Maiwwage

The Phoneix, not the world’s greatest alt-weekly, has really good coverage of the marriage debate around these parts. My favorite is the woman who had a commitment ceremony and says weddings are a drag when you have two bridezillas. That and the poster “My Pedophile Priest Supports Traditional Marriage.” Happily, we’re now describing the debate in terms that take control of the debate: pro-marriage (people who are in favor of love, kindness, and all that is good) and anti-marriage (homophobic benighted forces of darkness who can’t stand the idea of true love or goodness).

I sometimes wonder how it is that people who disagree with me can exist. I mean, sure, there’s people with whom I have honest and reasonable disagreements about, say, Ben Stiller, or trade policy, or religion or what have you. But there are some basic cultural issues that I feel that it’s important to share, like plurality and the separation of church and state. I’m willing to imagine that people think homosexuality is a disgusting sin, but I’m not willing to think that reasonable human beings can’t understand that their opposition to it is a religious opposition.

And then it occurs to me that there are people with a radically different worldview: Middle America. Which is why I have to read blogs like Koolgrrrl’s Guide to Life. She keeps me in touch with the mass of humanity that isn’t in major coastal cities:

We were supposed to see Mystic River, but that was before I realized that Julia Roberts is NOT in this version! Somehow I got it confused with Mystic Pizza. I can be a dimwit sometimes–in fact, that’s the hub’s “pet name” for me. Dimwitted Deb. Or Double-D’s.

I’m still trying to decide if she’s a Jean Teasdale-style joke or not. I mean, it’s not like I’m such an incredible snob that I would be unable to imagine someone saying “what a true artist” about Celine Dion. No, in fact, I am that big a snob, and it was her admiration of Celine Dion that really made me think it’s an elaborate joke.