Why Can't We All Get Married...

I've written before concerning my feelings on the subject of same-sex marriage. Basically I think its a bunch of hoo-haw divisivity designed by the religious right to keep our eyes tuned into Fox News and turned away from the truly heinous shit going on up at the Capitol in DC. By playing into the hands of the religious right and fuel to the fire what should have been a no-brainer (hell yeah...let the queers get married...the divorce lawyers need more clients)...has now become a multi-million dollar advertising and campaign behemoth making PR firms on both sides of ideological divide pretty damn wealthy.

But here's my real question...why can't we all get married. And by all of us, I mean all of us. My ideal marriage would consist of the following people: Nicole Zajkoswki, Dawn Anderson, Cathy Womack, Peter and Debbie Mikelson, Kristina Streed, Hayley Schwenson, Quiana Perkins, Melanie Meegan, Ben Plimpton, RJ Thompson, Coya Artichoker, Nikki Kubista, Jerry and Erin Jones, Sara Leedom, Jeremy Rye, Jesus Urbina, Jose Ramirez, Monie Trujillo, Rasheda Kilpatrick, Chris Johnson, Munkis, Susan Raffo, Rocki Simoes, Maria Garcia, Liz Diaz, Debanuj Das Gupta, Russell Roybal, Christopher Ramirez, Joe Jimenez and the Rock...and that would just be for the first wedding. Now...I don't have lustful cravings for these people...well...except the Rock...but these are just a few of the people that I love so much that I want some sort of legally binding relationship that says...when I die you get my stuff (Or I get your stuff...I want Sara's dining room table)...you love me so you can make decisions about what happens to me if I get sick...you can visit me in the hospital...you are a citizen wherever the hell I am a citizen...and if you try and skip town, fall off the face of the earth, or run away to Brazil...I have a legal right to have you hunted down and drug back by your hair/bald pate/microweave (that one is for Rasheda---don't let the Korean hair fool you!).

I mean...really...if we are talking about relationships that work, are meaningful, and are long lasting...let's just look at the Scooby Gang...the least amount of time any of us has been friends is ten years...most of  us go back fourteen years, and some of them fools are pushing sixteen years or more. Most of our parents didn't make it for sixteen years. Nicole and I have been friends for fourteen years, Jerry and I have been friends for eleven years, hell Jose and I have been friends for six years...I challenge ya'll to name for me more than three sets of couples you know...between the age of 25-30 that have been together anywhere near that amount of time...heck...name me two to three couples you know of any age that have been together, successfully, for sixteen years. I bet you're hard put to do so.

If I had my wish...one day when I strike it rich...I'm going to buy Tyler Perry's big ass house in Atlanta,  and I am going to get as many of my friends to move in with me as humanly possible. I know we might up and break into spontaneous warfare...the west wing of the house might plan to shock and awe the east wing of the house...and the kids might pull a Children of the Corn moment...but hey...that's living. In the United States we are taught from the gate that we have no one but ourselves to rely on and that is just plain caca doo doo. I have a whole helluva lot of people that I get to rely on and that get to rely on me on occassion...when I don't have something better to do...like American Idol...I don't care if you're dying...had a three-headed baby...or your left nipple just up and fell off in the middle of dinner...don't call me during American Idol...you'll meet Simon Cowell's more evil twin...ya'll didn't know I was British huh?

For real...if we are going to take about relationships that work...if we want to talk about supporting familial institutions that will provide stability, love, caring, and nurturing for families...then lets look at the networks of families that are already working...why force an artificial nuclear configuration that has only been around for a century or so...let's bring back some really tribal, in the African bush outback didjeridoo playin' type shit. Let's look at the interpersonal relationships that have sustained themselves through mutual appreciation, committment, support, love, fidelity, and all those other characteristics we define as a good marriage...we are wedding our lives to one another all the time in so many different valid combinations...why shouldn't all of those familial incarnations be just as equally valid...it doesn't matter who is having sex with whom or if no one is having sex at all...marriage isn't about sex and procreation no matter what Oral Roberts would have you believe (but it isn't a surprise that a man named Oral would be fixated on sex)....marriage is about the joining of communities...forging bonds that will sustain healthy relationships across time and provide support for whatever life or Bush throws at us next.