They Want to Tell Us What Marriage Is

Journalists in the "real" media like to joke about blogs, as if they were somehow inferior to corporate publications. Yes, blogs are amateurish, by definition. The Internet has created a situation where anybody in the world can post a news story and comment on it, and lead a discussion if they want. There are literally millions of blogs, most of them posted by teenagers documenting their daily lives, whatever, the way it works is that end-users decide what they want to read. Blogs don't advertise, they just exist, and if enough people keep coming back then they are a success. There are a few hugely successful ones, and a lot like this one that have a limited but consistent, specific readership interested in a certain kind of issue. We get a fair number of readers, but really the fascination with Montgomery County, Maryland's internal controversies is going to be less widespread than, say, Boing-Boing's "Directory of Wonderful Things."

But here is a perfect example of how the blogs can out-do the corporate media.

Some Senators have proposed an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Here's the whole thing (after some "resolved" - type boilerplate):

`Section 1. This article may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Amendment'.

`Section 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.'.

I don't really know why there are two periods at the end of it.

We recognize this familiar kind of ugliness. Some "conservatives" want to force their personal views on everybody. It's typical and hardly worth commenting on.

Now, the blogs have tuned in to the list of co-sponsors. Here they are:

Sen Wicker, Roger F. [MS] (main sponsor)

Sen Allard, Wayne [CO]
Sen Brownback, Sam [KS]
Sen Craig, Larry E. [ID]
Sen Enzi, Michael B. [WY]
Sen Inhofe, James M. [OK]
Sen Roberts, Pat [KS]
Sen Shelby, Richard C. [AL]
Sen Thune, John [SD]
Sen Vitter, David [LA]

In particular, in case this didn't jump out at you, the blogs have noted the presence of Senators Vitter and Craig on the list of sponsors of the bill telling the rest of us what marriage is.

About a year ago, Vitter's name came up when the late "DC Madam" published a list of phone numbers that her escort service had done business with. Vitter immediately asked for forgiveness from God and his wife. Now, here's the thing that gets me with these guys. Wouldn't he be asking for forgiveness from God immediately, while he's zipping up his pants? Why did he only realize he'd done something wrong before God when he got caught? Okay, his wife, I see that, you go to see a hooker, you lie to your wife. But did he lie to God, too? Man, getting caught will give you a conscience real quick.

Another woman, the "Canal Street Madam," also said Vitter had been a customer. In his defense, she was quoted as saying that Vitter "was not a freak. He was not into anything unusual or kinky or weird." I don't know about you, but that's almost disappointing to me. And let me say, I don't really care if a guy goes to see a prostitute. My personal view is that it's a dumb thing to try to make illegal, but whatever I don't expect everybody to agree with me. I just tend not to be too judgmental when a person, male or female, lets their emotions get the best of them in that way. But it does bother me a bit when the same guy goes to work at the Capitol Building and tries to get everybody else to sign up for his view of what marriage should be. Senator, this will seem weird to you but some people actually believe in having sex exclusively with their spouses.

I notice that sexual fidelity was not mentioned in the Amendment.

And then Larry Craig, what can you say there? Trying to play footsies with an undercover cop in an airport bathroom: bad idea. And it's the same thing, I really don't care if a guy wants to hook up with a stranger someplace. I think it's creepy to do it in an airport restroom, mainly because I fly pretty often and I don't want to have to wonder about the guy in the next stall, or what those sounds are. But for a married guy to be doing that while he's telling other people they can't get married because they don't meet the overly-simple definition in the "Marriage Protection Amendment" -- uh, can I get through this without using the word "hypocrisy?" I guess not.

See, both of these guys want the world to live and let them live. They screwed up and they want to be forgiven, or in Craig's case, they want the world to accept their obviously false denials. But they don't want anybody else to have the right to screw up. So Adam and Steve want to settle down and establish a home, how is that possibly worse than joining some stranger in a stall in a public restroom for oral sex? How is the love between two men or two women morally more repugnant than partying with hookers behind your wife's back?

I have said before, part of the issue here might be the quality of the gay people that conservatives and liberals know. Being involved in this blog and these controversies, I have gotten to know a lot of gay people. They're regular folks, they have their personality traits like the rest of us, they look you in the eye and speak plainly and they are out-front about who they are. It appears that conservatives only meet the kinds of gay people who lie about their orientation and then hook up in bathroom stalls. Look how many preachers and politicians have fallen out of the closet, still denying everything, in the past few years! What if somebody like Larry Craig or Ted Haggard just said, "I'm gay, and I'm glad to get it out in the open." If they're a liberal, they do that, everybody absorbs the new information, and it's no big deal. If they're a conservative, they have to lie, they have to do these creepy things in inappropriate situations, and -- here's the problem: in the end, conservatives think that all gay people are like that.

My original point: if you search the news, you will find that no major news source says anything at all about this obvious irony. What are they afraid of? C'mon, this is funny! It's like the corporate news people are embarrassed, they're covering up for these hypocrites. David Vitter and Larry Craig want to amend the freakin' Constitution so people can only have the kind of marriage they have! I don't think so.

You'll only know about this if you read the blogs.