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And They Lived Gaily Ever After

Commentary

January 21, 2004|Merrill Markoe

After all, our prisons and mental institutions are filled to capacity with adults who are the product of heterosexual marriages. Famous marriage offspring include Adolf Hitler, the Enron guys, the terrorists who engineered 9/11 and every serial killer of the 20th century.

And so it seems to me that if we are going to specify as inappropriate the unions of same-sex couples whose marital track records are untarnished, we ought to also include certain heterosexual unions that have, in the fullness of time, proved to be totally futile. For instance, the marriages of movie stars to anyone, straight or gay, especially if they have participated in a People magazine article in which they have declared that they were "very much in love." Or weddings involving people under 28 who have known each other for less than a year and are intending to say their vows while wearing a parachute, scuba gear or anything else that celebrates their hobbies.


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Statistically speaking, gay marriage stands alone as the last outpost of marriage's most pristine ideals. Which is why I offer Bush this intriguing alternative proposal: Why not just give marriage to the gay community for the next five or six years and let them refurbish it the way they do run-down neighborhoods? Then once they have restored it to its original authentic beauty, plus added all the modern upgrades, heterosexuals can be permitted to return and continue their pattern of systematic debasement.

Emmy Award-winning humorist Merrill Markoe is the coauthor with Andy Prieboy of the forthcoming novel "The Psycho Ex Game" (Random House/Villard, June 2004).

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