From the ‘Welcome-Back-Opus’ file: the Sunday comics of the Chicago Tribune (2-1) has the famous penguin on a park bench talking to a working-class straight couple as all watch a lesbian wedding in a gazebo down the way. The obnoxious husband opines that this is the downfall of All Marriage. His wife, on the other hand says, ‘It’s kind of lovely, isn’t it. Their fingertips barely touch like a tactile vow of whispered love. Two souls intertwined, growing as one like the garland folded over their linked wrists of lilac and baby’s breath.’ He burps, picks his nose and she asks for a divorce, proving his point.
Gay writer Andrew Sullivan in Time Magazine (2/16): ‘When people talk about gay marriage, they miss the point. It’s about marriage. It’s about family. It’s about love. It isn’t about religion. It’s about civil marriage licenses. Churches can and should have the right to say no to marriage for gays in their congregations just as Catholics say no to divorce but divorce is still a civil option. These family values are not options for a happy and stable life; they are necessities. … Using euphemisms for marriage put back the barrier many of us have spent a lifetime to erase.’
From the ‘Cute-Headings’ file: The NY Times (2/7) tells us of animal homosexuality under the banner: ‘Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name.’ The article is an overview of books and studies that survey this topic. Among the same-sexed couples are these species: penguins (watch out Opus), bonobos (miniature chimps), dolphins, sea gulls, macaques (a kind of monkey), and sandpipers. So much for homosexuality being unnatural.
Imagine if the head of the Republican Party were to come out and support gay marriage. That is precisely what the head of the British Conservative party, Michael Howard, has done, as reported in the Independent (2/10): ‘… Families are changing. Not all conform to the traditional pattern. I continue to believe that the conventional marriage and family is the best environment in which to bring up children. But many couples now choose not to marry. And more and more same-sex couples want to take on the shared responsibilities of a committed relationship. It is in all our interests to encourage the voluntary acceptance of such shared responsibilities—but in some instances the state actively discourages it. That should change, and I will support the Government’s Civil Partnership Bill.’ It should be pointed out that the Conservative Party in Great Britain is only a political party unlike the conservative movement in the USA which is ever-more bound to a religious faction.
From the Chicago Trib (2/11), a gay film fest is scheduled this week for the University of Notre Dame. The school was counted ‘most unfriendly’ to homosexuals by the Princeton Review. Nicholas Sakurai, an official of the U.S. Student Association attributes the much-pushed-for film fest and others like it to the large numbers of high school students who came out in the ’90s who’re now in college challenging anti-gay administrators and rules.