What I should have said

You know, Minnesotans for Marriage were out at the State Fair today.  We all know that I don’t have a lot of respect for them and I suppose I should have gone up to them and said something.  They all wore bright green T-shirts and they were very cherrfully chatting up the small contingent of people who came to their booth while dozens of folks with orange “Vote NO” fans streamed past.  I should have gone up and talked to them.  I should have told them that I feel their position is untenable and if they win in November, they have committed what I would consider to be a wholly evil act.

What’s the point, though?  If you are so convinced that marriage equity is a horrible thing, I’m not going to say anything that will change your mind.  If I come up and ask some sort of “gotcha” question, they will just smile and answer me with the same idiotic excuses they have been using to justify their beliefs for the last several months.  The net result will be that I wasted fifteen minutes in which I could have been eating a Pronto Pup.

If I had walked up to them, though, here are some questions I might have asked:

“Hey guys!  I just wanted to let you know that my wife and I are atheists and we’ve had two kids who we are raising as atheists.  Biblically speaking, do you think our marriage is more or less of a problem than a marriage between two gay men who don’t reproduce?”

“So, how long have you been in the closet?”

“Since you feel homosexuality is a choice, can you tell me the exact moment when you decided to be straight?”

“When you say that marriage has “always” been between a man and a woman, what’s your timeframe?  Do you mean, like always always?  Do you mean ‘the last thousand years’ always?  Do you mean ‘as long as I can remember always?’  I’m just hoping you’ll define your terms.”

“So you’re belief that homosexuality is wrong comes from the bible right?  OK, I’m just going to go on a hypothetical here – bear with me.  Your desire to amend the constitution is based on a religious belief that you feel should drive constitutional law in our country.  I’m an atheist.  Now my personal belief is that churches aren’t charities and folks shouldn’t get a tax deduction for tithing.  I also think churches should pay property taxes.  Now, would you be OK with me getting a constitutional amendment passed that eliminated tax benefits for churches?  So why is it OK for you to impose your concept of morality on other people who don’t share it?”

“You’re for the sanctity of marriage as exhibited by Larry King, Kim Kardashian and Brittney Spears, right?”

“You know Gay Marriage is already illegal in the State of Minnesota, right?  Why do you want to make it even more illegal????”

“I’ve been married to my wife for 22 years.  Please explain to me how our marriage will fall apart if gays are given the right to marry.”

“Can you explain to me why your name isn’t ‘Minnesotans for Heterosexual Marriage?’  Is it because that would make you sound like homophobes?”

“Do you have any gay relatives?  Have you looked them in the eye and told them you are going to vote to constitutionally ban their ability to enter into a legal union with the person they love?”

If I wanted to be a real dick, I could have asked “what other parts of Sharia law would you like to inject into our constitution?”

Maybe next time I won’t be so anxious to have a Pronto Pup and I’ll ask one of these questions.  Then again, maybe I’ll remember that their position relies on superstition and bigotry and I can’t fight that with logic, sarcasm or a sense of humor.