So, it seems that in Madison, when man-and-woman couples throw a wedding these days, they feel the need to weave in a gay rights theme. (And an environmental theme.)
The ceremony itself included a bit of activism. A nice touch was the wedding band made from the recycled gold of an old computer. A better touch was the announcement that the civil part of the their marriage was done in Minnesota in opposition to the recently passed Wisconsin initiative that gay couples should not marry, even though this couple was not gay.Go that couple one better and just send out an announcement saying that if everyone were to travel here and consume the traditional foods and drinks, it would burn an estimated X amount of fossil fuel, thus contributing to the impending calamity of global warming, and moreover, making a show of getting married is an inappropriate affront to gay people, and therefore, the couple is planning to walk to city hall to tie the know with as little fuss as is legally possible. We welcome your company if and only if you can walk there too. And please don't send presents. Just send us an ecard with a message of good wishes -- keep it low key out of respect for the gay -- and a calculation of the amount of fossil fuel left unburned by the nonconsumption and nonshipping of whatever item you'd have chosen.
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46 comments:
Building one's life around rampant P.C.ism is surely the highway to unhappyness.
Idiotic narcissistic posturing. How do we stop them from breeding?
"How do we stop them from breeding?"
That should be easy. Simply point out that children consume X amount of fossil fuel over the course of a lifetime.
Well I know that when I was married by the justice of the peace I made sure to state my opposition to the state's high taxes and to declare my support for tort reform.
Or not.
I wish Evelyn Waugh was still among us...or even P.G. Wodehouse, to write a novel illustrating the idiocy of our contemporary "mentally negligible" Bertie Wooster types.
They didn't throw rice or bird seed did they? Starving people and all. What about a shout out to the poor people in Darfur? Everything union made? So many things to be concerned about planning a wedding.
If they really want to prove their commitment to the cause, they should promise to raise their first born as gay, whether or not the child actually is.
Environmentalism? Where do you find that in the article? The recycled gold in the wedding band? In that case, every wedding, even a wedding of the two most conservative-minded people on earth, would be "P.C." under your definition of the term because their reception would feature recycled plastic in the bartender's soda bottles and recycled paper in the cocktail napkins.
After criticizing east coast types for looking down their nose at the midwest, you have now turned on the good people of Madison now that you no longer have to pass them on the way to work every day.
Oh, Althouse, isn't it great to living in New York City again, now that its safe and full of white people? Look over there, at all of the great little tchotchkes they've got for sale! Look, that place sells fancy coffee! Oh, how sweet it is to live in the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps!
From time to time I’ll be out there minding my own business and all some bigot can think of is to call me a “fag” because I’m running in spandex.
Personally, I never dress as a nun unless I want to be called 'Sister'.
Good for these people for bearing witness to their values of equality and equal treatment before the law.
If you don't like their statement, don't go to the wedding. It's their wedding and they can do what they please.
Conservatives have such a hard time with people actually exercising freedom. They blather on about freedom but really want the people they disagree with not to exercise theirs. (Hence, MoveOn should be deported, these people who speak out loud of their value during their own private weddings should be mocked).
Ann, please insert Dick Cheney's message to Dick Cheney here.
Alpha--with all due respect, Conservatives aren't complaining about these people exercising their "freedoms." All we hideous neocons are doing is exercising our freedom of speech to point out how inane, self-absorbed, and silly an avenue they have chosen to exercise their "freedoms."
"Oh, Althouse, isn't it great to living in New York City again, now that its safe and full of white people? Look over there, at all of the great little tchotchkes they've got for sale! Look, that place sells fancy coffee! Oh, how sweet it is to live in the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps!"
Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting to intrude my camera on poor people. And if you think I photo things in stores because I think they're "great," you really don't understand my aesthetic. You have no idea how obtuse you are as you chatter away... presumably because you're so sure you're one of the good people. Pathetic.
A better touch was the announcement that the civil part of the their marriage was done in Minnesota
That couple just violated Wisconsin civil law. Minnesota is a "separate property" civil regime, whilst Wisconsin is "community property."
The Wisconsin civil code for marriage runs to many, Many, MANY pages (something over a hundred, compared to less than ten in Minnesota) and it specifically declares that couples who marry under a different civil regime will be in violation if they domicile in Wisconsin for more than 18 months.
Furthermore, unless they made some very special arrangements with the pastor their marriage in church in Wisconsin preempts any other civil marriage anywhere else. If they signed a register, or the pastor said "...and by the powers vested in me by the State of Wisconsin, I now declare you ..." their civil regime is that of Wisconsin.
It seems they were as ignorant as they are silly.
First of all, I didn't say anything about the pictures you post; your response reeks of defensiveness.
But since you brought it up, I know that you don't think they're great, you just think they're quirkly little things that make New York NEW York. Isn't that edgy? Ooh, its so fucking edgy I can barely stand it. You just can't find that kind of edge in little ol' Madison, Wisconsin.
Bart, how is it any business of yours how people get married?
I'm glad you're not my next-door neighbor. You must poke your nose into others peoples' business a lot.
MYOB.
Wade, give up. You don't know what you're talking about. Why not apologize and start acting like a human being?
Bart, how is it any business of yours how people get married?
No one disrupted their wedding. Some here are simply making fun of their decision to inject left-wing politics into the ceremony. No one disputes their right to act like silly asses, we're only having a laugh at their expense.
I cannot imagine how it must be to live such a humorless existence, AL. If we Republicans can make fun of Larry Craig and his toilet adventures, can't you make fun of your liberal friends who make fools of themselves?
Ann, you have ignored Wade's main point:
"Environmentalism? Where do you find that in the article? The recycled gold in the wedding band? In that case, every wedding, even a wedding of the two most conservative-minded people on earth, would be "P.C." under your definition of the term because their reception would feature recycled plastic in the bartender's soda bottles and recycled paper in the cocktail napkins."
I don't go for all of Wade's tone, but for much more than Althouse's attacks on people's private choices for expressing who they are as a couple at their own fricken wedding.
gedaliya,
you see, this isn't funny. I know humor, I do humor. You con's clontinue to try to boss people around and even tell them how they conduct their own weddings.
You're a bunch of busybodies engaged in playground-style mocking thinking you're being funny. You're not, you're being assholes.
you see, this isn't funny. I know humor, I do humor. You con's clontinue to try to boss people around and even tell them how they conduct their own weddings.
Come on. No one told them how to conduct their wedding. We're laughing at them...we're not attempting to prevent them from acting like jackasses.
Lighten up.
Bart, how is it any business of yours how people get married?
It's not my business, and I never suggested it was. It is, however, most definitely the business of the State of Wisconsin, and you'd think that if they were cranked enough about Wisconsin's civil code regarding marriage to have made a political statement about it at their wedding (for Pete's sake), then it's not unreasonable to suggest that they might actually have read the law as it applies to their own marriage.
I don't give a rat's ass about them or their marriage, but they have demonstrated both ignorance (of civil law) and silliness (by dragging politics into their wedding).
It's not meddling in their lives (since they chose to inject the political element) to offer appropriate commentary on their blatantly political act.
In the event, the make superb poster children for how remarkably overblown -- and incredibly stale -- all this political correctness has become.
althouse, you are so sexy (!) when you're laying into someone...
do you have any more info on the recycled wedding band?
I'm more noble than you are, I'm more noble than you, I'm more noble, I'm more noble, I'm more noble than you.
Well, people can do whatever they want at their weddings, I guess. But it seems like a dippy thing to do at a wedding ceremony -- gay people can, and do, go through wedding ceremonies all over the country. What they're missing out on is government recognition that the ceremony is valid.
Oh, Wade, you're a true romantic and a helpless sentimentalist.
You must drive the ladies wild when you compare wedding bands to bartenders' soda bottles. That's what I do at parties when I want to impress some hot chicks.
That's how I always do it. Exactly. Tie the know with as little fuss as possible.
It is so weird to hear the right wing ranting about people dragging politics into weddings when they've been so obviously doing exactly that - demanding that gays and lesbians should be stripped of the right to marry by a redefined and narrower definition.
Do you hear yourselves?
As far as the environmental element, these people are trying to make the happiest day of their life happy for them. That means, unlike misnamed "conservatives" (more like wastrels), they take personal responsibility and make sure they don't leave a mound of trash after their blessed event and maybe reduce some gluttony here and there.
And for this heresy against conservative thought, the harridan Althouse has to rain down on their happy event.
Me, I say their conviction to their values should be toasted and many happy years of wedded bliss to them.
demanding that gays and lesbians should be stripped of the right to marry by a redefined and narrower definition.
Homosexuals have never, in all human history, had the right to marry. They have therefore not been stripped of anything.
Me, I say their conviction to their values should be toasted and many happy years of wedded bliss to them.
Fine. Even so, it's no crime to make fun of them for stretching political correctness to a new limit.
What is it with liberals and *words*.
Words have meaning. I agree that homosexuals should be able to get married but it's simply not true at ALL that anyone advocates stripping them of anything.
You can't take away a right that people never had.
Changing the dialog to promote an assumption that something is being taken *away* might be politically useful but it's dishonest. It is deliberately dishonest... it is lying.
Because it's a lie it stifles conversation and progress. Rather than promote the cause and find a way to convince people that the world will not end if homosexuals can legally marry, it frames the issue as an aggressive sort of hatred forcing people into defensiveness and counter-attack.
But I suppose it's not about convincing others and gaining the right to marry for homosexual couples nearly so much as it is about feeling righteous.
Start acting like a human being? By that, I suppose you mean showing some compassion. But if that is how you define a human being, then what are you? A couple's wedding day is *their* day. It takes a truly embittered person to so publicly insult people for the choices they made on their wedding day. And please, don't try to play the "I didn't make the insults, I just linked to an article that did" card; you've tried that before, and we all know how transparently phony that is.
Would you prefer it if newly married couples openly mocked gay people for not being able to marry the people they want to?
Do you now (retroactively) approve of the anti-gay marriage statute?
Really, what is the point of this post?
What is wrong with a private ceremony without a "message" of any kind? Concentration on the happiness of the couple and their families about the happy event seems sufficient. Why make any sort of politics the central feature of a wedding?
I suggest that most weddings even today are neutral as to either gender politics or the enviornment, and that it is odd to let these issues intrude on the joy of the occasion for guests of all political stripes.
It is just bad manners to inject any sort of politics into a wedding if you ask me.
I don't think Ann is out of bounds at all in pointing out the foibles of this couple nor does it seem to me to be hostile to the political views they expressed.
The personal is the political, vnjagvet! At least that's what they told me in college.
Turn your life into a bumper sticker!
I think it would be great if enough heterosexual couples who support gay rights boycotted the marriage industry. This is a huge industry. Economic pressure could help end what is an unjustified and mean-spirited denial of rights.
I am getting too old and crotchety for that I guess, Palladian.
Having married four of my five daughters in the past four years (two this past April), I am afraid I would never have made it had any of them wanted to "do politics" at the weddings.
As it was, three different churches and a resort hotel hosted the nuptials -- with the attendant logistical problems to solve. The only common denominators were that Dad's wallet was much lighter after each, and everyone seemed to have a damn good time.
"Having married four of my five daughters "
I think you might want to rephrase that.
Missed the "off" Ralph.
Brain cells goingggggggg.
"What is wrong with a private ceremony without a "message" of any kind?"
Nothing wrong with that if that's what the people concerned want.
"Why make any sort of politics the central feature of a wedding?"
It doesn't sound like politics was a 'central feature' of the wedding, but that the participants simply wanted to distance themselves from certain political laws about marriage. Again what's wrong with that?
the participants simply wanted to distance themselves from certain political laws about marriage.
It is hard to see how they are "distancing" themselves from a law by taking full advantage of it.
Still, it wouldn't be a wedding if something tacky or hokey didn't get said at some point during the ceremony. :)
I presume that the people who attended this wedding went there because they wanted to share a special day with the bride and groom. If someone is throwing a party, you allow them (that is, the bride and groom, or their parents) to do whatever they want. To accept an invitation and then complain about what went on is really pretty rude.
jesus, this is one of the lowest posts i've seen here from AA. every now and then i come here and am amazed at what you think is worthy of posting, but this just reeks of bitter old righty bullshit.
i am currently trying to arrange my wedding so that i can make a statement of support for gay marriage. it's an expression of compassion for the very people that many of you seem to want to mock and keep down. pretty pathetic. really, AA, pretty pathetic.
Most of the mocking I see of homosexuals comes from the left, danny.
So... I have babies. When they were born, if I'd made a deal about child-less couples who tried and tried but couldn't have children and here I am popping out a third or fourth and I really feel for their pain and so I made a public deal about how they couldn't have children...
Would I seem supportive, or would it seem like I was rubbing it in?
You want to support them? Don't get married. Stand in solidarity. Why bring up the painful subject for your homosexual guests that they can't do what you just did?
Because it seems pretty obvious to me that anything less than the biggest supportive action is seen as actively mocking and keeping-down.
(The only people being "mocked" here are those who want to use their wedding as a public statement about what good people they are.)
"Most of the mocking I see of homosexuals comes from the left, danny"
Really? Where?
You don't see it because it's *approved*. So it's transparent.
If I say "Craig" will you get a hint?
There are also intellectual and oh so reasonable discussions by academics of straight Republicans lack of true masculinity.
It's like racial rhetoric from the left. It's okay to racially attack certain people therefore those attacks don't count as racism... and because by *definition* nothing the left does is racism words and statements and actions that would brand someone from the right as a racist forever... aren't racist.
You look for a while. Honestly consider how gays are treated by those who claim to be liberal when the gay in question is on the other side.
Honestly pay attention for a while and consider how quickly "liberals" resort to classist, racist, or homophobic slurs when they attack people on the right.
I'm going to say that in gratitude for each gift received, I will skin one puppy, and in thanks to each guest I have, I will kidnap a baby and slit its throat. This will restore balance lost to this kind of thing.
Last time I went to a Catholic wedding, the priest decided the best way to celebrate the couple's love was to use the sermon to talk about how various members of the Canadian government were going to hell for allowing gay marriage and to make cheap jokes about same sex couples.
At another one, the groom's sister told a "hilarious" story about how she and the bride had taken a trip together and the other people on the tour assumed they were lesbians, so they had a rollicking good time pretending to be on a romantic trip together. The place they traveled to is very gay un-friendly, and when my spouse and I - an actual "hilarious" same-sex married couple - went there, we were pretty uncomfortable and worried about our safety.
And don't get me started about all the awesome jokes I've heard at weddings respecting the heterosexuality of the participants.
So frankly, if a couple is aware of their privilege and wants to say something about it at their wedding, good for them
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