marrying karl rove

in honor of right to marry day, a repost from October 29.

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Even though I had been in several relationships, I never really thought about marriage as a concept until he appeared. It was the spring of 2004. I was about to turn a major digit on my odometer and had always assumed I would die a single man in the eyes of the law.

And then Karl came onto the scene- with a round bald head, pasty white complexion, a belly reminiscent of an off season Santa Claus and a heart full to the brim of black bile and unrestrained opportunism. A man who truly earned his nickname of "Turd Blossom". Yes, I fell in love with same sex marriage because of Karl Rove.

Karl all but invented same sex marriage. It didn't come from us. It was he who introduced the need to ban it as an agenda item in the 2004 State of the Union Address. He created a panic in order to motivate the "Christian Evangelical" base and energize the election campaign in favor of an inept and corrupt President.

Because the inept and corrupt president had absolutely no compelling argument of his own why he should be elected (not technically re-elected, darlings, because the first election was stolen), they had to think of something. Turd Blossom engineered the gay marriage threat and energized the wingnut base to call for a pre-emptive ban on the severe threat to civilization posed by... adults professing their love for one another. Egads, the horror of it all!

Then Gavin Newsom threw some Chanel No. 5 onto the fire by actually issuing 4,000 same sex marriage licenses in San Francisco. Thank goodness the State shut him down before the social fabric was irreparably torn. But all this publicity made me think. At that time, I was seeing someone that I was very attached to. And for the first time, I thought about the statement that marriage makes to ones beloved and realized that I wanted to make that promise. I wanted to be able to love, honor, and cherish in sickness and in health.

And I further noticed that a domestic partnership is as woefully inadequate as a colored drinking fountain in a Birmingham Bus Depot. And that's when I decided that I won't settle for a distant second best, I want my civil rights.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

I won't settle for anything less than the real thing.

And I owe it all to Karl Rove.