However, after reading an article on Slate's XX Factor blog today about Republican Presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann and her views on homosexuality and also leaving a comment over on Karl's post on the topic the other day, I decided, "oh, what the hell!"

First, I'm fully in support of gay marriage. Not just civil unions, but full-on, complete-with-benefits, get-married-in-whatever-church-or-synagogue-or-mosque-they-damn-well-want-to MARRIAGE!

Second, this article about Michelle Bachmann is just ridiculous. Not the article or how it's written; the ridiculousness lies in that there are actually people who feel this way. Basically, she's very against homosexuality. To the point where she has dubbed it, lemme quote Slate here (who, in turn, is quoting the Minneapolis Star Tribune), "a 'bondage' and an 'enslavement.' She has labeled homosexuality a 'sexual dysfunction'."

Wow. I'm floored.

To add insult to injury, her husband, a Christian counselor, has likened gays to "'barbarians [who] need to be educated, they need to be disciplined.'"

It amazes me that people feel this way. These are your fellow human beings! They are people created by God, fashioned in his likeness, and (apparently only my opinion here) loved by him all the same as anyone else. Seriously, what the fuck??? (Sorry, Nano; I know I promised I'd cut the swearing, but this one had to be said)

I think what scares me even more is that Bachmann fared as well as she did in the recent Republican candidate debate in New Hampshire. She's spouting this shit and people are buying it lock, stock, and barrel.

There are people who are afraid of what allowing homosexual marriage will do to the institute of marriage or to society as a whole. This kills me. I can't help but laugh as my heart simultaneously breaks. It's like they think that the world will implode. Seas will boil! The dead will rise from the grave! Dogs and cats... living together! MASS HYSTERIA!

Sorry, people. But if you want my pair of Lincolns regarding what will happen to the institute of marriage or to society as a whole should we legalize gay marriage, here it is:

1. The divorce rate will drop. Both because the number of successful gay marriages will work as a counterforce to the high rate of hetero divorce and because those closeted gays who are about to force themselves into straight marriage for the sake of insurance or whatever other reason can actually marry their mate of preference instead and get all the same benefits they would receive in a straight marriage.
2. We'll see more happy couples as a whole and the need for divorce lawyers will decrease. Happy, happy, joy, joy!
3. Perhaps the incidents of ignorance will decrease as well since gay and straight marriage would be viewed as equal by law. Kids raised in ignorant households will be able to see that what they're being taught isn't what they actually observe in the world outside their house of hate and they will know that the viewpoint forced upon them by their relatives is in no way supported by the letter of the law.
4. And there will be much rejoicing.

Okay, so none of these points are scientifically supported. It's all my opinion. But, I can tell you that the world will not end. God will not smite humankind. The family unit will not be ruined.

What will ruin this country is if someone like Michelle Bachmann is voted into office and then turns her rhetoric of hate into law.

If she's voted in, can any of my Canadian blogger buddies help me score a job up there north of the border? Please? I'm going to learn the words to "Oh Canada" just in case.

[I wish I could say that I'm responsible for the killer graphic of Beelzebachmann above, but it is the creation of CityBlogs. At least I think they created it. That's where I found it anyway.]