Okay, so there's this old joke:

This guy is walking along a bridge when he looks up and sees another man poised to jump. It's a great distance, and the man will surely die should he go through with it.

Well, feeling the pull of christian faith, the man runs up to the jumper and yells, "Wait! Wait! Don't Jump. It can't be all that bad. The world is a wonderful place. Besides, killing yourself is a sin, are you a christian?"

The jumper looks at him and says, "Yes."

The guy goes, "Me too! Are you protestant or catholic?"

"Protestant," the jumper says.

"Me too! Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran?"

"Lutheran."

The man almost cries. "Me too! Lutheran standard or reformation?"

"Reformation," says the jumper.

"ME TOO! Reformation of 1869 or Reformation of 1757?"

"1757."

So the guy pushes the jumper off the side of the bridge, yelling, "DIE HEATHEN SCUM!"

And you know, I probably wouldn't have even thought about that joke had I not watched the ballyhoo and broo-ha-ha going on about gay marraiges.

How is it that we can be so exclusive as to create hate and fear over someone wanting the same protections and rights and status as we have? How is it that we can be so petty that we tell this group that they can have the rights but they can't call their unions, "marraiges." I mean, what the hell?

It's going to amount to the same damned thing, folks. Equality in one form or another. Are you so fucking petty that you have to save the title of marraige for only those who you find worthy?

You know, I'm really surprised that the gay counter-culture even wants to come so far as to toeing the line to your bourgouise, white, nuclear family trope as to want marraiges. Hell, the way you people are behaving, I'm surprised that they don't do everything in their power to distance them from yourselves and your little religion of hate.

Ah, but then again, you keep screwing them over. You don't want their partners to have life insurance at the company's expense. You don't want them to have community property rights. You don't want them to have survivors benefits.

Hey, come to think of it, what gives you the right to have those things? You think that just because you love someone and spend your life with them that half of what they own is yours? You think you should sit on your ass at home while they work and make money and it's half yours? You think that their company should pay for your health insurance? Just because you love them and have vowed to spend your life with them?

How dare you? You are a blight to the fucking planet. God will smite you down for your heterosexual activities.

And all that would be true if gays had written the bible. But then again, they never would have, would they?

Which, in my eyes, makes them much, much better than you.

So the next time you want to withhold something from someone, ask yourself one thing: Why do you deserve it then?

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of the Abyss.