My passenger is a very attractive young woman working for Basic Rights Oregon. For a fevered few weeks a few years ago, she and I had many passionate discussions about gay marriage. She'd asked me if I would start asking "very straight" married passengers just how their own marriages would be jeopardized by allowing gays to fight over china patterns. When I later wrote a column mourning the weddings I performed that day, now rendered null and void, she realized who I was, and now she's riding with me again.
"You never told me that you were going to go down there and marry people at the courthouse! I pegged you as just an interested bystander." "Nope, got ordained that very day," I say.
She was disappointed that I hadn't been more public about it in these pages, but I demurred. "This column shouldn't really be a serious soapbox."
She laughs. "Yeah, this topic does tend to bring out the clench-butt conservatism that sometimes lurks under even the messiest hipster haircut."
"True. But the folks literally manning the barricades that day looked to be a...normal cross-section of Portland folks, which was all the better."
I asked what her favorite part of that day was. "That group of folks that sang 'Chapel of Love' to drown out the protesters." That was a highlight for me, too, though having a picture of my boyfriend in the middle, wildly conducting, leaves me kinda biased.
But hey... it's just Democracy right? Who cares what the majority of the people think. Let's just get an activist judge and throw all that voting business in the toilet.
I have known, lived next door to and worked with many gay/lesbian folks, people who always were there for me and the community. A warmer group of people I have never known. Maybe they try harder or maybe they just care more.
You are to be commended Night Cabbie for taking a stand. More of us should.
Best gag-inducing line this week: "This column shouldn't really be a serious soapbox."
I'll skip the chuckle inducing redundancy (you know...as opposed to "just-fer-yuks soapboxes!") and wonder instead just what it is that she thinks she toddles up to every week and rides her hobby horse upon. She really should read her columns after she writes them sometime.
Let us also count the stereotypes this week: passionate activist woman, very straight married people, the interested bystander, clench-butt conservative messy haired hipsters (!!), cross-section of common folks manning the barricades...5! That may be a record even for NC2.
And of course her Big Brag this week: Ah! There are two..."...When I later wrote a column mourning the weddings I performed that day, now rendered null and void, she realized who I was..." (Stunning! Not only a backpat for her activism but for her courageous journalism in writing about it previously PLUS the coy assertion that she's a celeb. And this under a headline tooting her own horn in the first place. Although in all fairness, she doesn't likely write the headlines.) Her second big brag, more subtle (for HER anyway): "I asked what her favorite part of that day was. "That group of folks that sang 'Chapel of Love' to drown out the protesters." That was a highlight for me, too, though having a picture of my boyfriend in the middle, wildly conducting, leaves me kinda biased." So let me see here...Really, NC2, you get the credit for the activist's favorite part of that historic event, since it was YOUR BOYFRIEND--and what good taste you have in men--who wildly conducted the jocularity? Stunning.
So clearly my optimism in thinking NC2 could be on the path to reform was unfounded.
But as an added bonus I'll shed light on the entire "gay marriage" shell game for our poor hackneyed hack. Here's the truth no one wants to say out loud about it all:
There are two issues here, not one. One is whether lesbians can marry. The other is whether fags can marry. The majority of Americans don't care whether lesbians get married. It's cute. It's harmless. AND they, too, can procreate, so if lesbian marriage takes off, it's not the end of our population. Nobody, not even the staunchest conservative has ever said boo about lesbians. I can't think of anyone who's ever even been annoyed by a lesbian. They're more typically monogamous. They're swell.
Fags, however...They're the ones bugging Main Street, USA. And why? Just HOW do they threaten marriage? Here's how. Americans, women AND men, are afraid they'll do to weddings what they did to theater. Once upon a time, not so long ago, a guy could be in a play--hell, go to a play with a date--and not catch a whiff of gay anything. But now? Theater is gay gay gay in every aspect. Now, the majority of straight guys, even redneck guys are NOT interested in beating up fags. That would mean actually touching them which--despite the inexplicable popularity of high school wrestling, still--could be tantamount to engaging in faggery. No, when something gets all faggy, straight guys abandon it. (Who's got the power in THAT situation, eh?)
But weddings? Regular guys feel funny enough nowadays even putting on a tux. If the image of a guy in a tux at the altar becomes a faggy one (like the male cheeleader, the weightlifter, and the male model have become)...well, your regular guy isn't going to be caught dead being in a wedding. "A wedding? That's gay as shit!" he'll say. "I aint standin' up there like a faggot!" And then a whole country of regular girls--who have a hard enough time getting a guy to wed in the first place--are out of luck with the one thing they've been primed for their whole lives.
Get it? It's not homophobia. At least, not the pitchfork-and-torch carrying type you liberals imagine. It's not straight marriage that's at stake, it's straight weddings.
So what's the answer? Simple, really. Lesbians: you need to split away from the fags on this one. Start angling for "lesbian marriage" and just watch it sail to legality. Currently, no poll has ever been done spliting gay female from gay male marriage, so you have no idea how little aversion the USA has to gals tying the knot with each other. Fags: you don't really want to marry anyhow. You know you don't. You'd like the bennies. Sure you would. But come on? Apart from that, what's marriage to you?
You're just feeling the hurt of someone who wasn't invited to a party they didn't want to go to anyway. Get over it and stop dragging down your lesbian counterparts.
Go enjoy the theater. And possibly, now, cowpunching.
Never thought of any of this before, did you?
Well now you have. And good luck UNthinking it.