, with the same visceral terrors and euphoric joys that go with parenting (or so I hear). No other piece of media I’ve seen better communicates that sense of normalcy that it actually is, and it shreds the living hell out of the bigoted notion that there’s something “funny” about those folks.
Now we won’t know how the Court rules until later. But I for one hope they’ll somehow miraculously come down on the side of equality rather than postponing the inevitable.
Because it is inevitable.
Or didn’t you know that?
Hat tip: Thanks for the post title, fellas.
In other news: Mark the Bagger has a fragrance. That’s interesting.