Did you hug a priest today? Run from a scary homosexual person? Coo over a copy of Bride's magazine? Fall on your knees and thank God Almighty that your child isn't yet gay or pagan or libertarian and if she is that's OK because it's nothing that regular lithium and electroshock therapy can't "cure"?
You did? Great! Because this entire week, Oct. 13-18, has been decreed "Marriage Protection Week" by the delightfully sanctimonious and homophobic Bush administration. It's true.
And hence the time's never been better to shove any open- hearted, progressive, nontraditional notions of love or relationships or child rearing you might have deep, deep underground and be numbly happy that our fine government is stepping up to safeguard marriage from, well, you know, them. Or it. Or something.
Did you know? The glorious God-given sanctity of traditional, missionary-position marriage is under savage attack. The GOP is openly terrified that gays are galloping into the cultural consciousness on sequined horseback, lovers are shunning traditional weddings in favor of incense and anal sex and taiko drumming, children are weeping in the streets, neglected and confused and reading Harry Potter backward, wondering why Mommy scours the nerve.com personals while Daddy is off visiting his "sisters" in Bangkok.
<snip>
This is the BushCo way. This is the neoconservative creed. Invent a bogus threat, inject black smears of fear, hint that something church approved and "family friendly" is in danger and that wee innocent children and cute puppies are about to be tattooed and/or made to wear lots of leather chaps and eyeliner, and if we don't stand up to the Big Bad Evil, society as we know it will, very literally, crumble.
<snip>
Let's make this perfectly clear: Marriage does not need protection. Traditional marriage does not need any forcible recommitment by right-wing Christian zealots who try to force everyone into little shiny happy heterosexual SUV- sized boxes of sameness and sanctimony and bad rented tuxedos and engraved gravy boats.
<snip>
So. Let us redefine this week. Let us claim it right back from the hounds of fearful conservatism. Let us call it "Shut the Hell Up and Get Your Damn Conservative Agenda Out of My Love Life Week." In fact, let us make it a month. A year. An agenda of our own.
After all, marriage ain't just for uptight right-wing Christian zealots anymore. And it never will be.
