sanity fair

Holy Matrimony!

A conversation with God about gay marriage reveals many divine mysteries

When the abomination came to pass, I knew immediately the guy to call. Why, God, of course. Things usually get done in Albany by the proverbial three men in a room: the governor, Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader. But this session was a little different. If you listened to the debate about gay marriage, it was clear that a fourth entity, the all-knowing master of the universe, had been a central player in this one.

His name was all over the placards being waved throughout the capitol. His desires were invoked at innumerable prayer services, His followers knelt and sang and shouted His commands. Through His various spokespersons, God had been very active making His views known. Presuming to know what God meant to say seemed to be all the rage in the run-up to the June 24 vote legalizing same sex marriage.

Most of the people opposing gay marriage did so on His behalf. They weren’t speaking their own minds, but rather channeling His. They reminded us how God had set up the world with a natural order that included a sacred bond between a man and a woman, no exceptions. When God gives us something as sacred as holy matrimony, even the New York state Legislature should not take lightly any thought of messin’ with it. I was figuring God to be in a pretty nasty mood, and kept one eye on the weather report for signs of pending divine retribution.

I caught up with Him on His cell phone.

Turns out He was stuck in traffic heading out to Fire Island for the weekend. Yeah—driving a Prius. Go figure.

“Let me call you back,” He said. Who knew that the creator of the universe was averse to multitasking?

When He got back to me that Friday night, it was a little hard to hear Him on account of the music in the background. I wanted to ask him about the abomination, but He wasn’t in a mood to be interrupted.

“I’m changing my name,” God said. “It’s an embarrassment.”

Really?

“My God,” he said. “It’s embarrassing.

How would you like to be mixed up with all these kooks?”

But I thought they were doing your work?

“My work? My work!” He practically leapt at my throat through the phone. “You wanna see my work? Take a ride to the Thousand Islands. Go to the zoo. Play with a 3-year-old. I send you people all this beautiful crap to enjoy, and you come back with this? Keeping gays from marryin’ each other is my work? Christ almighty, have you seen a blue sky on a summer afternoon? Have you ever heard a symphony? Wait, you’re from Syracuse, bad example… “But you get the point. This ain’t mine. It’s a knock-off.”

Wow, I think we’ve got a scoop here. God himself was accusing the anti-gay marriage lobby of peddling fake Rolexes.

“You got it,” He says. “Coach bags, Oakley sunglasses, the whole nine yards. Where they get the nerve…Harold!” There was a pause in the conversation and I heard him ordering a strawberry daiquiri. “Oh, you’re an angel, Harold.”

“Sorry to hold you up. You can’t get enough of these in June,” He said. “Fresh from B’ville.”

You drink daiquiris made with strawberries from Baldwinsville?

“Are you kidding? It’s like heaven on earth. Why do you think I invented June? If it weren’t for the strawberries we could have gone straight to July.”

I made a mental note to dust off the old blender and tried to steer the conversation back to the subject at hand.

But what about this gay marriage vote? You know, there’s Leviticus…

“Leviticus, Schlemiticus… I didn’t write that crap.”

Really? All that talk of abominations?

“You kidding? Abomination? Frozen strawberries, that’s an abomination. Jersey Shore, that’s an abomination. Same-sex marriage? That’s just another day at the office.”

I thought He would be proud that His loyal followers were not giving up the fight. I read him a piece of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio’s statement after the vote. Dimarzio called gay marriage another “nail in the coffin” of traditional marriage.

“These guys,” says the lord of all creation.

“It’s like they don’t open their mail and come complaining to me when they get a late fee. You want nails in the coffin? I’ll give you nails in the coffin. I sent them Eliot Spitzer. I sent them Newt Gingrich. I sent them Anthony Weiner. Talk about destroying traditional marriage. They don’t pay no attention. I gave them Las Vegas…”

Yeah, I get the point.

Read Ed Griffin-Nolan’s award-winning commentary weekly in the Syracuse New Times. You can reach him at edgriffin@twcny.rr.com.