



On Tuesday, French iconoclast Dominique Venner blew his head off inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame to protest gay marriage. Venner is a hero who fought in the Algerian War as a teenager and ransacked the French Communist Party’s office when he was 21. Like the face of the anarchist movement Guy Fawkes, Venner is a martyr who died defending Catholicism.

As a reformed atheist who recently rediscovered his Catholic roots, I”m inclined to agree with Venner. Unfortunately, marriage died long before homosexuals got involved. Divorce is what killed it.

When gay marriage first began to take over all political discourse I called bullshit because I could tell they were using it as a venue to showcase their rights and they didn”t really want to get married. When pressed for reasons why such a polygamous demographic with so few kids would want to get married, they brought up bizarre scenarios such as a lesbian who wasn”t allowed to visit her sick girlfriend once and some bullshit about health benefits.

“You can”t be sanctimonious about marriage when you”re on your fourth.”

As usual, the libertarians seemed to be the only sane ones in the fight. They kept calm and asked: If two consenting adults are in love, why shouldn”t they be allowed to get married? Venner’s response would be, “Marriage is the union between a man and a woman for procreation. If we remove the difference of sex and procreation, nothing remains except love, which can evaporate.” Few stood behind Venner’s definition because they lack the conviction to stick around when the going gets tough in their own lives. Gay marriage wins because straight marriage loses and straight marriage loses because the Me Generation ruined it.

Glenn Beck was against gay marriage but recently came around and said he approved of it in “principle.” Bill O”Reilly says he thinks there is a “compelling argument” for gay marriage and calls the opponents “Bible thumpers.” Rush Limbaugh took umbrage with that quote but admits the debate is already over and the gays have won.

They won me over, too, and it was because of wimps such as Glenn and Bill and Rush. My peers are the children of divorce and I”ve seen it permanently scar almost all of them. Both Glenn Beck and Bill O”Reilly have been divorced. Rush Limbaugh has done it three times. You can”t be sanctimonious about marriage when you”re on your fourth. You can”t keep quitting your job while lecturing us about how important jobs are.

A few generations ago, there was no concept of “self.” You went to work and busted your ass so your kids (the baby boomers) could have the education you never had. Today, those kids are in their 60s, and the few that are grandparents don”t like being called that because it makes them feel old. They make up alternative titles for themselves like “Baba” and “Zubi.” (My friend Sid fought back by insisting his kids refer to grandma as GRANDzubi.)