And so it was that the Defense of Marriage Act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and Proposition 8 was dead in California. And the gays did celebrate across the land.
Meanwhile, after crying many tears, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins went on “Meet the Press” to apologize to LGBT people. “I was wrong,” he said, “and also a real dick. I’m sorry.” He then pulled off his microphone and walked into the ocean. He was last spotted on a gay cruise ship performing his one-man comedic monologue, “Research THIS: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gays.”
Ha ha, just kidding. Perkins did, indeed, go on “Meet the Press,” but rather than apologizing, he equated people who vote in favor of marriage equality to people who use violence to steal cars.
“Essentially what [the Supreme Court] has done is that they’ve dragged ‘we the people’ from behind the wheel of this republic and carjacked the nation,” Perkins said. “And this never ends up good.”
And by “this,” I assume he means his carjacking analogy because I am having a lot of trouble picturing Justice Anthony Kennedy, who cast the deciding vote in the DOMA case, pistol-whipping a soccer mom at a gas station and taking off in her minivan.
But I guess I just lack Perkins’ vivid and bizarre imagination.
“Americans will begin to see that with same-sex marriage does not come a hope chest, rather it’s a Pandora’s box,” he continued.
Oh boy, here we go. The reality train is about to jump the rails.
“We’ll see parents who pay taxes to send their kids to school, those schools are going to start teaching those children values that are in contrast with the parents,” Perkins wailed.
Oh, the horror! God forbid children be exposed to a world where not everyone agrees with and thinks like them! Listen, if you’re terrified that the “values” you’ve been teaching your kids will be exposed as bullshit the minute your kid starts public school, then it’s time to reevaluate your values.
“We’re already seeing bakers and florists and photographers forced to participate in same-sex marriages under the threat of law and in some cases even jail!” Perkins continued. “I can’t think of anything that’s more un-American than that.”
Oh, hey, I can think of something more un-American than that: saddling a specific segment of the population with a law solely intended to demean and humiliate their love lives and their families and relegate them to second-class-citizen status.
But no, to Perkins it’s un-American to tell a florist they can’t say to a lesbian couple, “Oh, I won’t do the flowers for your wedding because you make Jesus puke.” Because that’s protected religious speech, according to Perkins. Never mind that if this same florist said such a thing to, say, an interracial couple, their shop would be vilified by everyone but the most ardent Paula Deen supporters.
When “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer pointed out that support for marriage equality is on the rise and that Perkins may be “behind the times” on this issue, Perkins brushed him off saying that Americans are just going through a phase.
“I think as Americans see that there’s a lot more to same-sex marriage than simply two people who love each other, that they’ll have time to reconsider this,” he said, willfully blind to the fact that scores of soldiers in the “culture war” are jumping ship all around him.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.