This Week in Gay Marriage: The I Do’s and the I Don’ts

It seems like gay marriage is all the rage again.  Could it be a strategic distraction away from the debate on health care?  Could be.  Could it be a ploy for a daytime drama, whose ratings are dropping faster than Sarah Palin’s international street cred, to pry away some of that news coverage seeped in the idiocy of tea baggers?  Could be.

It was announced this week that ABC’s daytime drama, One Life to Live, will be the next soap hitching up to the lesbian bandwagon filling the melodious void left behind by the cancellation of Otalia and Guiding Light.  This storyline will offer up even fewer opportunities for forehead foreplay as the proposed relationship is as false as Carrie Prejean’s…uh, integrity.

It seems the mayoral race between arch rivals Victoria and Dorian of the fictional Pennsylvania town of Llanview hangs on the gay vote.  Dorian, never one to rise above begging, borrowing, or killing to best Viki, hatches a plan with her lesbian campaign manager to go girl on girl and get married until the votes are tallied.  This same-sex stunt is part of a larger gala of 22 other homosexual couples who are getting married on the melodrama.

Now, this is a soap and people come back from the dead, so I’m not going to waste my words on the legal aspects of gay marriage in Pennsylvania.  I’ll save those for DOMA and the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.  What I will marvel at is an election in soapland that hinges on the gay vote.  What fictional soap town has ever had more than two gays?  Wouldn’t it be easier to kill off one and impregnate and banish to a nunnery the other until the election is over?

I am of two minds about this storyline.  I do believe it it the dumbest on OLTL since Eterna, the secret underground city, but I also believe this is exactly something the character of Dorian would concoct to one up Viki.  Historically, Dorian’s selfish desire to annihilate Victoria Lord runs roughshod over any sense of humanity, tolerance, or human decency.   One Life has to be careful, otherwise, this just looks like another ratings stunt pulled at the expense of those continually marginalized by the lack of follow through from the daytime networks.  The jury is out on this one, ABC, and I’m watching.

Yesterday a friend of mine sent me an article where Rep. Steve King (R-IA) called Iowa’s Supreme Court decision, that unanimously struck down the law defining marriage strictly between a man and a woman, an unconstitutional ruling and predicted Iowa would become the gay Mecca of the Midwest.  He said there have been buses of people coming into Iowa to get married under this judge-made law.

Ok, let’s take this one step at a time.  Rep. King needs to loosen up his corn belt; it’s cutting off the oxygen supply to his brain.  Buses of people are coming into Iowa?  It’s Iowa.  Nothing against my friends from the great state, but the census results are showing no grand influx of homos on the Hawkeye express.  And frankly, what would be the big deal if Greyhounds full of gays stopped in Iowa.  From what I can see, better hairstyles, better interior design, and better theater would be a good thing…not to mention better softball teams and increased retail sales at Home Depot.

Opening up another front on the Republican war on sanity, Rep. King said, “If there is a right to same sex marriage…the right also exists for any other relationship that one might argue. There would be no rational foundation to prohibit incest between father and a son or a daughter or a mother and a son or daughter…”  No, Mr. King, no rational foundation other than the laws of genetics and good scientific sense.  Once again, a national figure steps under the microscope to reaffirm my position that science will never crack stupid.

Last week, the Des Moines Register released their own poll that sited an overwhelming majority of Iowans (92%) say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.  When asked to comment, Rep. King said Iowans do not have “a very good understanding of what same-sex does to the overall institution of marriage.”  On the contrary, Mr. King, I think the people of Iowa have bigger things to worry about.  It does appear, however, that Iowans in the 5th Congressional District have no idea of what a vote for you does to the overall character of their state.