Soren
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Watcha laffin' at??
It's closer than they think Monday, 13 September 2004 Mark Steyn
The better advocates of gay marriage are an ingenious crowd, full of artful arguments to support their claim. Initially, most of us on the other side found it hard to believe a countervailing argument was necessary, and by the time it became clear that neither "Oh, come off it, you can't be serious" nor "Well, I dunno, it just don't sound right" were going to suffice, the gays were already on their way to victory in the only arenas that matter--the media and the courts.
But the activists' intellectual rigour only goes so far. If you suggest, as some defendants of "traditional marriage" do, that gay marriage is the slippery slope to polygamy and bestiality, the activists roll their eyes and go into "Oh, come off it, you can't be serious" mode. Like the chichi gay couple from New York who've built their dream home in rural Vermont, they don't want any other incomers muscling in. Gay marriage, they assure us, is the merest amendment to traditional marriage, and once we've done that we'll pull up the drawbridge.
Sorry, but it's not going to work like that. If you can get 'em past the don't-be-so-ridiculous stage, the gays point out that there are no constituencies clamouring for polygamy and bestiality. That's true in the latter case. There aren't many "zoo couples" (as they're known) demanding their rights. Offhand, I can think only of Phillip Buble of Maine, who petitioned the Piscataquis County Superior Court a couple of years back to allow his spouse to attend a hearing with him. ("I've been informed your personal permission is needed given that my wife is not human, being a dog of about 36 lbs. weight and very well behaved." The letter ended with his signature and a paw print, and underneath them the words "Phillip and Lady Buble.")
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