Oh, Tennessee. You're so you.
Going on the sound hypothesis that if you pout hard enough the grownups have to let you have your way, Tennessee Judge Jeffrey Atherton has refused to grant a divorce to a straight couple on the grounds that gay marriage is icky.
He didn't phrase it quite that well. Specifically, his words were:
"The conclusion reached by this Court is that Tennesseans, corporately, have been deemed by the U.S. Supreme Court to be incompetent to define and address such keystone/central institutions such as marriage."
He was aiming for massive sarcasm. Sadly, he was speaking nothing but the truth.
Almost 50 years ago, SCOTUS called Tennessee, asked how it was doing, and then said, "So. Um. That whole deciding who can get married to whom thing? Yeah...um, you're bad at that. We're taking it from here. Sorry."
As you may have guessed, I'm talking about the beautifully named Loving vs. The State of Virginia court decision that legalized interracial marriage in every state.
As you've also probably guessed, Tennessee was not an early adopter of pro-interracial-marriage laws.
If you look at the wonderful Wikipedia article about anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S., the map of the states that held out until the bitter end to allow such marriages is a big red chunk of -- surprise! -- the Deep South.
Not coincidentally, these are the states that tried really hard to be their own country not so very long ago. They failed, and they've been bitter ever since.
Those states are like that lecherous, heavy-drinking uncle you don't want to have to invite to your wedding because at your sister's wedding, he felt up all the bridesmaids and then vomited on the DJ.
He's embarrassing. He's repulsive. He's somebody you wish to God you weren't related to.
I say we go ahead and divorce Uncle Creepy.
Why not? It's not as if he's fond of us. Whenever he's invited to family events, he always bitches about how long the drive was and how much he spent on the gift (which is always something hideously inappropriate and usually pornographic).
He doesn't like us, we don't like him, and we're getting tired of having other countries look at him and whisper, "That's your uncle?" and take a few embarrassed steps away.
Okay, this metaphor might be getting a bit too mixed.
I know it's not practical to just let the South go its own way, especially since there are exactly enough nice people living there to make me sad to even think about this. (Ever notice that Uncle Creepy is always married to your favorite aunt?)
But -- wow, is it getting embarrassing to listen to the BBC Global News podcast. Every time they report on current events in America, I cringe.
I guess that's nothing new, though.
Uncle Creepy: Please go home. You're drunk. AGAIN.
