GLAAD is protesting that the Today Show’s annual summer wedding contest is not allowing gay couples to enter.  Isn’t this the same old Rockefeller Plaza three-ring nuptials they have been showcasing since Katie Couric was a flower girl?  In New York City, right?  Where the bride and groom faithfully hold up that very legal Empire State marriage license for pictorial and now YouTube posterity?  This is really a bit of deja vu as I remember joking with a NYC friend, as the New York State Senate was voting on marriage rights last December, wondering what effect this will have on the annual Today Show wedding contest.  Nothing…as the vote was 38 to 24…against.

I read this morning that GLAAD now has a meeting with the Today Show executives.  I am interested in what they will say.  I support GLAAD’s efforts, however, the whole legality thing makes it difficult.  I compare it to me going to Barney’s and protesting that the salespeople won’t let me shop lift.  Not that I have EVER done that before.  Or better yet, it’s like me lamenting my legal inability to smoke medical marijuana in New York and then asking for public signatures allowing me to toke away.  I have a prescription from home.  The point, however, is arguably mute.  It’s illegal, and it gives those in authority a more than excellent excuse to haul my ass away or in this case, legal-ease out of an uncomfortable situation.  The Today Show tweeted earlier that they were listening, but gave this link from Mediaite as a rebuttal.

It is my hope that the GLAAD conversations with NBC, and the obvious media focus, will get the next constructive conversation started.  What we should be asking the NBC powers that be is what is stopping the Today Show from holding its next summer wedding in Washington, DC or Vermont?  How about a 4th of July wedding in Boston?  Since public opinion on gay marriage is now polling in the greater than 50% part of the curve, why limit yourselves to the discriminatory confines of New York?  Surely, if you can send Matt Lauer to the most remote and far-reaching corners of the world, then Iowa seems to be the next logical step.  Right?

First let me say I couldn’t give any less of a damn where Tiger puts his wood or his iron.  The fact the Tiger got hungry and went out for a little Grubb is a matter concerning only the celebrity golfer and his life caddie.  He owes me no apology and certainly owes me no remorse.   He is a human being who is paid very well to put his ball in a hole; the fact that he does that off the green is not surprising.

What does cause point to ponder is that in the very same week that Tiger is accused of playing out of the rough with THREE mistresses, the New York State Senate voted down a bill legalizing gay marriage 38 – 24, where the opposition justified their vote by stating same-sex marriage is a threat to traditional marriage.  You have got to be fucking kidding me.  The biggest threat to “traditional” marriage of any kind is philandering hypocrites like Newt Gingrich, Sen. David Vitter, Sen. John Ensign, Gov. Mark Sanford, and hell, we might as well throw in that bastion of traditional family values, Rush Limbaugh, and his impending FOURTH marriage.  Last time I checked, these upstanding American citizens are straight as the proverbial arrow, but then again, that’s also the professions of Sen. Larry Craig and Rep. Mark Foley. 

In the last few weeks, we have listened with appall at news stories involving teens who set fire to another child over a dispute about a bike, a woman sold her five-year-old daughter, who was raped and murdered, to a pedophile for drugs, and though a much less heinous a crime, a Colorado father pimps his child out to bask in a little balloon-boy publicity.   ALL of these are the product of “traditional” marriage. 

How dare you, the pompous and the pious, stand and tell me and my partner of MANY monogamous years that we are a threat to marriage and family.  Against your own standards for society, you have been measured, and you have come up just short of the pin.   Marriage, family, and tradition are not threatened by homosexuals who desire a legal, loving commitment.  Marriage and family are undermined by infidelity, addiction, abuse, greed, the economy, divorce, and many other human frailties that are simply par for the course in Homo sapien life.  As far as Maine, California, and New York are concerned, I say we ask for a mulligan and tee up the Constitution of the United States for a change.  All in favor?  FORE!

Photo: Nicholas Confessore/Jeremy W. Peters, 11/9/09

A friend of mine sent me a New York Times article detailing New York State Senator, Ruben Diaz’s crusade against gay marriage.  Mr. Diaz, a Pentecostal minister, says this is nothing personal as he has several gay friends and gay family members, but same-sex marriage goes against his religious beliefs and the teachings of his church.  Therefore, the bill that would legalize gay marriage in the Empire State should not be allowed to come to the legislative floor for a vote.  It seems that the Reverend Diaz is perilously close to falling into that category of the pious who are too heavenly minded to do much earthly good.

It never ceases to amaze me why our conservative religious society is so uncomfortable with us making our own decisions regarding inner faith.  As I have written before, isn’t it time that we begin to to move beyond a superficial posture in our lives that says, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” I’m a little leery when someone bases their belief on “The Bible says…” The Bible says that it is good to take the children of our enemies and kill them by throwing them against boulders. That statement speaks for itself as just wrong.  The Bible says that it is an abomination to God to wear clothing made of two different kinds of material. I am of the belief that polyester is a sin, but I am not going to force my beliefs on others…well, not too hard.  The Bible says that adulterers are to be killed.  That would eliminate two thirds of our elected officials. The Bible says that it is an abomination to God to handle the skin of a pig…well, there goes football.  My point is, if we can easily discount these mandates as the rules of another time and age, then why can’t the perspectives, the science, and the math of 2,500 years ago, as it pertains to sexuality, be just as easily discounted.

Mr. Diaz, just as I believe in your right to preach your opinions on the evils of what you believe is a less than conservative lifestyle, I also believe those opinions have no place in our political process.  True, the delineation of church and state is tossed around at times in trivial matters, but in this case where the rights of the minority are concerned, the secularism of government has to take precedence over the freedom of religious exercise.  The obstructionist principles you extort from a book with as many translations and editions as there are denominations, IS personal.  It is a personal affront to your friends, your relatives, and the people of the great state of New York to assume their relationship with their creator is somehow less able to make a choice of faith than yours.  Step out of the way, Senator, and let the process continue.  Better yet, let the good book decide…the Constitution of the United States.

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.

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Here we go again, another ultra-conservative, born-again evangelical, Republican Senator manically trying to sweep all those little shards of heat fused silica under the rug.  You see, that’s exactly what you get when you continually lob stones from your crystal cathedral on The Hill.
Affairs of the heart, or any other place for that matter, are not news.  Unfortunately, men and women have been cheating on their spouses since early bipeds could crawl over to the next cave.  What is news, and will continue to be news as long as we have Republican politicians on the planet, is the hypocrisy in which they do it.

Yesterday, Senator Ensign held a press conference to announce his involvement, oh let’s just call it what it is, an affair, with a campaign staffer who was married to an employee of the Republican politician at the time.  Ensign’s rising star seems to have burned out white hot as his commitment to those all too familiar family values comes into question.

Senator Ensign has been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage stating that if gays are allowed to marry it would dilute the sanctity of the institution and destroy the American family.  Senator Ensign, I believe what is destroying the American family is philanderers like you.  I would like to hear your speech now on the virtues of your commitment to your family.  Do you actually believe that your blatant disregard of the marriage covenant and the pain and humiliation you inflicted upon your children from this public scandal is in any way more beneficial than a loving, committed, and stable same-sex household?

Ensign was a vocal conservative voice demanding that Sen. Larry Craig resign after he was arrested in June 2007 in an airport men’s restroom on misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges. Ensign called Craig a “disgrace”.  Interestingly though, when Republican Sen. David Vitter acknowledged having an affair with a DC prostitute, Ensign didn’t call on him to resign.

In 1998, John Ensign called for President Bill Clinton to step down from the Presidency as a result of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.  “I came to that conclusion recently, and frankly it’s because of what he put his whole Cabinet through and what he has put the country through,” Ensign said, becoming the first member of the Nevada delegation to call for Clinton to quit. “He has no credibility left.”

Speaking of credibility, Senator, how much credibility do you have left?
Other examples of Senator Ensign’s hypocritical hit parade…(Thank you www.thinkprogress.org.):

“Mr. President, I rise today to speak on a topic that is very important. That is the preservation of the most important structure in our society. I rise to speak on the topic of marriage and the need for the Federal Marriage Amendment. ” [7/13/04]

“I believe that marriage should be defined as that between one man and one woman. You want to do what is ideal for children and all of the studies show that the ideal for children is to be in a household with a father and a mother.” [4/19/09]

“There’s too many people that paint with a broad brush that we’re all corrupt, we’re all amoral. … And having these kinds of things happen, whether it’s a Republican or Democratic senator – we certainly have had plenty of Democratic scandals in the past – we need people who are in office who will hold themselves to a little higher standard.” [10/18/07]

Yeah, that.

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Here is the part that defies logic.  It seems like in his comments, when applied to administering benefits, he is apposed to ALL marriage.  Taking into consideration that the requirement for small business owners, if offering medical and dental benefits to their employees, to offer those benefits to legal dependents such as spouses.  Since in most states it is legal to discriminate against same-sex couples, it seems like small businesses would be clamoring to hire the gays.  When following the logic of the RNC Chairman, Mr. Steele seems to be warning against hiring those with the possibility of extending coverage to dependents.  Wouldn’t that be any employee other than homosexuals?

Once again, I say let the Republicans talk.  Let them keep re-branding themselves.  I can see no better example of failed policy, logic, and general awareness than their own witness.