Today's Gray Lady chronicles the latest coolness among the stylish denizens of the political left: heterosexual cohabiting couples who pledge not to marry until "everyone can," meaning until same-sex marriage is legal in all fifty states plus Puerto Rico and Guam.
SWNID is struck by the failure of the left to respond meaningfully one of the most frequent observations of the right, namely, that leftists act as if ineffective personal gestures toward an issue are somehow significant. Or to put it more succinctly, the left demonstrates daily that it favors style over substance.
The grim reality is that every one of the chronicled couples already in every way lives as if married. We observe further that each was cohabiting exactly as they are now before coming to the conviction that a no-wedding protest was in order. As every one appears to be a savvy member of the upper-middle class or beyond, we'll assume further that most have availed themselves of alternative means that provide nearly all the legal benefits that marriage would afford automatically.*
There is, of course, no way in this life or the next that anyone who will vote to ban so-called gay marriage will relent in that conviction because of the brave example of movie actresses, museum exhibition designers, graduate students of sociology, and United Church of Christ ministers who continue to live with their opposite-sex "partners" instead of plopping down $50k for a champagne-soaked dinner-dance preceded by a procession of balding men in rented morning coats and thirtysomething women in strapless taffeta, presided over by a Buddhist hospital chaplain and accompanied by new-age ballads of mutual respect and free-verse vows that pledge no actual behavioral commitment but that remind their older relatives of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
We rank this trend with Al Gore's incessant moving about, entourage in tow, in private jet planes and really big automobiles to warn the world of the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions.
__________________
*As far as we know, there's no way for cohabiting couples to obtain the tax advantages of joint filing, but as it is an article of faith of the left that its upper-middle-class members are undertaxed, this too should be a badge of honor.
1 comment:
There is precedent for this sort of you-need-not-bother-to-do-anything-other-than-what-you're-already-doing-to-show-your-support protest. I remember back in grad school when the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender, etc., etc. Student Association would quietly announce that anyone wearing blue jeans on a certain day was supporting their cause. What solidarity! You should have seen all the supporters.
Post a Comment