I’ll admit it: I didn’t vote yesterday. It’s an off-year, and down here in Texas we only had 11 constitutional amendments to approve. Not surprisingly, they were all approved. That’s what always happens when the only thing on the ballot is a series of issues or amendments. Apparently it’s now harder for the state to claim eminent domain, which, if I remember from my US Government class, is why Alexander Hamilton got into a duel with Martin Luther King, Jr., over box seats at the Houston Astrodome.
I’ll also admit that I was listening to the Glee soundtrack in the car this morning, so I didn’t find out about Maine until I got to work. At first, I just registered disappointment. I mean, there was Prop 8 last year, and don’t let’s forget that Texas has banned marriage for the gays twice now. (The first time, they forgot to make it clear that not only was gay marriage illegal here, but that we don’t recognize it if you get married somewhere that it is legal, so they up and did it again.)
I saw a lot of annoyed people on Facebook today complaining about Maine. None of them are Mainers. I don’t know anyone from Maine. It has the dubious distinction of being one of the five states I’ve never been to (for the record: Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and North Dakota). And, in all honesty, even though everyone says they’re disappointed in Maine or angry about Maine, they’re really only talking about that 53% “clear majority” of voters that pushed through the repeal.
So, I went on with my day, which consisted of being a ball of stress (as has every other day this week). And I put Maine right out of my mind.
And then I saw this:
This would be a photo from the Bangor newspaper of people celebrating their victory last night. And I gotta tell you something–I’ve seen things that are offensive. But this? Man, this … just pissed me right the fuck off.
Let’s do an image analysis activity, here, shall we?
There are at least two people in this photo who aren’t old enough to vote.
Everyone in the photograph is white.
Several of them are overweight. You know perfectly well that the nice lady hasn’t clapped this hard since Jimmy Joe’s fried chicken won the contest down to the state fair in Augusta. (No, that’s not nice. Remember what she’s spent the past several months saying about me and my ilk, please, and then shut up.)
And then we’re drawn to the lady kneeling. She’s either overcome with emotion, or she’s praying, or both.
And I just have to ask: why?
What the hell is so wrong with us that she lost the ability to stand and has to grasp someone else’s hand for support?
And aren’t all of these people supposed to be leaving on the Rapture bus soon? Why do they even care about the laws on this planet Earth??
Several Internet and blogger pals have decried the institutional failure here: whenever minority rights get put up to a vote by the majority, the minority loses. The issue, of course, is that the majority refuses to recognize that gays and lesbians ARE a minority. We’re just wrong.
I want someone to go to Congress and make these people put their money where their mouths are. If marriage is so important, and must be protected, let’s protect it. We need to ban divorce in these United States of America.
Furthermore, if it’s so true that children need both a mother and a father, we need to pass a bill in the Congress that will call for the removal of children from any household in which a mother and father (married, of course) are not present. Daddy just died in the war? Tough! Mommy’s got a week to find a new husband or the kids go to foster care.
I know it sounds like I’m being flippant, but I’m being quite serious. If we’re going to have all these moral values out there, someone needs to push to take them to their logical end. If people can get divorced, and children live in homes with one parent, and none of these bleeding hearts out to “protect the family” will do anything about it … well, then what’s to stop me from marrying a hamster?
Time to take the gloves off. And if that doesn’t work, we’re cancelling both Glee and Project Runway. You just wait and see if we don’t.
