The world came to an end yesterday

...when the first legal marriages in the US took place in Massachusetts. And yet somehow, we're all still coping, nay, LIVING, despite this destruction of the very fabric of our society. A quick study of CNN.com shows NO major stories about same-sex marriage in the Northeast. Not on the front page, not in the U.S. section, not in the Northeast section. Hell, there's even a story about a $1,000 omelet, but nothing about the death of the world as we know it.

Could it be that people... just... don't... care? That the pictures coming out of burgs like Northampton and Brookline depict some of the most wantonly normal couples in America doing the most perfunctory thing two people in love can do, and that the rest of the country sees it as such? The extraordinary plainness of these couples damages the bigoted, homophobic agenda of the far right more than any logic or reason. And the more that folks see these simple expressions of adoration, the closer we get to realizing equal rights for all. It's fitting that the first marriages in Massachusetts occurred 50 years to the day of the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education to Topeka decision; it's exactly the same issue.

It amazes me that Republicans believe we have to preserve the sanctity of marriage, as if marriage in America isn't so ridiculously broken that these same-sex couplings may be the only chance to reverse that trend. Marriage isn't a sacred tradition anymore, it's something you do in Vegas when you're drunk. It's something you do with a complete stranger on television. Marriage came into being as an arranged proposition between families for property. It was about money, prestige, and allying oneself with powerful families. This is the sacred rite we're "saving" here? Tell you what, o bastions of family values, spend a little less time creating laws prohibiting people who WANT to get married from doing so, and spend a little more time eliminating the conditions whereby people HAVE to get married, like providing condoms to sexually active teenagers, for example, which might reduce unwanted pregnancy.

Here's a new feature, the "end of the world" image of the day: