Can we spell it out more clearly than that? Well, I don’t think so. Unfortunately, the folks who prefer to spread fear and confusion rather than looking at the actual situation will probably not pay any attention to the numbers anyway.

Here’s a clip of Rachel Maddow covering this last night. Enjoy!

It seems that Dick Cheney, whose daughter is a lesbian, has finally come out and said that he supports gay marriage, but on the state level rather than the federal level since marriage has historically been regulated on the state level in the US. And I have to say that I think it’s pretty cool that he can take that stand and let other conservatives see it.

At the same time, it really would have been great if he could have done it while he was telling President Bush what to do serving as vice president and supporting former President Bush’s policies. I do understand that politics is all about compromise and giving a little so you can get a little. And I also think that he could have come forward in support of the many queer folks who want to get married while he was still in office.

We’ll see where this goes, I suppose. And in the meantime, doesn’t he look hunky in that very photoshopped image?

Does it seem to you that the anti-gay marriage folks are getting a little desperate to come up with a logical, reasonable explanation for why they don’t want gays to marry (besides their homophobia, I mean)? You’ll love this one, then.

GOP Chairman Michael Steele has proposed that if gays are allowed to marry, that will hurt businesses by adding to their health benefits costs. Here’s what he said:

“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

If that’s the case, then maybe we shouldn’t let anyone marry. Wouldn’t that make sense? I mean, then nobody would have to pay any spousal benefits to anyone. Or we could, you know, have a health care system that wasn’t profit-driven in the first place.

In any case, it really seems like he’s trying to defend the indefensible. Which is, I hope, a sign that this sort of institutionalized homphobia is on the run. Keep your fingers crossed…

Related at Good Vibrations:

Bachelorette Gifts (fun for all marriages)
Erotic Honeymoon Sampler Kit
Mini-Peni Cake Candles
Party Tiara W/ Veil

Pretty remarkable isn’t it. Lies about how people who support queer marriage are going to take away people’s freedom, how churches who don’t support same-sex marriage are being punished, how queer marriage advocates want to decide how people to live their lives and take away their choices. It’s just not true.

At least one of the lines is accurate. One of the actors said, “I am afraid.” And yes, these people are afraid. They’re afraid of queers. It’s called homoPHOBIA for a reason, folks. And by trying to foment a panic, they’re relying on the same old tactics: if they can confuse and scare people, then maybe they’ll get what they want.

Don’t give into it, friends.

And as if that wasn’t enough, unlike California, if the anti-gay marriage folks want to change the state constitution, they have to get legislative approval in two sessions before going to a public vote, which will take at least a few years. As John Saclzi puts it,  “Three years is a long time to try to keep people full of hate and fear, especially when they see married couples being happy and productive, and not the least hateable or fearable.”

(Just as an aside, anyone who likes well-written and fun science fiction should check out John Scalzi’s stuff. Or read his blog for entertaining and often thought-provoking conversations. It’s not about sex, per se, but it’s damn fun. ’nuff said)

Seriously good news.

Yet the joy for many of us is tempered by the passing of Proposition 8. The country has come so far in electing an African-American president and at the same time the blue state of California has voted to ban gay marriage. One prejudice was torn asunder while another erected a rampart.

It’s been that kind of election cycle. Our African-American president got here by telling us we should not vote for the woman candidate.

Meanwhile, the Republicans did nominate a woman to be vice-president. But her reliance on her charm, good looks and cutesy attitude rather than her intellect made her a giant step backwards for feminism.

Then there is the possibility that the reason prop 8 passed was because the African-American candidate brought too many African-Americans to the polls. The theory is that Black Churches were preaching against the abomination of gay marriage.

Of course Barack Obama never said he was in favor of gay marriage, either. It’s like our fiancé is so sweet to us when we’re alone but is a different person when his friends are around. If Obama had come out in favor of same-sex marriage he probably never would have gotten elected. Politics is a funny game that way.

In the spirit of that game I have a proposal, a new proposition to go up in a special referendum: Proposition 8 ½.

Proposition 8 ½ states that marriage shall be defined as the union of two people who love each other. Said unions shall be recognized by the State regardless of all manner of craziness and lunacy that may ensue.

Proposition 8 ½ has been carefully worded to encompass as much of the human comedy as possible. Rather than target the institution of marriage and ask specifically that same-sex couples be allowed in I am proposing we swing the doors wide. With some of the relationships that pass as marriages already this broader approach is n everyone’s interest.

Let us look at what this proposition means.

“Two people who love each other.” That seems pretty straight forward, or gay forward, which is just like straight forward only better dressed and it leans slightly to the left.

It is the second sentence that needs a little unpacking. “Said unions shall be recognized by the State regardless of all manner of craziness and lunacy that may ensue.” What does this mean?

Put most simply, marriage already encompasses a wide swath of relationships, many of them crazy and lunatic. By stating that the State must recognize all manner of craziness we are throwing the doors wide open for gay relationships. When you look at marriage today two men or two women being married just isn’t that odd.

Let’s look at some relationships that already exist and qualify as marriage.

You can live in separate houses, you can live in separate states, and so long as you are straight be considered married under the law.

You can claim to be staying late at work while carrying on an affair that your spouse knows about but doesn’t want to admit and so she punishes you with cutting remarks in front of friends, your marriage bed a cold, desolate wilderness, and, so long as you are straight, still be considered married under the law.

You can be polyamorous sex gods, at least in your own minds, sleeping with every living, breathing soul within 25 miles of San Francisco and so long as you’re straight still be considered married under the law.

You could have gotten married because you thought it was the right time, you know, because you were tired of going out every Saturday night looking, and because all your friends were getting married and you wanted someone to go with to their weddings, and now you realize you don’t really know who he is but as you’re starting to learn you realize you don’t like him and so lately every time he comes through the front door you are seized by a desire to punch him in the face. That could be your situation, and so long as you’re straight you are considered married under the law.

You can be in it for the money and so long as you are straight be considered married under the law.

You can lie to your spouse about everything except your name and so long as you’re straight…

But you can be in a committed relationship for 10 years, own property together, raise children, love one another in the face of strong societal resistance, and if you are the same sex not be considered married under the law.

Unless of course that law is Proposition 8 ½. Then the State has to recognize all manner of craziness and lunacy.

Proposition 8 ½ holds a mirror up to straight people and their marriages. Let’s not let the churches promulgate the myth that marriage between a man and a woman is considered holy simply by being. Let’s not let them control the image.

Let’s put it into law, marriage is all kinds of crazy.

You can hate your husband and still be married. You can love watching your wife have sex with large Turkish men and still be married. You can also be two men or two women and still be married. If you’re in love, that’s enough for us.

There is a flip side to Proposition 8 ½. By defining marriage as something that exists between two people who love each other we would be effectively annulling, well, more marriages than I care to name here.

(To all my friends who think I might mean you, I don’t mean you. I mean our other friends who we’re always talking about. You know who I mean.)

There you have it, Proposition 8 ½, subversive and loony but perhaps just what we need.

Proposition 8 ½: If you’re in love, that’s enough for us.

What can I say, it’s a good bumpersticker.

Straight people, if you are thinking of getting married, I highly recommend attending a gay wedding. The Unitarian Universalist Church on Franklin and Geary will be holding a marathon of them from November 1-4.

Really, go, you’ll learn something invaluable. You’ll learn that a wedding is about joy.

If proposition 8 were to pass, Feh, Feh, it would not only be a defeat for gay marriage but a defeat for joy.

That is the most amazing aspect of a gay wedding. The joy is palpable. It is bouncing through the room, perfuming the air. When the ceremony ends the room bursts into raucous applause and people begin to hoot and holler.

It is the marriage of the two meanings of the word gay; both the modern slang for couples of the same sex and the thousand year old term meaning joy or great mirth. The modern slang has overshadowed the original meaning. You may read about “gaiety” now and then but rarely will someone refer to having a “gay old time.”

There is joy and great mirth at these oh so modern weddings. They truly are gay. And in being so they return marriage to one of its essences.

One essence of marriage is the contract, a deal struck between two people involving assets. There’s the dowry (current assets), a promise of children (future assets), and the promise to take care of one another (perpetuity assets). Guests are invited to witness the deal and hold people to that contract.

Not a very enticing picture. As we evolved we sewed love into the fabric. Now guests were invited to witness the declaration of that love. Guests were invited to witness a man and a woman state, “I choose you.”

That is the essence of modern marriage, to stand before your community and declare, “This is the person I love.”

And oh, how we lost that.

How common and expected it is to see a bride and groom stressed out as their nuptials approach.

What’s the guest count?

Will Aunt Aida be offended if we don’t invite her?
Yes.
But she lives in Minneapolis and hasn’t left her house in fourteen years.
Doesn’t matter.

What about the menu? Should we serve fish?
It has to be sustainably caught.
Well, didn’t George and Martha have Aquaman cater their wedding? Let’s get his number.

And the venue?
I’d like to get married in the Church I grew up in.
Well, I want to get married in a house built of sustainably farmed straw by three humanely treated little pigs.

Straight people suffer under the weight of a massive paradigm.

Women who have been dreaming and revising their weddings for twenty-five years, the church, the dress, the music, the first dance.

Men who have been told that on that day their joy ends.

Ah, straight weddings, a bride nervous in case it is not exactly as she pictured it and a groom nervous in case it is exactly as he pictured it.

Gay marriage has no such paradigm. Gay couples have not spent a lifetime watching gay weddings in movies, hearing their mother’s tale of her gay wedding day, or going to their perfect gay sister’s perfect gay wedding.

Gay marriage is a virgin forest, pristine in its utter newness. There has been no time for anything to grow other than the essence of marriage.

At a gay wedding there is great joy at the right to stand before your community and say, “This is the person I love. I choose you.” There is little else.

There are two great ironies in all this.

One is that all those people who oppose gay marriage, those who will vote yes on proposition 8, believe marriage is sacred. And here they are opposing the marriage of people who have stripped marriage down to its sacred essence.

These people opposing gay marriage got married in the right church, to the right person, in front of the right people, with the right food and the right pop song to dance too; possibly by Elton John.

Many of them simply missed the point. But they’ll be damned, quite literally, if they allow two people to marry in the spirit of love, and little else.

The other irony is that if proposition 8 is defeated and gay marriage slowly becomes precedent these current marriages of joy will be a short-lived experience. Within a generation gay men and women will have built up their own paradigms. They will have their own images to live up to, their own dreams to get just right.

It will be beautiful because gay people will take the right to get married for granted. And it will be terrible because gay people will start worrying about inviting Aunt Aida and wearing the perfect outfit and finding three humanely treated little pigs who know how to build.

There will be joy, but joy tempered by expectation.

Right now there is only joy. It’s a beautiful thing.

So vote no on 8. Vote for joy.