And then that whole gay marriage thing came up.

Now, I know what you’re saying: "What does gay marriage have to do with you and your husband?" Right? Well, until it started showing up on the national news…nothing. But thanks to the well-reasoned arguments of a bunch of bigoted nutcases, we’ve since seen the error of our ways.

At first, my husband and I were really happy for all the couples we watched lining up to be married. I mean, who wouldn’t be, right? How can you watch all of these people getting a chance to vow their love and commitment to one another and not be moved by their joy? Talk about a real testament to the sanctity of marriage. Finally, their chance to have the same experience we did, that millions of other straight couples have had for a long time. "How can this be a bad thing?" we thought.

But then we watched this one preacher guy talk about how gay marriage would irreparably damage the sanctity of marriage, hallelujah and amen, brother. And honestly? I don’t know why we didn’t see it before. As soon as gay people started getting married, it’s like all those years of love and sacrifice and devotion between my husband and I never even happened. Like we totally forgot about them, like we were in that episode of Dallas and we woke up and it was all a dream. Everything we’ve built together, this beautiful relationship we’ve forged, our gold bands and wedding photos and the box of anniversary cards in my hope chest…poof! Completely erased.

Of course the only reason the preacher guy could really give for why gay marriage accomplishes this amazing feat was pretty vague: I remember hearing the words "tradition" and "abomination" mentioned quite a bit, and the phrase "one man and one woman for thousands of years" fit in there somehow, and something about how it makes the baby Jesus cry. Actually, I’m still not really clear on what those things have to do with a legally-recognized marital contract between two committed people. I mean, I thought it was the government marrying those people in San Francisco, and last I checked, the government isn’t a church, but that Ten Commandments judge down in Alabama says different so what do I know? But anyway, we shouldn’t make the baby Jesus cry, even if we don’t believe in him.

Just think of the disaster that’ll befall straight marriage if we keep letting gay people tie the knot…all of us straight married people are gonna start rethinking the whole deal and pretty soon, half of straight marriages will end in divorce, Britney Spears will go on a drunken binge in Vegas and get married in the middle of the night, and there’ll be reality shows that turn marriage into contests for money and ratings. Mass hysteria, I tell you, and there’ll be no sanctity left in the institution.

When gay people explain why they want to get married, they always say something like wanting to be able to visit their spouse in the hospital if anything ever happened to them, or being able to buy property together like any other couple, or other totally boring reasons. Like those are real reasons. You’d think they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, the way they go on about love and dedication. Didn’t they get the memo that only straight people get to love and have rights and stuff?

Naturally, some other guy had to get on TV and talk about equal rights and the Constitution and all that, when everyone knows that the Constitution was just written in a secret code that actually says the Bible is our Constitution and the Founding Fathers were just kidding about all that silly "equality" nonsense. Start giving everyone the same rights and next thing you know, women will have the right to vote and people will practice any religion they want and black people will sit anywhere on the bus. And gay people will get married. Like we’re living in a democracy or something.

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Brittney Hall is the co-creator, webmistress, and writer for TheHallway.net and its monthly newsletter. She enjoys her day job even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with her education background, or plans to take over the world. She has been writing since before she was born and has attained cult-like status among her friends and family. In her spare time, she and her husband make laughable attempts to renovate their house, which has inspired her to write a serial story about its previous occupants. She is always on the lookout for the perfect chocolate experience and believes that Portland, Oregon is the center of the universe.

www.thehallway.net -- The Hallway…because every house needs a hallway.
http://www.thehallway.net/cpc_cover.htm -- Cathedral Park Chronicles, a serial story in progress
www.thehallway.net/peeve.htm -- everyone should have a pet like this