So this morning in the car I was talking to Laney about the protest downtown against prop-8 (or for gay marriage). She was asking me to explain it and so I decided to make the hypothetical real. I told her that her aunts in Phoenix loved each other the same way her daddy and I love each other (apologies to my Arizonz bee-otches. I hope you don't mind me using you as examples). Then I asked "don't you think it's fair that they should get to be married like daddy and I are?
She agreed.
Then she said "Could I marry Madison?"
And I said no, since they were too young.
Then she asked if she could marry Ginger (the dog).
And I said she couldn't marry an animal, and besides she's still too young to get married.
Then an entirely complicated hypothetical arose in which she and Madison were grown up and Madison was married to someone else and could she then get married to Madison.
And then it hit me: she was articulating the main talking point of the anti-gay marriage adult. If you allow gay marriage, then all bets are off: marrying children, marrying animals, polygamy! Oh my.
But the thing is, Laney is FIVE! The concept of what marriage is; the fullness of it, its rewards and complications, are beyond her ken and will be for some time. But I'm willing to bet the mortgage payment that at some point today, on Fox News, there was a 45 year old posing the exact same hypotheticals Laney was making in the car today.
