The New York Times Magazine had an interesting and respectful profile of Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. If the same magazine ran this piece two years ago, he would have been photographed with the standard greenish, up-from-the-swamp lights the art directors usually reserve for religious, red state conservatives, that the same magazine has used in the past. I still remember one profile of a religious midwestern family the magazine profiled a decade ago -- the photographer shot them like freakish cadavers in a Diane Arbus portfolio.
One passage of the profile struck me of the Catholic senator. The author asked him about if his marriage was threatened by gay marriage and he immediately answered "yes." I was disappointed when then the reporter didn't use a simple follow-up question: why?
Why is Santorum's marriage and my marriage, for that matter, threatened if a gay couple are also joined in wedlock? Why? How is my 13-year union in any way diminished?
Perhaps it's because a club becomes less exclusive when anyone can join, but I am not so sure. I think marriage is a civilizing and settling institution and whether or not two men or two women get married, who the hell cares?
On the other extreme, I feel a couple who live together and have kids without getting married is far more destructive to my family and community than Steve and Jerry who might want to live next to us. The couple who shack up are far-more destructive to my family's sense of marriage, commitment and love than a pair of female gym teachers.
Now that that's settled, the pro-gay marriage folks have to answer one question: If gay men and women can marry, then why can't I marry another woman or my sister or my first cousin?
Two questions to think about...
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