Marriage = MY FUCKING BUSINESS

I have a new job, and I have a new favorite place to park at my building. Two days out of the last three, this big, bumper sticker-plastered truck has been in the space next to mine. Every time I see it, I have to fight the very sudden, violent, and real urge to key the fucking thing, because of this one particular sticker.

[Sorry, I'd've posted the pic directly, but I'm apparently dumber than Blogger.com.)

It's clearly one of those fucking holier than thou "sanctity of marriage" movements. I did a search so I could include the image, and found out exactly which movement: CBN's.

PROTECT THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE
Let your voice be heard.
Request your free bumper sticker!

We the people proclaim that marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman! Please support the Federal Marriage Amendment (H.J. Res. 56):

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

CBN is proclaiming God's truth and love to America! Please join with us.

■Pray that God will protect His divine plan for marriage and the family.


■Act by contacting your senators, representatives and state legislators. Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or log on to http://congress.org to contact your state and federal legislators by e-mail.


■Share with your family and friends. It is vital to let our voices be heard now -- before the Supreme Court has a chance to make same-sex unions the irrevocable law of the land.

First, why this makes me violently mad: I can't fucking stand when people cheerfully, and with a great sense of community and purpose, fuck other people over. The smug fucking assholes haven't walked a single step in gay man or woman's shoes, but they'll happily say they're not real people and shouldn't have real rights. Hey, maybe they're 3/5ths of a person, right?

Next, let's pick this apart a bit. "We the people " oh don't go all Declaration of Independence on us so you can pretend to be opressed, noble, and intelligent. "We fucking holier-than-thou Christians" would be way more accurate. Okay, moving on.

"We [fucking holier-than-thou Christians] proclaim that marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman!" I'm going to skip right over "sacred" so I can move on to this: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." To turn that into Normalspeak, "No law should be understood to mean that 'marriage' has to include fags."

Okay, so marriage is sacred penis-and-vagina territory, and laws should enforce that. So this should be a nation of Christian laws. Oh yeah, THAT'D be just swell.

How many times, and how many different ways, do we have to ask, please, beg, scream, WHY DOES IT FUCKING MATTER TO YOU FUCKS??!? What do you CARE if I peg my husband in the ass, or if my best guy friend likes cock? He's not after YOUR cock! YOU'RE too homophobic, uptight, stupid and unattractive?

Personal attacks? Oh yeah, I'm all about the personal attacks. You started it, asswipes. Your cute little Man + Woman sticker could easily - and more honestly - look like this:




Edit: I'm SO happy. I was already happy about this post (man, that was cathartic), then I went looking on cafepress.com for marriage related bumper stickers. My absolute favorite is the FOCUS ON YOUR OWN DAMN FAMILY one. I gots ta buy it, I just GOTS to.

Today's Dan Savage quote

Fathers are free—sadly—to teach their sons whatever ridiculous bullshit they care to. I'm teaching my son, for instance, that the theory of gravity is just a theory and that invisible wads of magic chewing gum hold everything down. Your brother, however, can't expect you to censor yourself around his misinformed, opinionated son to protect the kid from the realization that, hey, maybe—just maybe—there are other opinions out there, and maybe his dad is wrong about homosexuality.

Sweet. Here's the full column.

Morality

I think I can second SurferJesus' contention that most (if not all) morality really can boil down to, Be excellent to each other.

I'm reading up on some Christian viewpoints of atheism, and I stumbled across a gem on Conservapedia:

In regards to atheism and morality, the Barna Group also found that those who hold to the worldviews of atheism or agnosticism in America were more likely, than theists in America, to look upon the following behaviors as morally acceptable: illegal drug use; excessive drinking; sexual relationships outside of marriage; abortion; cohabitating with someone of opposite sex outside of marriage; obscene language; gambling; pornography and obscene sexual behavior; and engaging in homosexuality/bisexuality.

First off, "The Barna Group conducts opinion polls, which are generally interpreted from an evangelical perspective, and often cited within evangelical circles." Well duh, of course we're gonna use research from a sympathetic firm. But let's talk here anyway...

• illegal drug use - okay sure, on the surface doing something illegal can be considered immoral simply because you're supposed to follow the laws period. Social cohesiveness and all. But if we ignore the obvious - hey, just because it's a law doesn't mean it's a moral matter - we can probably agree that most illegal drugs are bad, mm'kay?
  
  
• excessive drinking - it's unhealthy, and can be dangerous when mixed with youth, bad judgement, cars, Kennedys, etc etc etc. But actually immoral on its own? Sure, why not, we'll give you that one.
  
  
• sexual relationships outside of marriage - now hang on a minute! Who the hell said (besides the Christians) that the Christians are the gatekeepers of morality? We can easily agree that murder is bad, because, well, nobody wants to be murdered. Murder is NOT excellence to the victim. But sexual relationships outside of marriage are (a) consentual, and therefore victimless, but also (b) quite excellent to each other, provided you're doing it right.
  
  
• abortion - I get that this one's debatable, within and without religion.
  
  
• cohabitating with someone of opposite sex outside of marriage - I know you seperated the two with "abortion", but why don't we just lump cohabitating with premarital sex? And while you're at it, quit trying to church it up...it's LIVING TOGETHER. Cohabitating, indeed.
  
  
• obscene language - WTF? F-bombs are immoral? And don't try to make the argument that I don't swear around my kids, so it's bad...I don't fuck my husband or take a dump around my kids either, and Christians don't think those things are immoral. This is an entirely seperate post (of the FUTURE), so we'll leave it for now.
  
  
• gambling - again, you're the one saying that gambling is immoral. I think it's odd to make up your own rules, then try to pull GOTCHA! on people when they aren't playing along. Exclusionary Calvinball.
  
  
• pornography and obscene sexual behavior - again, legal porn is pretty victimless. The participants are consentual, the consumers are happy. Why is touching your private parts in private, immoral? As for obscene sexual behavior, well now well now...it depends on what we're talking about. Anything consentual with above age partner or partners isn't immoral, for the same reson that nonmarital sex is okee dokee.
  
  
• engaging in homosexuality/bisexuality - see all the sex talk above.
  

I realize I'm proving their point. But there's an assumption here that needs to be put to words: These things are bad, atheists tend think they're not, so atheists are bad. It's a given, like god is a given. I know, I know, they HAVE to think that way, just like I have to think that knowledge is good. It just pisses me off that they think EVERYONE has to think that way.

I dunno, I've got my own point of view too, and I'm pretty militant about it. I think the difference is that you can try and argue that I'm immoral for supporting homosexuality, but I can PROVE that you're stupid for supporting Intelligent Design. And the talking snake thing. And so on.