I'm Not From Wisconsin, But Boy, Am I Cheesed!

The US has a war in Iraq, there's fighting in Afghanistan, all over there are high gasoline prices, people are dying of HIV/AIDS, famine, and tribal warfare in various locations around the globe, homeless people are living across the street from the White House, and the environment is degrading even as we speak. What is the president of the US concerned about?

Preventing two people who love each other from getting married, because they are both the same gender.

Am I the only one with my head cocked to one side like my dog when I talk to him in words he doesn't know?

What is the matter with this picture, people?!

Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

It seems that things aren't going so well for the president in areas where he really does have responsibility, so he's trying to get conservatives excited over a social issue that is already dead in the water. Even the conservatives in Congress aren't interested in it--they know it's a state issue, not a federal one, and the strict Constitutionalists are outraged that the federal government would take on something that is a state perogative.

Of course, things aren't a whole lot better north of the border, where I'm living. We've got a PM who wants to reopen the issue in the fall. Perhaps he's just testing the waters by bringing it up this early--if it gets a lot of negative reaction, he can allow the talk to die away by the fall.

Most Canadians don't care, at this point. Bill C-38--the one allowing same-sex marriages anywhere in Canada--is the law of the land. And guess what? As had been said of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, there have been no cataclysms. The sun has continued to rise and set, the trains run as on time as they ever did, Nova Scotia did not fall into the Atlantic, Vancouver is still hanging on as well, and no one was forced to either have or officiate at a same-sex wedding.

But, of course, the religious not-so-Right is banging on the war drum, crying out for the protection of the children (but what about children whose parents cannot get married because they are same-sex?) and the sanctity of the family (every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered person I know is the product of a family; they have their families of origin and the families they have created) and foundations of society (how can stabilizing and recognizing personal relationships destabilize society?) and Biblical mandates (but they also say this is the beginning of a slippery slope, and polygamy will be next--well, excuse me, but isn't that what King David and King Solomon practiced? And they were beloved of God!!).

In a few weeks, two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers are getting married. They're the first RCMP same-sex couple to be married--that's right, Mounties, the ones who always get their man (and don't think that joke hasn't been made in every article about them!). The RCMP are dealing with it just fine.

I pray for the day when there's a same-sex married couple in the US Green Berets.

Now there's a conservative's nightmare!