Love and War

As noted in the previous post, conservatives have declared the direction of forward to be fascist communism.

Or was it communist fascism?

I can never remember if the Marxists were Nazis or if the Nazis were communists. 

Either way, accordingly North Carolina, not wanting to be labeled either communist or fascist, voted yesterday not only to not move forward – or even to remain in the same place for that matter –  but to, in fact, actually take a couple of giant steps firmly backwards.  It wasn’t enough that they denied granting certain citizens equal rights, they also voted to take away existing rights from a significant portion of their population.

Yep.

See, apparently after it was all over a number of bemused North Backward Carolinians were surprised to find out that they’d not only outlawed same-sex marriage but had also made civil unions illegal (for both gay and straight relationships).

Oops.

If ever you needed an abject lesson why any individual’s civil rights should not be something decided by ballot (besides, you know, that whole black people are property thing. Or women’s suffrage. Yeah, besides that I mean), yesterday’s vote in North Carolina would be a perfect example.

As I’ve said repeatedly here on Stonekettle Station, I have yet to have anybody explain to me how two gay people getting married affects me or my traditional marriage in any way whatsoever – or anybody else’s traditional marriage either for that matter.  They haven’t because they can’t, not that that simple fact makes them stop and think – being as thinking isn’t exactly something religious extremists do very well.  I have yet to have anybody explain to me why any legally consenting adult shouldn’t be able to marry any other legally consenting adult regardless of gender and call it “marriage” if they damned well please. They haven’t because, as I mentioned previously, they cannot.   And I have yet to hear any opposition to same-sex marriage that doesn’t, sooner or later (usually sooner), invoke somebody’s God.  Because the simple truth of the matter is that when you strip away all the bullshit, what it comes down to is a bunch of selfish bastards attempting to force their religious beliefs on the rest of us.

In the United States, if you can’t frame your argument without invoking your religion, you don’t in point of fact actually have an argument, you’re just being an asshole.

Here in America, denying any legally consenting pair of adults the right to marry because it’s against the tenets of somebody’s Bronze Age belief system is no different whatsoever than snatching random citizens off the street and forcing them to join your church.  Denying gay people the right to marry because Christians don’t like it is no different whatsoever from Muslims demanding that pork be outlawed nationwide and that all American women should have to go about with their faces covered.  It’s absolutely no different from American Catholics demanding that nobody can eat meat on Fridays because some senile old pedophile in a pointy hat says it makes Jesus cry.  The only, the only, time that religion should have any bearing on anybody’s civil rights is if it affects you directly, i.e. if you don’t agree with same-sex marriage because you believe that two thousand years ago some wild-eyed hippy with delusions of grandeur and a pocket full of magic fairy dust said it was bogus, dude, fine, then you have the absolute right not to marry anybody of the same sex as yourself – but that’s as far as it goes. You don’t get to tell the rest of us what to do. Period.  And don’t start in with that Christian morality bullshit either, or I will spend the next ten posts describing numerous examples of your religion’s endless immoral hypocrisy in intimate detail – and we’ll start with the aforementioned guy in the pointy hat.

Here’s the bottom line:

If a bunch of religious nuts can vote away your fundamental civil rights, then your rights are not self-evident, inalienable, or endowed by God. Quod erat demonstrandum.

It’s really just this simple: if men can dictate your civil rights based on their religious and/or political beliefs, then God isn’t the all powerful deity he claims to be and any rights he supposedly endows are worthless trash, or the founding principles of the United states – i.e. the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all citizens – are utter and complete bullshit, or (and here’s a thought) you are wrong. 

Want to take a guess as to which is more likely?

So, anyway, hot on the heels of the North Backward Carolina vote, today the president said he thinks gay people should be allowed to get married.

Predictably, conservative pundits, politicians, preachers, and pinheads went absolutely apeshit. 

The folks over at Fox Nation deployed their Jesus Powered Orbital Gay-Shield and stridently sounded panicked battle stations, declaring on Twitter:

OBAMA FLIP FLOPS, DECLARES WAR ON MARRIAGE!

Oh noes!

War?

On marriage?

Obama declares war on marriage. 

War.

Ah hell, not another damned war. Seriously? 

I thought we were done with that nonsense for a while – especially since Jeb Bush decided not to run for president.

So what’s reasoning here?  Did a bunch of traditional marriage extremists fly a jetliner into one of our buildings? Did One Man and One Woman bomb Pearl Harbor or invade Poland? Are traditional marriages hotbeds of terrorism and anti-American sentiment?  Did traditional marriage attack one of our allies or endanger our oil supply?  Did traditional marriage take one of our embassies hostage? Has traditional marriage been attacking our merchant ships on the high seas and impressing our sailors into their navy? Did traditional marriage nationalize the pineapple industry or attempt to burn down the Alamo? Do we want to build a canal through the middle of traditional marriage. What the hell is it this time?

Are traditional marriages hiding weapons of mass destruction?

That’s it, isn’t it?

Next thing you know, Obama will send Hilary Clinton to testify before the United Nations.  She’ll use CIA intelligence and a big flip chart to prove how traditional marriage hasn’t been complying with UN sanctions and how marriage hasn’t been cooperating with inspectors. 

 

Traditional Marriage, Clinton will tell the UN Security Council, is trying to build a Bomb.

 

Reluctantly, the UN will vote for war (and for once, those French pussies will be cheering us on! China and Russia will protest, of course, they’ve always been in bed with traditional marriage). We’ll rename Russian Dressing to Queer Vinaigrette and dip our Freedom Fries in it!

Joe Biden will be dispatched to an undisclosed location, not some high tech bunker beneath the Naval Observatory or the old Cold War facility under Weather Mountain, no it’ll be a bath house Command Post in the Castro District. 

This time people will listen to The Dixie Chicks and The Nuge will be vilified as anti-American and a traitor.

Rachel Maddow will become the voice of war, Forward, Girls, crush traditional marriage beneath our Doc Martens!

As Commander in Chief, Obama can’t wait for Congress to act – the threat from traditional marriage is too immediate and dire.  Besides the War Powers Act gives him the right to attack without congressional approval. He’ll call out the National Guard and deploy the drones.  He’ll order the Navy to begin bombardment of traditional marriage from offshore, followed by a Marine amphibious landing (Little known fact, the Navy actually has an aircraft, the EA-6B, nicknamed The Queer. Coincidence? Or has the military industrial complex been preparing for this all along?)  B-2 Spirit bombers will launch laser guided anti-marriage missiles.  In an awesome display of military might, the B-52’s will deploy the thunderous Rolling Divorce, carpet bombing marriage into smithereens!

That’s why Obama really ended the war in Iraq and is drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, you know, so that he can redeploy our troops in the war on marriage.  It’s true!

Obama’s sparkly rainbow-camouflaged troops will march across the land and the forces of traditional marriage will throw down their weapons and flee.  Shock and awe, folks, shock and awe. Together we’ll tear down the wedding chapels, and they’ll cheer us in the streets of Raleigh!

It’ll be fabulous!

Of course, if history is any guide (heh heh, right), traditional marriage will retreat to mountain caves and hidden lairs, and we’ll face a decade of insurgency, underwear bombers, Improvised Jesus Devices, and holy water attacks on gay people. 

War on marriage. Frankly I don’t see this ending well. 

Then again, you know, maybe it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

No really, think about it, conservatives love war.  It’s their most favorite hobby.

Maybe declaring war on traditional marriage is how Obama convinces conservatives to give gay people equal rights.  Well, sure, if it’s war, we’re in.  Let me get my gun and gas up the Hummer. For Freeeedom!

Crazy? Maybe, but it’s not half as crazy as some of the nonsense I’ve heard this week.

 

Of course, if it works out, Mitt Romney will probably want to take credit for it.

Gay marriage, totally my idea.  Totally.