You know you’re in for a treat when an article starts with, “Last week, conservative groups held ‘National Marriage Week,’ an attempt to amplify Christian messaging about marriage”. Also it’s by Zack Ford AND Adam Peck, so you feel like you’re getting double-teamed in only the best of ways.
It sounds like just talking about marriage and Christian values is unacceptable to these people. How dare they “amplify” and exercise their First Amendment rights!
Ironically, many of the pieces published for the occasion celebrated the many benefits of marriage, highlighting how the same groups’ opposition to same-sex marriage is in turn a cruel attack on the well-being of gays and lesbians.
Celebrating marriage during National Marriage Week? The apostates!
Not believing in gay marriage, holding that opinion, is now a “cruel attack” on gays and lesbians.
Now what did those evil Christians do? They “featured a letter from President Ronald Reagan to his son about marriage, then today posted the following graphic on its tumblr excerpting its final quote”. Because there’s no better platform to launch a “cruel attack” on gays and lesbians than tumblr.
The damning quote?
There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.
A kind bit of grandfatherly advice that wouldn’t be out of character in most homes in America.
The Bizarro world response? “The quote is unfortunately sexist, given that it implies the man is working and the woman is waiting at home.”
So gender roles are sexist now? Would they prefer this approved™ edit?
There is no greater happiness for a male or female than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his or her footsteps.
If your grandfather gave you that advice, you’d know he was beginning a steady decline.
The plot thickens:
But of course, its use is implicitly heterosexist as well. The Heritage Foundation opposes LGBT equality and regularly publishes arguments against recognizing same-sex marriage, so it would likely not be quick to celebrate the happiness of a gay man who knows he, too, has someone to come home to.
Celebrating traditional gender roles that have resulted in the creation of billions of people, gay and straight, over millennia, is “implicitly heterosexist”, a code word for “evil”.
Not even addressing a certain group is now hateful to that group?
And how dare these evil Christian conservatives not be joyful (we totally assume, we’re making this up as we go along) that a gay man or woman could come home and feel the same happiness from their partner?
At any rate, however, progressives can agree with conservatives and President Reagan on the essential component of this quote: companionship is a healthy support structure for adults and the core foundation of families and communities.
Thank God for that. And Buddha. And Allah. And the Flying Spaghetti Monster. God/Buddha/Allah/FSP help us if we left anyone out.
