Wednesday, June 22, 2011

To Have And To Hold Up Progress

Pride Day, Portland, Oregon
The effort to legalize gay marriage in New York is stalled. The Republican majority has been meeting in a closet to discuss the matter and has gotten no closer to a resolution. There's a delicate balance to strike. On the one hand we have the right of adult humans to marry whom they want. On the other hand we have the duty to protect the right of dozens of citizens to be free of the willies.

The Catholic Church, according to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, is not softening its position. It's still rock-hard. Dolan says that gay marriage is a violation of the natural law embedded in every man and woman. I, for one, am glad for the clarification. I thought I felt something, but I just put it down to a tipped uterus.

Dolan is worried that allowing gays to marry would be like marrying your mother, which probably explains why he hasn't sprung for the ring yet. Nothing against his mom, who, I imagine, has manufactured a holy sufficiency of little Dolans and earned her rest.

Cloudy, mild, no thunderbolts observed.
New York state senators, of course, are politically obliged to take a more nuanced approach than the Archbishop. Although the body appears to be no closer to a vote, progress has been made behind closed doors in the construction of a straw man, who was taken out for a test run the other day. Critical senators have delayed proceedings until they are assured that there are adequate protections for churches and other groups so that they will not be in violation of the law if they decline to perform marriages they find morally objectionable. This is a righteous concern of the lawmakers, who correctly anticipate a stampede of irritable lesbians whose primary motivation to marry is to really piss off the church. It would be a terrible thing to have officers of the law present in church ceremonies to assure compliance, monitoring events so that the wedding vows are not administered with crossed fingers or a tone. They won't stand for that, sir; they won't have it.

Many churches have presided over gay weddings for decades, if not longer, of course. The rights in play here are civil ones. Still, it pays to be careful lest the ministers of New York be strapped to their altars and mandated to bark out a state-issued diversity script before succumbing to the heebie-jeebies. Additional legislation is contemplated that would protect the churches against forced sacrifice of goats. It's a slippery slope. Even Lutherans, not known for agitation, are looking into defining a covered-dish as something involving green beans or tuna, lest a cannelloni contingent gain the upper hand.

Call me nostalgic, but straw men just ain't what they used to be in the glory days of the push for an Equal Rights Amendment. That amendment was a pretty simple proposition on its face, but somehow it boiled down to a threat that women would be required to learn how to use a urinal in public, and sign a guest-book indicating the number of penises they had observed personally, with maybe room for a comment section.

In other creative endeavors, legislators are looking into the possibility of declaring gay Americans to be three-fifths human, for which there is at least some historical precedent. Some sort of compromise might be reached. Gay marriage may be conditionally granted conferring three-fifths of the rights of Reg'lar citizens (hospital visitation, jewelry, joint dog ownership, up to but not including Social Security survival benefits and the holding of hands in public); the ceremony can proceed through "for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health," and so on for three-fifths the customary length, but stopping well before the kiss, which coincides with the onset of the jim-jams in susceptible people.

Failing that, we'll just have to wait a few more years until the actuarial asteroid of youthful ascendancy kills off the dinosaurs.

35 comments:

  1. This is the first time I have found myself wishing for an extinction. Bring on the actuarial asteroid. When do we want it? We want it now!

    ReplyDelete
  2. See, I'm laughing, but I feel BAD about it. 'Cause it's sad that so many people waste so much time, energy and resources fighting over love.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm laughing too, because there are not many people who could make sense of this nonsense like Murr does. And it just can't happen soon enough, that actuarial asteroid, I mean.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The fact that you have Catholics and Mennonites in your Pride Parade make me want to pack boxes and move West.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Only you could make me laugh about this issue. You can't mandate love. And no matter what genders are involved in a relationship, they should get equal rights. The fact that there's so much debate about it is ridiculous.

    Me to my mother recently: You can't catch gay, Mom. It's not a virus.

    Her attitude and the fact that so many people share it, makes me sad.

    ♥Spot

    ReplyDelete
  6. Let's hope it dies with the dinosaurs. Problem is, some of them have already reproduced.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well, you know what I think about gay marriage already. I can't understand why anyone would think it's okay to legislate about what's in my pants and who can touch it.

    But here's a new one. A homeschooling friend down South recently told me her 22 year old son came out to his grandparents. And the grandmother blames...get this... HOMESCHOOLING.

    "If only you hadn't homeschooled him. He wouldn't be gay."

    Can't wait to tell my children they're gay. I don't think they know yet.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I, for one, am counting the days!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Now if that asteroid would just hit the country's mid-section, leaving the opposing coastal areas unscathed.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well, they've missed The Rapture, so it's all hopes on the asteroid.
    What a lot of time-wasters!

    ReplyDelete
  11. until they are assured that there are adequate protections for churches and other groups so that they will not be in violation of the law if they decline to perform marriages they find morally objectionable.

    One wonders why any special rules are needed in this case. Churches already have the right ot refuse to perform marriages they object to, for whatever reason -- many churches won't perform religiously-mixed marriages, for example.

    Whenever the subject of gay equality comes up, we seem to hear Christians complaining that "we'll be forced to tolerate them!" Since they attache such a high value to their right to be intolerant, surely we can reassure them that that right is under no threat?

    ReplyDelete
  12. PS: It was cool running into you at the parade:-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yes! I'm so pleased to have met you!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I love you, Murr......I don't care who knows it.

    My God, can you write !!! Marvelous.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Reminds me of the crappola the Mormon Church paid to indoctrinate the folks here in Cali when Prop 8 was on the ballot.

    The lies and obfuscations from what passes as a "church" simply floored me. Now, I am not a fan of organized religion..but still..a church spreading bullshit to strike fear in the hearts and minds of people that don't know any better(read as uneducated and/or homophobic) really chapped my ass.

    This is such a great piece woman..thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  16. This is such ancient history for me. I live in Canada, and have married a number of same-gendered couples who have come to a pastor to get married.

    Maybe those senators need some tall ladders, so they can get over themselves, and end up in the real world. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hell! I'm Catholic and I don't much give damn what the Church says about gay marriage! We Catholics have mostly been ignoring the Vatican for decades. As my daughter put it, "The rite and wrong of marriage should a choice for everyone -- gay or straight!" -- and she was 18 when she said it! She 's 34 now and still happily single.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I'm hung on this phrase: "natural law embedded in every man and woman." Um....no, it is NOT!! If it was, we in this bass-ackwards country wouldn't be having this conversation, fergawdsake.

    I'm copying this phrase in several places digitally and on paper so I don't lose it: "...ministers of New York be strapped to their altars and mandated to bark out a state-issued diversity script before succumbing to the heebie-jeebies." The visual here should never be lost. Maybe Robert The Skeptic could use it in a movie.

    And I'm having this phrase cross-stitched for the kitchen (gonna let my kids fight over it when I'm gone), for herein lies all my hope: "...we'll just have to wait a few more years until the actuarial asteroid of youthful ascendancy kills off the dinosaurs."

    The gospel according to Murr.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I wanna know where you can get those pom-pom costumes. I wanna wear one! Actually, we're attending a reception in August for our good friends Bob and Bob who recently got married in a civil ceremony after 20 years together. Wouldn't miss it for the world or miss having known these wonderful guys who are a true model of a great relationship. What's not to love?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Murr....excellent blog as usual but the readers comments are also a source of great insight and wit. I feel like I'm hangin' out with the cool kids in school. : )

    Donna Luu

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'm on my way to the hospital... to stop the laughs...

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thank you, honey ... this is great!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Love it Murr - as usual, the comments add so much. Yes, I too feel like I'm hanging with the cool kids at school. This one... "Since they attache such a high value to their right to be intolerant, surely we can reassure them that that right is under no threat?" made me snort!

    Like Ami, I homeschooled my two sons during their early years, sent them to art and music classes, and now as teenagers with long-term girlfriends, they tease me saying "mom even though you tried to make us gay, we turned out straight anyway." I could not be more proud that my sons were members of their high school's Gay-Lesbian-Trans-Alliance because they wanted to support their non-straight friends and encourage their acceptance among their circle of friends.

    When Oh When will we learn to lay down the judgments and just accept people/places/things as they are? Serenity Prayer insert here.

    ReplyDelete
  24. "On the one hand we have the right of adult humans to marry whom they want. On the other hand we have the duty to protect the right of dozens of citizens to be free of the willies."

    That's essentially what the debate boils down to. I have yet to hear any sound arguments for why LGBT should be denied rights.

    "The Catholic Church, according to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, is not softening its position. It's still rock-hard."

    :: stifles giggles ::

    "Call me nostalgic, but straw men just ain't what they used to be in the glory days of the push for an Equal Rights Amendment."

    Considering that the ERA has just been reintroduced, prepare for an onslaught of tailor-made strawmen from the far-right.

    ReplyDelete
  25. It passed! by only four votes, but it's a done deal....

    ReplyDelete
  26. Saints be praised! Or, probably, not saints exactly, or not any of the standard ones. Shoot, we're due for some new saints. Let's elect our own.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Shoot, we're due for some new saints. Let's elect our own.

    I nominate the four Republicans who voted yes. That took guts. They're already being targeted for political revenge by the various nutter factions of the party.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Wonderful post, Murr. You have such a wonderful way of murr-dering the English language. So many of your phrases should become part of the lexicon.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Brilliant, my friend. And how happy are you that this post is now obsolete!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Oooo, give me a moment to imagine that this post DID it. Ahh. Okay, back to oblivion.

    ReplyDelete
  31. MB- Your post may not have been the deciding factor in NY, but it should be required reading in the remaining 44 states. The combination of common sense & laugh-out-loud humor would surely be more persuasive than the end of civilization argument!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Thanks, ny edge! I actually do like to be persuasive, and I try to take care not to scold, but Jeezy Peezy sometimes I just want to communicate with a two-by-four upside the melon. Feel free to pass it around, darlin'.

    ReplyDelete
  33. I'm terribly late to the party, as usual, Murr, but just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this funny, thoughtful piece! I'm also very happy that the folks in NY won (gay marriage has been legal in Canada for years)! I'll be sending a link to my friend Nancy in Idaho who is a strong advocate for gay marriage.

    Thanks for once again telling it like it is, Murr!

    Wendy

    ReplyDelete