oddpod

First, the title of this post is a lie born of my confusion: what’s so hard about this issue?

Hey, you: the ones threatened and appalled by gay marriage (I’m pointing my ring finger at you Huckabee.)  The debate around gay marriage revolves around the “M” word, and is one of semantics.  So I suggest it be solved with semantics.

Here’s my pitch: Divorce the word “marriage” from the governments vocabulary.  State governments–who have the constitutional right to manage marriages now–will lose that right in favor of the right to manage civil unions which grant all the rights previously afforded by marriage.  Religions get to bicker about the meaning of marriage until the end of time.

I think you (Huckabee, et al.) are adamant because you believe the word “marriage” to be sacred.  Me too, but my sacred is sometimes your profane.  In your eyes, we heathens are already going to hell.  Isn’t that enough for you?

Let us have our wacky religions[2], and call our partnerships “Marriages”, “See Youz”, or “Drunken Errors” as we see fit.  You can still stand in the public square, denounce and proselytize.  Some will listen and be converted, most will walk by not realizing that a tiny percentage of the population will accept Christ and disappear into the Rapture.  The rest of us schmucks will be stuck with the four riders.  (Hmm.  They might have already showed.  Did the Rapture happen while I was watching scrambled porn?)

Finally, you: folks who think it will only be equal in the eyes of the state if it has the same name.  You may be right, but I think declaring the rights of “civil unions” equal in Uncle Sam’s eyes would be and give that 62.5%[1] of freaked-out Americans some migraine relief, and why do you care about what they think anyway?

[1] Statistics provided by the Hearsay, Hearsay and Aegis Guest Foundation

[2] For instance, I am a Trans-humanist Hedonist Quantum Shaman.   Say that 3 times fast.  Those of my faith–and by that I mean me–usually just refer to ourselves as “Trahuhequies”.  We are presently offering memberships for 99 cents per month and the holy hypertext should be available as an iphone app by 09/29/2009.

[3] Can we please find a less arrogant name for ourselves?  Costa Ricans are Americans too.  How about we adopt USers, and own our bad habits (e.g. 5% of the worlds populations consuming 20% of the worlds resources).  I guess it takes a lot of stuff to be the greatest nation on earth.