NPR, Buffy and Boffo, Stokey and Phelps

It was all so too too very I nearly puked into my DeSalvo Collar.

NPR did a piece on gay marriage yesterday. The second half was an ultra softball interview with a couple, he some prof of "ethics and moral philosophy," she some chick with an Oxford-related theology credential, who took the "con" side. These quasi-academic pieces of work had posited three sine qua nons of marriage -- complementarity, a public contract and procreativity -- which, QED, ruled out gay "marriage," although some of their best friends, etc etc.

One would think that such overly PhD'ed entities would not insist on such a literal and exclusive reading of complementarity: insert penis into vagina, tab A into slot B, and that's that. They evoked, of course, centuries of History and Tradition, and the Sanctity of the Institution of Marriage. They weren't quoting scripture, but Leviticus was lurking in the background. One could mentally morph the argument into one for slavery, white-supremacy, anti-semitism, the oppression of women. The ugly prejudice is prior. The rest is ugly rationalization, cloaked in college degrees, religion, tradition, history, you name it.

These are the insidious hate mongers, the insidious segregationists, the insidious separate-but-equalizers.

And again it's the old "we must respect and tolerate their opinion because it is their deeply held religious belief blah blah blah." Well fuck that shit, as the phrase goes. Bigotry is bigotry. I mean do we "respect" the fundamentalist Islamic "law" that provides for women to be stoned to death because it's a "deeply held belief" ? Hell, no.

I would imagine Profs Buffy and Boffo would be surprised -- and offended -- to be placed in the same category as Topeka's infamous Reverand Fred Phelps. "Moi?" they might cry, in unison, or perhaps, "Nous ?"

Yeah, vouse guys. I'm talkin' to you. High-end fundamentalists. Creepy homophobes in sheepskinned clothing.

I have a great Phelps story.

We were visiting DK's folks in Topeka, and decided to give their late, magnificent and placid poodle, Stokey, a joyride in the car, windows down, truly dog heaven. We tooled about for a while, the beast having the time of its life, until we came to a major intersection where a gaggle of Phelpses, adults and kids, were waving their virulent horrid signs. Stokey -- normally a placid, silent, amicable animal -- spotted them and suddenly began to bark like a dog possessed.

Good dog. Very, very good dog.

If he'd been there last night, I bet he'd have barked at the radio.