Scenes From a Marriage: Part 12

MARY: (Returning from the grocery store) We're going to have a delicious dinner on Thanksgiving.

SCOTT: I'm looking forward to it.

MARY: And it's a 10 pound turkey so we're gonna have another delicious dinner on, uh ... What do you call the day after Thanksgiving?

SCOTT: I think it's called Kickboxing Day

(PAUSE)

MARY: We'll go with that.

Scenes From a (Geeky) Marriage

SCOTT:  Oh oh...

MARY: What's the matter?

SCOTT: I don't know if this is good news, or bad news...

MARY:  What?

SCOTT: Says here George Lucas saw Rogue One...and he loved it.

(LONG PAUSE)

MARY:  I see your dilemma.

Scenes From a Marriage: The Red Meat Edition

The following phone call is real. Parental discretion advised.

SCOTT: Hey, I'm heading home. Where do we stand with dinner?

MARY: I need to dry rub the meat.

SCOTT: Uh-huh.

MARY: That sounded really awful, didn't it?

SCOTT: Oh I don't know. It sounds great if you're the meat.

[SILENCE]

SCOTT: Except for that "dry rub" part. You might want to spit in your hand, just as a courtesy.

[SOUNDS OF STIFLED LAUGHTER THAT REFUSE TO GIVE YOU THE SATISFACTION]

SCOTT: So how long's this going to take? Although I guess that really depends on the meat...

Ibid.

SCOTT: ...and what sort of self-control it has.

Op. cit.

Scenes From a Marriage: The Ken Burns Edition

In which Mary texts me from the grocery store last Sunday...

Scenes From a Marriage: Episode 423

[SCOTT opens the freezer and stares into it for a moment.]

SCOTT:  Well, this is sad.

MARY: What?

SCOTT: This may be the most depressing thing I've ever seen.

MARY:  What?

[SCOTT pulls freezer door wide, to reveal a single half corn-on-the-cob, laying on the ice trays.]

SCOTT: Frozen, pitiful, alone. He was the last of his polar expedition...

[MARY rolls her eyes.]

SCOTT:  Tragically, he perished only a hundred yards from Base Camp...

[MARY sighs and grabs the frozen cob.]

SCOTT: His journal is heartbreaking...

[She tosses it across the kitchen; it hits the bottom of the trashcan with a THUNK! like a rock.]

MARY:  That'll teach you not to be so fussy about eating your sled dogs, Commander Cobb!

SCOTT:  I was going to ask what's for dinner, but I think...now I won't.

The Rainbow Zone Is For The Immediate Loading and Unloading...

Today is a great day, as another group of Second Class citizens is finally bumped up to First.  And though it took a fortune in legal fees, most of our SkyMiles, and who knows how many hours spent standing in line at the counter while the Supreme Court clerks clacked away on their computer terminals, doing whatever it is they do, the Nine Old Men (actually, it's the Six Old Men, plus the Three Old Women, minus the Four Old Assholes) have acknowledged that all Americans have an equal right to board marriage in an orderly fashion as soon as their row is called.  (And since this is a party, would it kill them to offer a complimentary beverage for once?)

To our wingnut friends and visitors, I would respectfully advise that you to take some time to deal with your frustration and disappointment, refocus your energies, and then, when you're ready, move on to blockading some other form of social progress.

But to all our gay and lesbian friends, Mary, Sheri, and I would just like to say: Congratulations! And please don't register someplace expensive.

Update: From Bill S.:

I'd have never guessed that this morning, when I was in my living room, stereo headphones on blasting, George Michael's "Freedom" and dancing in my underwear, that I'd come home to news like this! Wait, did I MAKE that happen? Was I unwittingly performing a liturgical dance?

Revenge of the Male Amazons!

Annnnnnnd...we're back. The script I've been working on has been delivered, and in three or four years might eventually become an animated film that will probably only be seen on pirated DVDs in Asia. The sense of accomplishment is almost too pungent.

Anyway, getting back to our usual bailiwick...With same-sex marriage bans toppling all over the country, the folks who are weirdly obsessed by this subject even though it can't possibly affect them, since they are not themselves gay, need a new wrinkle. And veteran wingnut Kelly Bartlett is here to supply the rhetorical crowsfeet: Gay marriage is segregation, so ladies, you better not let the sun go down on you in West Hollywood (stick to lesbians, they have more experience).

Gender, Discrimination, and Marriage

My daughter was catching up on her college homework. Chapter Ten in her psychology textbook is titled “Sex and Gender.” It covers topics such as gender differences, similarities, and stereotypes. The chapter wends its way from transgender issues to sexual harassment to the glass ceiling, the invisible but real boundary in the workplace beyond which women are not welcome. The book defines sexism as “differential treatment of an individual on the basis of his or her sex.”

Wait a second...Just to be clear: you're helping your daughter with her college homework?  I think even Ward Cleaver would have drawn the line somewhere north of that point: "Yes, yes, Beaver, I appreciate your diligence, but I'd really prefer to settle in with the evening edition than hear about your 'Women's Studies' class. All I know about that bushwa is that your mother read The Feminine Mystique, and now she's off banging some hairy fakir in an ashram in Oregon. Get up, you're sitting on the Sports Page..."

As the text points out, more than half of all women in the United States now work outside the home. They are breaking through the glass ceiling and garnering high-profile positions in private industry, government, and politics. There is one domain, however, in which women are increasingly discriminated against and excluded: families.

It's true. Females comprise only 50% of this family, and that's counting the cats.

Ironically, same-sex marriage laws do this in the name of equality. We open our hearts and minds and definition of marriage to include two men, and in doing so we close the door to a wife in the living room, a mom in the nursery, and a feminine lover in the bedroom.

Well, we're not all Mormon fundamentalists. Plus, not everyone can afford a separate mom for living room, nursery, and bedroom, not to mention individual wives for the laundry, bonus room, and gazebo. I mean, if you're not careful, they start to breed, and then you have to call in an exterminator, or at least set up some of those Have-A-Heart Live Wife Traps, and then you've got to drive way out into the country to release them, otherwise they just come back and start nursing your children and folding your underpants again.

 We create a crass ceiling.

I agree that the principle danger of permitting women to freely pursue their dreams and ambitions in the work force is that some of them will just make shitty puns.  But is it really so different with men?  After all, some are Shakespeare, and some just sit in the Break Room making armpit farts.

It’s one thing for two guys to love each other; it’s altogether different for society to endorse this union by granting these two men the status of marriage.

Once they're married, the whole idea of two guys loving each other becomes a lot less hot.

A male marriage might not look overtly sexist, but what about the long-term effects? Redefining marriage grants men the legal right to deprive children of a relationship with their mother simply because she's female. Because she’s “born that way.” What if this gender discrimination continues?

Um, there's a few rather glaring logic flaws in that paragraph. I'm beginning to wonder why Kelly's daughter would even come to her for help with her college homework in the first place. Let's check the senior Bartlett's bio at MercatorNet, an ostensibly nonpartisan webzine on bioethics where she periodically spray-paints the walls with outrage over gays and abortion:

Say, this doesn't look like the face of a woman who would spend her days laboring to thwart gay marriage. This looks like the warm, friendly, welcoming face of a woman who'd really like you to try the rich taste of mountain grown Folger's coffee.

Kelly Bartlett has been practicing life, love, and marriage for decades, hoping to improve her game. She writes from a house nestled in a meadow off a dirt road in Vermont, surrounded by family and friends, music and mountains.

Her monograph, "On Squealing Like a Pig" has been successfully set to a lively banjo tune.

She has taught religious education using the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and is certified by the safe environment program, VIRTUS: Protecting God’s Children.

VIRTUS is a program brought to you by "The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc," which sounds like an insurance company for priests that got tired of forking out for sex abuse settlements.

After seventeen years of homeschooling her kids, she gives herself an A for effort and graduates summa cum laughter. 

Ha! Yes...it's like Erma Bombeck after a closed-head injury.

 She enjoys handing out A’s 

Well, I think we now know how her daughter got into college. And by "college" I mean "The University of Mom's Breakfast Nook".

and would be delighted to give you one also if you “Like” MercatorNet on Facebook.

Go on.  I dare ya.

Obviously, two men cannot reproduce with each other, but in tandem with marriage comes the right to adopt. If a male couple’s adopted son meets and marries a like-minded guy whose dads commissioned him from a surrogate mother, then we would see an extended family bereft of not only mothers but also grandmothers. On both sides. Under current law in many states, this chauvinism can continue for generations.

Which would mean an incalculable amount of men who never had the experience of being offered a hard candy by an elderly woman who keeps it rolled up in a Kleenex in her purse.

Decades from now, young Marvin can trace his family tree and compare it with that of his pal Leroy.

While studying genealogy, Leroy and Marvin might pause to wonder why they both sound like characters from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The latter has one mom and one dad, two grandmothers and two grandfathers, four great-grandmothers and four great-grandfathers. Leroy’s family tree is gender-integrated and balanced.

Sounds like one of those liberal, affirmative action quota systems to me. Surely Clarence Thomas won't stand for this!

Meanwhile, Marvin lists two dads, four grandpas, and eight great-grandfathers.

Sounds like a call sheet for Duck Dynasty.

 His family has fourteen men and zero women; it’s gender-segregated and devoid of wives, mothers, grandmothers, and their feminine love.

As a result, the greeting card industry has become a husk of its once robust self.

Of course, we know that babies can’t actually be nurtured for nine months in a test tube using IVF, no matter how many thousands of dollars we thrust at researchers...Marvin had to have a mom or he wouldn’t be here.

I remember when I was a kid, "fags" were presumed to be mama's boys who never cut the apron strings and imprinted on a strong father figure. You'd think after three generations of nothing but male role models, Marvin would be the butchest dude on the planet!

And his parents had to have mothers as well. It’s not that Marvin doesn’t have a mom or grandmothers in his ancestry. These women are invisible to Marvin, but they are real. They were intentionally excluded from his family precisely because of their sex. This man-made barricade is more harmful than the glass ceiling at work since it prevents children from accessing their own mothers.

Is this really a problem, Kelly?  Is same sex marriage (which apparently doesn't include lesbians) really going to result in legions of gay men genetically engineering their own posterior-loving posterity?  And even if so, do we really want our young men "accessing their own mothers"?  That sounds less like sound social policy, and more like a Please Don't Eat the Daisies fan fic.

Man caves are fun. Man family trees . . . not so much.

So men, let your manly pals have fun in your cave, but don't be afraid to let the ladies climb your man tree.

If two guys fall in love, they can choose to keep their relationship private or make it public. They can even make it official by announcing it on Facebook. 

I guess Facebook posts are now legally binding.  So if you clicked "Like" on a friend's blurry smartphone pic of a schooner full of green-dyed St. Paddy's Day beer, you're now married to them, even if you're both boys.  So start laying in a supply of blue baby booties and foam rubber footballs for your multitude of strangely male-only descendants.

It’s their choice. But requesting a marriage license is different.

For one thing, you usually have to shout at the clerk through that bulletproof glass.

Marriage is the bond that seals a family together and plants the roots of our culture.

It bonds! It seals! It plants and tends roots! Marriage is the most amazing Ronco product you've ever seen, and it's not available in any store!

 Families are the living cells of the great organism of life. Typically, marriage creates new micro-societies: mom, dad, and their children. Marriage is social by nature; therefore, weddings require witnesses.

So do crimes.

It is important to note that de-gendered families exclude females not by accident, but by design.

Even lesbians refuse to admit women into their gay marriages, even though gay men are much more likely to make catty remarks about the bride's plaid flannel wedding gown.  One question, though, Kelly: How does this "de-gendering" process gay men go through when they wed actually work? Is it anything like getting your dog neutered, because if so, I'm gonna need a bigger pet taxi.

Same-sex marriage constitutes sex discrimination and segregation. 

It's the "Coloreds Only" drinking fountain of legal pair bonding.

But I have spent too many years interacting with mothers and children to support the idea of excluding moms from families because of their sex.

Can we exclude them from the family because of their habit of snooping in your sock drawer looking for porn? Because I'd totally be down with that.

 I love and respect my own mother and grandmothers far too much to fall for the notion that contracting them out of our marriage laws constitutes “equality.”

So if two men love each other and wish to wed, the state should require that the happy couple enter into a plural marriage with a grandmother, because it's only fair.

 And even if I didn’t have the firsthand experience of knowing so many women exhibiting their feminine genius, I would disagree with gender discrimination in principle.

Then wouldn't you agree that you yourself are discriminating against women by not bringing one into your marriage bed and licking the alphabet?  And where's this exhibit of feminine genius being held, because I could really use some at the moment.

After all, if gender is not important in marriage, when on earth is it important? 

Not many places that I've ever seen. Gender is kind of like algebra -- the teacher swears you're going to need it later in life, but I've successfully avoided it for decades. 

Will the same progressives clamoring for male marriage now seek gender quotas in the years to come? Will future feminists fight for the right of children to know their mothers?

That's a good question, but I believe Zager and Evans already answered it in the summer of 1969:

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

Gender segregation belongs in public restrooms, not families.

Men just naturally have a wider stance than women, and should be free to express it in the toilet stall of their choice. Especially if they're a Republican senator and have a gender inclusive beard waiting at home.

Let’s keep our ancestry honest and inclusive; let’s keep our families intact and thriving.

And let's keep our wingnuts frothy and frenzied and whipped into stiff peaks.

Scenes From A Marriage: Part Whatevs

MARY:  I wrote a little something for the blog.

SCOTT:  Great! Can you post it after midnight?

MARY:  I won't be awake after midnight.

SCOTT:  Just use the Scheduler.  You know how to use the Scheduler, don't you?

MARY:  Just put your lips together and blow?

Happy Anniversary! A Dialogue

SCOTT:  Today is our seventh wedding anniversary.  Mary and I have been together much longer than that, of course, and while I'd rather not specify just how long it's been, I will say that when we met, people were still passionately debating the Joel versus Mike Question in the Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 folder on AOL.  Anyway, since the blog is almost ten years old, a lot of you guys knew us when we were living in sin.  So when you speak about this to the Opposition Research team of my political enemies -- and you will -- be kind.

Since Mary is home sick today, we thought a fun way to celebrate that didn't involve stirring from our respective computer desks might be to look up all the traditional gifts we'd be entitled to if I'd only paid her dad the full bride price (as is typical of me, I failed to plan ahead and save up enough livestock for the wedding, so I had to go on a payment plan -- one ewe a year -- but 2012 was particularly tough for us financially, and I was only able to pay him in sheepskin carseat covers -- and I'm pretty sure those were synthetic -- which barely covered the vig).  But she sent me this list of traditional anniversary gifts, so at least we can open the link and, like the Sears Wish Book, sit and dream...

7th Anniversary Traditional Gift:
Copper or Wool. Copper has long had a traditional meaning of prosperity, good luck, and good fortune.

And saucepans.

Couples who celebrate their seventh wedding anniversary can indeed celebrate their good fortune in finding one another.

If we're traditional enough to celebrate in this traditional manner, then clearly our marriage is defined by traditional sex roles.  So get your ass in the kitchen and make me a sauce, woman!

The gift of wool represents the comfort, durability, security, and warmth that couples married this long give one another.

And since by this point neither one of you even bothers to shave anymore, wool also represents the degree of scratchiness you've achieved as a couple.

 Roman brides touched their the threshold of their new home with wool.

Mostly to mop up the blood stains left when the slaves dragged out the previous wife's body.  I've read I, Claudius.

The Old Testament has a passage (Proverbs 31) describing wives of noble character as women who select wool and spin yarns with eager hands.

So stop looking for love on eHarmony, and start hanging around the Yarn Barn.

MARY: Good Gravy! Has it been seven years since we both risked heatstroke and walked down the aisle of that shady wedding chapel in Vegas that had it's marrying privileges revoked? It's been, well not a whirlwind since 2006, but it certainly has been windy.

What's this?  There are modern gifts for the 7th anniversary?! Thank goodness! Maybe THIS year I can get that giant metal chicken I've dreamed about...

Desk Sets.

DAMMIT.

 The modern gift of a desk set is a practical gift that can be combined with one of your spouse's interests such as golf or collecting. 

Or perhaps their interests might run to actually collecting golf players. Or collecting golfing collectors.  Either way, make sure you've got the right desk set and have helpfully hidden it away in the hole in your basement where your golf players and/or golfing collectors are trapped. And also, that they regularly puts the lotion on its skins.

7th Anniversary Color:
Yellow or off white.  

Nice! Goes with the latest color of our hair and teeth!

7th Anniversary Flower:
Jack-in-the-pulpit, a common wild flower that blooms in spring in moist wooded areas.

I think they mean "man in the boat", and that pretty much blooms all the time in moist hooded areas.

Ways to Celebrate Your 7th Anniversary:

• Toast one another with hope that your love continues to provide comfort, prosperity, and security like the traditional gifts of wool and copper.
• Purchase tickets to a show, movie, sports event, concert, theatre, etc. to attend together.

Better yet, pop some popcorn in a copper kettle, settle down under a scratchy blanket, and watch COPPER on BBC America!

Happy Anniversary, Mother Fucker!

I Now Pronounce You Man and Moons Over My Hammy®

Our friend KWillow mentioned this in comments to the previous post, but I thought it deserved a bump to the front page.  First, let's set up the clip:

Remember my "Mall-themed Wedding"?

Absolutely, K.  It was one of the wittiest (and yet, oddly, most practical) of the many amusing responses to Mary's Ultimate Wedding Theme Smackdown Challenge:

I like the idea of a wedding in a Mall Food Court, and not a fancy-schmancy mall in Hollywood neither, more like a mall in, say... Reno, or Fresno CA... Orange Julius/Dairy Queen will provide the ice-cream-cone wedding cake, Sbarro's will share food catering with Hot Pot Asian cuisine, McDonald's will bestow the "bibelots" from their Happy Meals on the Bride's (dress from Hot Topic, accessories from Claire's) friends. Grooms clothes will come from Tuxedo Junction and Bridesmaids dresses from Victoria's Secret.

Shoes from Payless Shoe Barn (half-off 2nd pair!). Bridal bouquet from Michael's: it'll never wither!

Liquor will be cheap "white wine" and "rose" from a box, purchased at a nearby Walmart (tho not a part of the mall, the price was too good to pass up!) "André" will be the champagne for toasting the happy couple, with Orange Julius stepping in with complimentary OJ.

Ohhh, K...What gossamer threads of whimsy and fantasy you weave with your delirious flights of fan--

I'm sorry, you had a follow-up?

Denny's read my comment obviously....

Oh oh...

Denny's new Las Vegas restaurant puts weddings on the menu

Denny's, the 24-hour American diner, opened a restaurant on Thursday in Las Vegas with a wedding chapel where couples can tie the knot after a meal of bacon, peanut butter and bananas between two slices of French toast finished off with a bacon vodka chaser.

So apparently, holding a solemn wedding ceremony requires not only planning, but also the purchase of an entree and beverage.  There are only two problems I can see with this approach. 1.) if you serve the food and drinks first, then Uncle Roger will puke on the Maid of Honor during the ceremony rather than the reception, so you might want to go with a patterned fabric for the bridesmaid dresses, and bear in mind that muted, autumnal hues generally do the best job of hiding the stains of half-digested bacon and peanut butter French Toastandwiches®.  And 2.) If the pre-wedding reception takes place before 5 PM, they might not honor my Coffee Coupon.

The restaurant is near the Las Vegas strip on historic downtown Fremont Street. Its modern curves, neon and steel are meant to fit in with the city's "over the top" feel

That'll be a refreshing change.  If there's one criticism I might level at the typical Denny's, it's that the architecture and appointments are a trifle bespoke. 

"A normal Denny's is not going to cut it in Vegas," she said, adding that the restaurant is the first of 1,700 Denny's worldwide that will have a wedding chapel and photo booth. It is one of fewer than 50 Denny's with a full bar.

Only 50?  It's rather shocking to realize that in most Denny's today -- thanks to antiquated blue laws and restrictive zoning -- it's impossible to get cut in the face with a broken beer bottle, and the average customer must still -- in 2012! -- settle for getting shanked in the parking lot. 

The restaurant's neighbours include a zip line that carries visitors above street-level traffic and a restaurant that holds a Guinness Record for the highest-calorie burger. The area soon expects to have what is being billed as the world's largest gay nightclub.

"Woo!  I'm really digging this hard house!  So...!  You come to Denny's often?"

Book your wedding now, and be eligible to dine from our Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Menu (for a limited time only), featuring such middle earthy fare as the Hobbit Hole Breakfast Scramble, and Gandalf's Gobble Melt.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue. Oh, And A Bloody Sheet.

Over at RightNetwork, Stuart Schneiderman warns us that by allowing gays to tamper with reality and perception, we risk tearing open the very fabric of the space-time continuum, which would be disastrous, because it would let all the stuffing fall out.  So we civil rights absolutists have been playing a very dangerous game by pretending that same-sex marriage exists when it really doesn't, and now we don't know if we're Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi dreaming we're a butterfly, or  if we are, in fact, a butterfly dreaming that we've gay-married Zhuangzi.

So who is Stuart Schneiderman?  According to his bio, he has "taught English literature and practiced psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Currently, he works as a consultant and life coach in New York City. Throughout, he has written articles and books about topics psychological and cultural. He is currently the proprietor of the blog: HAD ENOUGH THERAPY?"

Well, I've probably had less than I need, but I somehow doubt that Stuart's column is going to meet the court-ordered definition.

The Grand Pantomime: There Is No Such Thing as Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage is a fiction. Even if everyone believes that the fiction is real.

So it's sort of like the Bible.

I'm all in favor of marriage equality, but I do think it's kind of unfair that gays and lesbians who wed get to become fictional characters.  I believe that option should be open to all matrimonial couples, and I think you should be given the chance to select your fictional alter ego from the same window where you purchase your license.  Personally, I would have gone with either Fantômas, Spring-Heeled Jack, or Scrooge McDuck.

When a happy young couple says “I do,” their marriage is contingent on their performing a specific sexual act.

It's called "The Hammer Dulcimer" and requires a penis, a vagina, three feet of twine, a quarter cup of waffle batter and a picture of Eve Arden.

If they want to make their marriage real, they must consummate it.

While Stuart is filming them.  Pics or it didn't happen!

And that means that the meaning of marriage lies in the possibility of procreation. A marriage unconsummated is not a marriage. It is nullified, as though the ceremony had never happened.

The caterer's invoice begs to differ.

To become real, a marriage requires the possibility of conception.

This new ruling should make Rush Limbaugh's next divorce much smoother than the previous three.

It does not require conception. Failure to conceive has never been grounds for nullification.

Annulment, sure, but South Carolina didn't threaten nullification because it couldn't get the federal government pregnant.

Older, presumably infertile, couples are allowed to marry because if they had performed the same act in the past they might have conceived a child.

So your mom is free to remarry so long as the ceremony is performed in the Time Tunnel.  Then she and the groom can just nip back before the reception to 1969 and do it in the mud at Woodstock.

From its inception, the institution of marriage has always granted male/female couples the presumption of fertility.

It's just like our justice system, except with more sperm.

A couple that can never, between themselves, perform the generative sexual act cannot be married, regardless of what the state and the courts say.

The state has nothing to say about marriage, which is why we had to buy our license from  Lady Footlocker, and get married at Pinkberry.  And though my mother would have loved to have taken my father to court, she had to obtain her divorce from the cut-out bin at Licorice Pizza.

Moreover, marriage has always been a universal human institution.

If you don't count all the gay people.

If Jack and Jane are married in Paducah or in Xian they will be commonly recognized as such anywhere in the world.

Unless Jane was black, in which case their marriage was recognized anywhere in the world except Virginia.

You cannot say the same of Jack and Jim, regardless of whether they were married in Boston or Buenos Aires.

Unless they were married in Boston anytime in the last six years.

If Jack and Jim travel the world and present themselves as a married couple, most people will be sufficiently polite not to challenge them. But they will look askance at Jack and Jim.

Gays have had an easy ride in life up till now, but if they persist in shoving this equal rights thing down our throats, they'll have to put up with people glancing at them!

For their marriage to be real, a couple must perform a specific action.

To you, it's the sacred bonds of Holy Matrimony.  To Stuart, it's a live sex show.

Similarly, if you attend a funeral where all of the ceremonial requirements have been fulfilled… except that no one has died, you have not attended a funeral.

However, if you perform a certain sex act with the corpse, it's a marriage.

And you cannot have dinner if you sit at a table and go through the motions of eating, when there is no food or drink on the table.

If this happens to you, don't panic, because there's a good chance you're just Marcel Marceau.

Same-sex marriage is a fiction.

Well, at least it's not a blood libel.

Even if everyone believes that the fiction is real-- or be too afraid to say otherwise-- that does not make it less of a fiction. The world does not become flat just because everyone says it is.

And people don't become 3/5s of a person just because it counts them that way in the Constitution.

In many ways the strangest part of the current debate over same-sex marriage is how little of it involves rational argument.

But if you're looking for sexual repression and unreasoning hatred, dig in -- there's loads!

Proponents of same-sex marriage declare that if infertile couples are allowed to marry, then fertility cannot be a basis for marriage.

Grant that they do not understand the difference between possible and impossible. More importantly, it is nonsense to say that same-sex couplings are infertile.

If two people, between themselves, cannot perform any action that might lead to conception...

Like juggling, chiropracty, or turkey-brining...

...they are both might be perfectly fertile. Since they cannot perform an action that would actualize their reproductive potential and resolve the issue of their fertility, we cannot say that they are either fertile or infertile.

Grandma will be happy to know that wherever her uterus is right now, it's potentially fecund.

If Jack and Jill or Jack and Jim shake hands, and if no conception results, we would not say that this makes them sterile.

Just graduates of an Abstinence Only sex-ed curriculum.

Others have argued that without same-sex marriage then gay couples cannot fall in love or live their love. Does anyone really believe that, given the absence of institutionalized same-sex marriage, gays have never fallen in love? And since when did marriage become the way to find romantic love?

It is, and always has been, a medium for the orderly transfer of livestock.

Throughout most of human history romantic love and marriage have existed in separate domains. The Western tradition of romantic love begins with courtly love, which was, by definition, adulterous. Only a miniscule percentage of all human marriages have even pretended to be expressions of romantic love.

More often than not people have considered marriage to be the graveyard of romantic love.

You can see why the gays want to get in on it.

What happens if Jack and Jim are declared by the state to be married? At the least, everyone will be required to play along, for fear of hurting their feelings.

Courtesy is the new fascism.

Anyone who might be inclined to tell the truth will be forced to shut up.

And since nothing seems to be impeding your gum-flapping, I guess that means this column isn't exactly an affidavit.

It’s like the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” ... Only one boy was sufficiently naïve to blurt out what everyone knew: “He isn‘t wearing anything at all.” If same-sex marriage becomes the law, you do not want to be that little boy. You will instantly be denounced as a bigoted hate-monger.

Or you'll be a spectator at the West Hollywood Pride Parade.

After all, it’s just a harmless illusion, so why not just go along?

Not to be too dramatic, but what happens to us when we are forced to accept that reality is what we say it is? What happens to us when we believe that we can change reality by controlling what people say and how they think?

All of a sudden, this does not feel quite so harmless.

I know there's been a lot of debate and disagreement about the real meaning of the Chris Nolan's Inception -- often, it seems as though no two people watched the same story -- but I'm pretty sure that Stuart is the only who sat through it and saw a gay porn film.

Choosy Mothers Choose Lesbianism

I've been poleaxed by a lingering bug, and feeling unusually susceptible to depression, so I'm not up to reading right-bloggers' offensive defense of theodolite crosshairs and high capacity magazines, or watching mainstream media personalities distributing blame like they were passing out medals at the Special Olympics.  Fortunately, both Roy and the Hoosier Sage have already performed all the heavy flensing...

...so that leaves me to wander around in a bleary-eyed stupor and do a little desultory roadside rag-picking, like John Carradine in Satan's Cheerleaders.

Let's check in with mensnewsdaily, where non-man Denise Noe provides some timely un-news by exposing the connection between abortion and homo nups (spoiler alert: it turns out that same-sex marriage is actually just Plan B for otherwise straight men and women who can't figure out how to work a diaphragm.  Or, for that matter, Plan B™).

Gay Marriage and Abortion: The Surprising Link

Without question, the two most divisive social issues today are gay marriage and abortion. At first glance, they may seem disconnected since a gay relationship can’t lead to a pregnancy and subsequent abortion.

it can, however, (spoiler alert!) lead to the 1972 film Cabaret.

I suggest that this is precisely the link – and the reason most of those opposed to legal abortion also oppose gay marriage while legal abortion supporters often support gay marriage.

So let me get this straight...you're suggesting that people who believe women have the right to control their own bodies, also believe that gays and lesbians are entitled to the same civil rights as other Americans?  No offense, Denise, but I'd like to see the Venn Diagram.

Heterosexuality has a unique relationship with life creation, as gay marriage opponents invariably point out. However, they usually omit the corresponding truth that a unique relationship with life creation also means unique risks and even horrors.

I guess, but you might want to consider the possibility that you're doing it wrong.

No woman has ever shoved a knitting needle up herself as a result of a lesbian embrace. No woman has ever had a doctor rip a fetus out of her body because of lesbianism. No woman has ever made the wrenching decision to give up a baby that has grown in her body for nine months up for adoption due to a lesbian liaison.

I think lesbians should really emphasize the safety aspects of their orientation, with a series of OSHA-approved workplace posters.  For example...

Lesbianism:  It's Like a Hardhat For Your Uterus.

This is not to suggest that lesbian relationships are risk free. Like any romantic or sexual relationships, they are prone to conflict, jealousy and even abuse, violence and murder.

I don't know who Denise is dating right now, but whoever it is, I urge them not to be stingy when buying her Valentine's Day gift.

However, they don’t have the special, biologically based costs for women that heterosexuality does.

Heterosexual intercourse is like the Russian Roulette scene in The Deer Hunter -- and not just because of all the sweating and cursing.

The fact that lesbianism cannot lead directly to abortion might seem to indicate that those wanting to reduce abortion should applaud it. Usually they oppose it. Why is that?

Oh, wait -- I know this one!  Because opposition to reproductive rights is less about  reducing the absolute number of abortions, and more about an overall icky attitude toward sex and girl parts?

The more brutal the consequences for women are of an unplanned pregnancy, the more attractive lesbianism might be to them –

You could take a trip to the contraceptive aisle at CVS, but it's more convenient to just find another gal and settle down in a Boston Marriage.

and the greater the societal fear that they will choose sexual partners that will not lead them to replenish the species and the culture.

And yet the Catholic Church would rather women turn to lesbianism than the Pill.  Either the Vatican hierarchy doesn't care about the brutal consequences of unplanned pregnancies, or the most frequently Tivo'd show in the Lateran Palace is The L Word.

Thus, it may appear important to put in cultural incentives for women to choose the more dangerous heterosexuality because the same form of sex that leads to reproductive horrors also leads to the reproduction necessary for species and cultural survival.

Nowadays a "cultural incentive" most often means "a chance to appear on reality TV," so perhaps the few, proud women who agree to brave the dangers and horrors of heterosexuality could be rewarded with a spot on one of those Discovery Channel shows like Dirty Jobs, or Deadliest Catch.  In fact, Sarah Palin's Alaska probably would have lasted longer if it had featured the former governor giving birth in the wilderness, severing the umbilical cord with her teeth, and eating the placenta before it attracted wolves.

It is no coincidence that the stigma toward lesbianism declined during the era of the Pill, legal abortion, and the demise of the home for unwed mothers. As the consequences of heterosexuality became less devastating, the fear that women would turn to each other rather than risk sex with men automatically diminished.

And yet, you look around, and there seems to be more lesbians than ever!  Someone really needs to tell Ellen about the Pill.

While lesbianism has been stigmatized, it has not usually been as persecuted as male homosexuality. I would suggest that the reason for this is also linked to reproduction. For much of human history, overpopulation was not a concern. The concern, as noted, was with the continuation of the species. Male sperm released in homosexuality is “lost” to its reproductive mission.

Yeah, that's undoubtedly the motivation for gay-bashing: squandered sperm.

By contrast, a woman who has engaged in lesbianism is no less likely to be impregnated than a woman who has not — if she also engages in heterosexuality. Male homosexuality per se appears a threat while lesbianism becomes a threat only if it is exclusive.

So lesbians aren't exclusively attracted to women, they're just fooling around with their girlfriends until the Pizza Delivery Guy shows up to impregnate them.

But aren't men who've engaged in gay sex no less likely to impregnate a woman, or are we pretending that no one's dad was ever in the Navy?

The stigmatization of same-sex relations in both genders occurs because there is a sense that, to the extent that such relationships may be the result of choice, that choice is all-too-attractive from the individual’s viewpoint while threatening the ability of society to perpetuate itself.

Gay people:  Please help us prevent human extinction by making the less attractive choice.

In discussing the issues of gay marriage and legal abortion, it is important to realize their connections in fears about reproduction.

So anyway...Lesbianism.  It Does A Body Good.