Dear Tradition, You Suck

and other responses to the California Supreme Court's decision on marriage.

1. I am getting married. On labor day weekend. Save the date all 0 people that read this blog. I will then (or rather, starting now but continuing until November and beyond) have to fight to keep my marriage legal. You will not take this away from me.

2. Doing stuff solely because some other people did it that way is dumb. Didn't your mama ever tell you that? (Now, Jimmy, if all the other kids jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?)

Okay, sure, I like some traditions. I like the Kentucky Derby. I like this one thing my sister and I do every year where we make each other one gift for Christmas, which is always more meaningful that whatever purchased crap everyone else buys for us and each other. I like Summer Pride season.

What I don't like is Tradition. Capital T. Our past has value, sure. Connecting with your ancestors and whatever is great. Being able to learn things from other people instead of each of us having to figure out everything through personal trial and error is a monumental part of what makes us, as humans, cool. But when you want to excuse all kinds of abuses and oppression and crap because your parents did it, or your grandparents did it, or some sheep herders in the desert 3,000 years ago did it, fuck you. Fuck you, FGM fans. Fuck you, racists. Fuck you, hegemonies. Fuck you "family values" dummies who don't think my family counts. Fuck all of you.

3. Traditional marriage is polygamy. Everybody likes to bleat about how gays and "activist judges" (also known as judges who don't agree with you) are redefining marriage, pretending that marriage has been a stable institution across time or that it has always meant what it means to you.

Helloooo in there. Across time and space, polygamy - pretty much FLDS-style, child-raping, wife-beating, rigid gender roles, whatever the local answer to gingham is polygamy - wins out as the standard of "traditional" marriage. Go take an anthropological survey course. Go read your own damn Bible.

One man one woman marriage? It was a redefinition of marriage. Also, marriage being something related to love rather than property rights. Also, everything that makes marriage something that gay people actually want to "redefine" rather than run the fuck away from.