The Minnesota Senate has approved gay marriage. It now goes to Governor Dayton, who has already said he’ll sign it, and then we’re at last edging our way into the 21st century.
Not everyone is happy about it.
"In my heart, I grieve on both sides. Because I know what it’s like to be alone and I know what it is like to have somebody close to you and love you. But I grieve inside because I feel we are opening the doors to Sodom and Gomorra. And in the end, God is going to be the judge," said Nelson, of Blaine, tears running down her cheeks.
I would bottle your tears and perhaps dot a little on my wrists every morning — Eau de Schadenfreude. Or perhaps I would drink them like a rich bitter wine, and laugh. Those aren’t tears of sorrow, but of nasty cruel bigotry — you didn’t get your way, you weren’t allowed to demean other citizens of this state in the way you wanted, and now you get to weep in frustration, while I have no sympathy.
And to compare the happy men and women who can now aspire to share equally in love and marriage with evil, wicked horrible people from your book of lies, to tell yourself they are damned and will be destroyed…well, I’ll dance an especially happy spiteful dance on your broken dreams of oppression, lady.
Said every bigot on the wrong side of history, ever.
I’m okay with a nonexistent judge. They seldom hand down harsh rulings. (Their minions, on the other hand — those nutcases terrify me.)
Ugh. Listening to some of those senators envoke Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the scriptures…just about made me puke. Eventually, though, and in spite of the fundie bigots, we won! Proud to be a Minnesotan today!
Evoke, rather. Geez, delurking finally, and a I have to go and include a big fat typo.
How come Gomorrah never got a ‘sin’ named after it?
Poor Nelson, of Blaine. Is she going to have to marry an other woman. Is she going to have to change her life at all?
Sorry, I am not humane enough to feel any pity for the likes of her.
NPR has interviewed some whining pastor calling it a dark day. He stated that as a pastor of a small church he emphasized the death and resurrection motif in most sermons and added, ‘we’re not going away and we will be back.’ Too bad the reporter did not respond with: ‘Yes, in the last legislative session, you and yours tried to write bigotry into the MN consitution. Your actions were put to death, and a better MN has been resurrected.’
And soon Texas will follow suit…uhm…and soon…
oh crap, I forgot I live in the strange land of Texas now.
Maybe next century.
@lurker @8:
Nate Silver gives it until 2020, albeit with appropriately large error bars: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/how-opinion-on-same-sex-marriage-is-changing-and-what-it-means/
Tell her that God isn’t really into the whole city-wide smiting thing anymore. I mean, unless you count cities on coastlines prone to hurricanes. Or cities on major tectonic boundaries.
Will Goodhair lead Texas out of the Union is this becomes federal law? It is not like he never has suggested that before.
Extremely well said. Thank you for that.
A word of warning, PZ:
When New York passed our marriage equality bill, my opposite-sex marriage was dissolved and I was forced to marry a woman. She’s very nice, but I miss my husband. :(
Thanks Audley. Now I am picturing PZ as half of a bear couple. Which would be the Trophy Bear™?
The most glaring falsehood in her entire statement: she knows what it is like to love.
Don’t worry dear. You got to inflict a lot of damage. Like I told that evil Lynne Ostermann, you managed to run out the clock on my partner’s life. Fourteen years of not marriage ended when she died in January. So never fear, dear evil lady, you did your Lord’s work. How proud you must both be of raiding my marital assets to put into faith based initiative proselytizing. How proud you must both be of making this incredibly impossible ordeal all the more difficult.
Frankly, I wouldn’t worship anything that can look at the warmth, love, comfort, companionship, and happiness that was us and call it bad or evil. That you can tells you exactly how twisted and, dare I say it, unnatural your beliefs are. The only thing more unnatural than looking at us and being repulsed by that love would be for parents to reject their offspring. Oh wait, your faith encourages that too!
It must be very, very hard to go through life with absolutely no innate instincts as to what is good or bad. No wonder you are so easily twisted by the spite-filled words of money grubbing preachers. I can’t wish any worse on you than is already the case: you are trapped in this world with your mind and your heart. And you cannot take joy in things that are good and lovely. And you take joy in hate and strife. I’m not sure why you even bother worrying about Hell when you are more than happy to live in it in the here and now.
Poor Nelson of Blaine. Her hopes for denying her fellow citizens the same rights she enjoys are dashed.
Yay for MN!
I’ll dance an especially happy spiteful dance on her grave. If it’s not too inconvenient, that is. Otherwise I’ll just be happy that she’ll be forgotten, another typical Xtian bigot, American Midwest, circa 2013.
Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey, goodbye.
“How come Gomorrah never got a ‘sin’ named after it?”
What, you’ve never heard of ‘gommoralingus’? It’s very hot and is still on the books as illegal in 25 states.
Congratulations Minnesota!!
When New York passed our marriage equality bill, my opposite-sex marriage was dissolved and I was forced to marry a woman. She’s very nice, but I miss my husband. :(
But I thought once you legalized gay marriage polygamy automatically became legal too. Can’t you and she join your husband in a group marriage?
And now our collective snarking is interrupted by a real story about real pain that people like Nelson, of Blaine are actually calling for. The tears spilled by Nelson, of Blaine were never for the partner of Barbyau or for Barbyau. They are selfish tears, cried for a selfish ideal.
Ah, Nelson of Blaine, that’s Christian Love that is. I live south of the border in Iowa and I am relieved that one of our neighboring states has converted.
Janine:
Trophy Bear™ would be the one with the most chest hair.
Dianne:
No, because it would have to be multiple partners of the same sex. New York totally sucks now!
Gomorrah’s sin was excessive pride. Its punishment was NOT getting a sin named after it.
Just barely under 25% of states now. Hopefully we get to knock off a few more in 2014, and even more still in 2016.
I love the smell of progress in the afternoon.
I so enjoy hearing about how god is gonna this and how satan’s gonna that and Minnesota is gonna go somewhere and, and, and…
Man these people are so fucking stupid. The same tears have been shed throughout history over other social improvements (women voting, civil rights, etc.) that you’d think that these clowns would recognize history and get on the right side of it.
Nope.
They’re just look like the morons that fought against busing and any other civil rights victory — small-minded and bigoted.
@6 Janine:
FTFY. You are the humane one.
A three minute cheer with confetti for the Minnesota Senate. A free first drink at the Pharyngula Saloon and Spanking Parlor tonight, with free drinks all night after the Governor does the right thing with his pen.
I don’t understand the problem. The bible clearly says if a man lies with another man ,as he would with a woman, then he must be stoned. What with gay marriage being legalised in several states and marijuana being also legalised in several states, I’m thinking the USA got more biblical.
Fucking god-botherers, they complain even when they get everything their own way.
Or have I misunderstood something?
Louis
P.S. To save someone “explaining” it to me, I get it. This Am An Joke. Yay Minnesota!
This is conservatism in a nutshell: Tears of rage from fear of change.
I am very sorry, barbayu. I wish you could have had all the protections and acclamations that you both deserved.
@barbayu. Very sorry about your loss.
@#5 I thought that was what “gommorhea” was named after.
Michelle Bachmann is threatening to leave Minnesota. And she too has Sodom and Gomorrah on her mind:
The Daily Currant link.
^ That is a spoof site, unfortunately for my state, fortunately for someone else’s state.
Many thanks to you all and your kind comments. Today has been a surprisingly upsetting day.
Uh-oh, someone please warn Oregon, as Michelle Bachmann may be on her way to Eugene. Also, she provided more details regarding the path of wrath that her God may take:
chigau (違う) @ # 5): How come Gomorrah never got a ‘sin’ named after it?
Samuel R. Delany explained all circa 1967.
Yep, The Daily Current is a satirical site. Note that we cannot tell the difference between a satire of Bachmann’s view and what she actually says.
Here are some things Michelle Bachmann actually did say, as opposed to the satirical imaginings of The Daily Currant:
, Bachmann urged attendees to keep up the fight against gay marriage, abortion and “Islamic jihad,” claiming that God supported those campaigns. She then took a line from the Bible’s book of Ephesians to suggest that these battles are supernatural struggles against the forces of evil.
“Because we need to recognize the desperate situation of our condition, not only in the natural but also in the supernatural,” she said. “Because as the scripture was read from the pulpit at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, we fight not against this world, we fight against the powers and principalities and ‘Prince of the Air’; that’s where we need to focus as well, is on spiritual warfare…” …
Watch out for Satan! Video and more detail at the link.
Apologies for borking my blockquote tags in comment 37. Everything from “During an appearance” to “spiritual warfare” should be within the blockquote.
She is absolutely right about the Sodom and Gomorrah thing. The problem is, she doesn’t know her Magic Book very well.
Ezekiel 16:49-50
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.
Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.
Hospitality to strangers has been sacred in Middle Eastern cultures as far back as we have records. Charity towards the poor and needy isn’t just a good idea according to the Abrahamic religions. It is a categorical, no-excuses-accepted imperative. So yes, this Nation, and the Republican Party in particular is guilty of the Sin of Sodom. If Invisible Sky Wizard really is in charge like they say we can expect the smitings to begin any day now, just not for the reasons they believe.
No doubt strong emotions are percolating through your mind.
Every time the topic of
gaymarriage comes up, my question is how does the marriage (in Canada) of the Redhead’s gay cousin and his long time partner hurt the long marriage of the Redhead and myself. The silence is deafening. And the reactions of those bigots calling every time Illinois brings up said topic when they get the Redhead who can’t find anything wrong in one person marrying another person they love is amusing. The gasps of horror and incoherent sputtering of said bigots must be priceless, but I only hear about it second hand.At a family reunion shortly after the above marriage happened, I commented how if one listened to their complaints of each other, they sounded like a long term married couple venting, but going nowhere. Not surprising how fast other people picked up on that once it was pointed out to them. They’re still together today, just as the Redhead and myself.
Barbyau
I am so sorry. I can understand why you’d be upset today, even though you must be pleased for all the couples for whom it is not too late. Wish I could give you more than a virtual hug.
Wot? Quote without comic sans??
*confetti*&*champagne*&*fireworks*
–
barbyau, I am sorry for both of your losses.
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anuran, I like the way you think!
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Another xian illiterate as well as a bigot.
The sin of Sodom was being run by an old version of the Tea Party!!!
Wake me when a volcano buries Minnesota. That is what we expect to have happen, right?
Oops something happened to my blockquoting. Once again.
Another xian illiterate as well as a bigot.
The sin of Sodom was being run by an old version of the Tea Party!!!
The sin of Sodom was being run by the forerunner of the GOP.
There is a lot of proof the xian god doesn’t exist. If it did, there would be a lot more lightning bolts and a lot few xians.
I’m sure that some of them–possibly even Nelson, of Blaine, and almost certainly Bachmann–are completely faking their devoutness and subsequent fear that marriage equality will bring on the apocalypse. But there are genuine, real people whose only fault is being unfortunate enough to grow up in a brainwashing and indoctrination camp that has stripped them of their ability to think critically. Their delusions are causing them real terror. If it were anything but religion, we would be offering them counseling and medication.
I hope the subsequent lack of smiting will let at least some of them start to figure out where they went wrong.
That said, my gut reaction is summed up as, “Cry, you hate-mongering, fear-mongering, deluded bigot. Cry rivers. Cry until you need to guzzle Gatorade lest you dehydrate.”
Also, this puts me in mind of one of my favorite movie-quote modifications:
“What is best in life?”
“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to dip your cookies in their tears.”
I can live with that.
A lot of countries and states have already legalized gay marriage long ago.
So far god hasn’t done anything. Nothing. (Well, at least he is consistent. He hasn’t done anything tangible in centuries.)
Apparently Nelson of Blaine can’t or she wouldn’t be weeping tears of rage and hate. Xians always claim their god is all powerful and act like he is dead. Or nonexistent.
frog, @ 48,
“What is best in life?”
“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to dip your cookies in their tears.”
Yech… sounds a little too salty for me.
I soooooo want a sample of Eau de Schadenfreude, though!
It’s sad that my Mom’s best friend, who was from Minnesota and left long ago for CA, did not quite live to see this day. She would have been very proud of her birthplace, I’m sure of it.
As others have pointed out the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah according to the Bible was being harsh to strangers and the needy. Jewish midrash (later stories expanding on the Bible) goes into a bit more detail which gives an idea of how Jews perceived the Bible story. For instance according to one story, Sodom not only was filled with people who individually didn’t care for the poor and the stranger but even passed a law making it a crime to help the poor and the stranger (shades of certain places making it a crime to give any help to an undocumented alien or feed the homeless).
Congratulations Minnesota! Also Congratulations to America for nearly 25% of states recognising all couples!!!!
Maybe one day my country will join you in the 21st century :(
the last nail in the coffin of my faith was the contradiction between the love of jesus this god of love and the loathing bigotry and self hating hypocrisy of the rest of the teachings.
I find it hard to trust the religious very much.
in less than 50 years marriage equality will have been the idea of the good christian churches
uncle frogy
@Chigau #5
Not a sin so much as a consequence of sin… Gomorrhea :)
[For the spell-checking types, the typo is deliberate]
Nate Silver and Chuck Norris once had a fight.
Even Nate Silver couldn’t predict the result.
Full of win.
Congratulations Minnesota! 12 down, 38 to go? Doesn’t sound so bad. :)
Party (with Gov. Dayton, signing the marriage equality bill) on the Capitol steps in St. Paul at 5:00 central, everybody!
I concur with Worldtraveller: Congratulations Minnesota!
I wish neighboring Wisconsin and other states roundabouts could come to a similar mind…that eminently right thing to do will never happen with that cursed governor Walker though…