But wait! Is this a sense of humor I see before me, smiles turned toward my mind?

Anyone who reads this blog more or less occasionally, even frequently, might know that I have often worried about what happened to my sense of humor
("I'm sure I had one with me when I came in, but I seem to have misplaced it. Lost it? Don't know...")
I even find, at times, I can't even recognize it when OTHERS have it and show it. Certainly I THINK (I could be wrong) that it seems to have disappeared from the entire society.

I DO think the idea that someone's man-woman marriage is under siege when two men or two women want to validate their love and commitment with a man-man or woman-woman marriage to each other is totally bizarre and hysterically funny.

But then I think it's sort of mean-spirited of me to laugh at those people whose relationship with reality is so fragile that they live in hideous terror.

So I'm happy if someone can make the same point with a gentle and benign tickle.

Thank you Philip Baruth --- From Vermont Daily Briefing:

April 8th, 2009

BREAKING NEWS: GAY MARRIAGE PASSES; HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGES TOTTERING; POLYGAMY AND INCEST BILLS MOVING QUICKLY THROUGH HOUSE AND SENATE; AND VDB’S OWN MARRIAGE COMES A CROPPER. REALLY.

By Philip Baruth (his bio)

Sure, same-sex marriage became the law of the land in Vermont yesterday, and that was a huge blow for civil rights, and against the sort of timid, defensive politics Jim Douglas practiced all through the Bush years. And yes, that will add weight to the decisions taken recently in Iowa and Sweden and D.C. and all of that together may produce a tipping point on the issue nationally, even globally. All to the good.

But what about the crippling and immediate consequences for VDB’s own heterosexual marriage? It is to weep, friends.

As much as we hate to admit it, Rick Santorum and Mark Shepard were right all along, and so precisely right as to be frightening: by 9 pm last night, VDB’s heterosexual marriage was in tatters, and we’d moved in with a male Boxer/Chow mix we met at the dog park last spring.

And of course, because same-sex marriage destroyed our respect for the very principle of monogamy itself, the Boxer, whose name is Sugar Ray, is now pushing us to include other dogs in our impending marriage, a poodle from Milton and a Sharpei from the Old North End with whom he has a pre-existing relationship.

Which means that by this time next year, we’ll be raising 30 or 40 puppies, and since we can’t afford nearly that many — you got it — we’ll be first in line at the Welfare office down on Pearl Street.

So we’d like to take this moment to publicly apologize to both Santorum and Shepard. You saw the slope; you knew it to be slippery — wicked slippery. But we wouldn’t listen. We were so locked into our little ironic blogs, our lattes and evolution, our blind ideological push for equality.

But you two knew all along. And we didn’t listen.

And so now, belatedly, we’ll do what we can to honor your foresight, your warnings that went unheeded: we will name every scrawny cross-bred puppy we ever have after one or the other of you. Either Rick or Mark, Santorum or Shepard. Those are the only names we’ll use, except for variations on the theme: Marky, Shep, Little Ricky, Latin for Asshole, etc. You have our word.

And one day every single mutt in this town will be named for the last two major defenders of the Old Way, which will only be right and fitting.

Then, and only then, will Vermont be for Lovers again.

****************************

More about same-sex marriage on this same page

(Warning -- contains sense of humor about this subject)