Spin that broken record

Since we’ve largely settled the question of same-sex marriage in Canada, I’m occasionally asked why I pay so much attention to the debate in the US. Well, leaving aside the fact that America is slightly influential in the world, I just find the ongoing mess bizarrely fascinating and often hilarious.

While queer Americans continue to repeat their simple, earnest speeches about love, fairness, equality and freedom, their ideological opponents come up with more, shall we say, avant-garde arguments — like this one from Mike Heath in Maine:

“By
now many readers are wondering why I am so concerned about the plague
of graffiti in our cities. I am concerned because there is a close

parallel between graffiti and same sex marriage. Both are warning signs
that our society is very sick indeed, and may be entering its final
crisis.”

He continues on for a whole page and it is comedy gold! Heath sputters, “graffiti can never be art,” so — altogether now:

Scary graffiti from a scary man in a scary city — Heath’s heart must be reaching its final crisis!

I keep mocking people like this because, well, it’s fun but also because I get so tired of their broken record — a skipping, scratchy song that doesn’t sound like the voice of anyone human. While they attack gay people for destroying the “sanctity of marriage,” the joke is that the majority of other heterosexuals are happily making their own marriages as sanctified — or not — as they like. Witness this week’s big tabloid revelation — the surprisingly dull threesome sex tape of actor Eric Dane and his wife (NSFW, duh!):

Conservatives will find some way to blame this on gays (it’s TR Knight‘s fault!) and point out that these are liberal Hollywood perverts, not decent ordinary people in Alberta who, umm, do the same thing. Like the Gawker site says:

“Will we ever get to a point where we can just admit that this is normal?”

Hopefully! But it’ll still take more than a continent full of really cool people and the memory of the ever-fabulous Bea Arthur to do it. After all, as gay people keep making the same arguments for basic equality, even our beloved Golden Girls start to sound like a rerun: