Qui Es Mas Macho?
April 22, 2004

"Fiddle dee-dee," says Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, when the Tarleton twins tell her exuberantly that war is on the way.

"War war, war, that's all you ever think about," scoffs Miss Scarlett.

Some things never change.

George W. Bush, whose personal history in the national guard during Vietnam appears to be as flimsy and ethereal as the votes that landed him in the White House, tells the world "I'm a war president." As if that were some kind of excuse for the ongoing horror and carnage in the black hole of Iraq and a plethora of unsolved issues at home.

John Kerry, a distant dark horse in a far more colorful field of presidential hopefuls last fall, emerges as the front-runner in Iowa after a timely encounter with an old war buddy whose life Kerry saved in Vietnam. Although running on the anti-Iraqi war platform he shot out from under Howard Dean (a war that Kerry himself voted for in the Senate when that was the politically expedient thing to do), Kerry is quick to unveil his plan for deploying more American troops worldwide so as not to seem "soft" on defense against all those other evildoers out there who might be gunning for us.

At a time when the most crucial global issue ought to be peace and how to achieve it, the presidential campaign is shaping up as a contest about who can declare himself the most effective warmonger. Or, as Laurie Anderson says, Qui es mas macho?

Is there anyone else out there who finds the whole thing a little creepy?

As usual, the times are reflected in the culture. It's the reason movies like The Lord Of The Rings trilogy— which exhort the glorious fellowship of warfare against a villainous race of inhuman monsters— are praised and lauded, while movies like Cold Mountain— which dares to suggest that war is where humans slaughter other humans in horrible ways—are not. It's the reason Arnold Schwarzenegger, a performer who has dressed in Army fatigues and wielded big, imposing assault weapons in lots of movies, has convinced a majority of voters that he's somehow qualified to govern a state.

Since our sitting president is in no position to let his shady war record stand on its own, he has to go on the offensive. And against whom does he fire the opening salvo in his domestic war for the White House?

Couples who want to get married.

What a tough guy.

The son of Mr. I-Am-Not-A-Wimp flexes his flabby political muscle by proposing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Apparently, motherhood, Apple Pie and the American Way are in serious jeopardy if gay and lesbian couples, who may have already been law-abiding, home-owning, tax-paying partners for two or three or four decades, want to tie the knot.

Opponents screech that gay marriage is "a perversion of God's plan for man and woman," alhough it's hard to figure how giving gay couples access to a legal marriage license will in any way prevent men and women from doing whatever they damn well please with each other. As to the even funnier rant that the future of the human race is at stake, it's not as if hetero marriages will be outlawed if gay marriages are legalized. Besides, since when in human history have sex and procreation been confined to the marriage bed? We humans tend to replicate ourselves like amoebas, and with the global population reaching critical mass, our procreation shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

As anyone with more than a third-grade grasp of American history knows, constitutional prohibitions against human behavior don't work. Gay couples will continue to fall in love, commit to each other, set up housekeeping, even raise families just like straight couples, whether or not the Constitution prevents them from obtaining a marriage license. When the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale and transport of alcohol went into effect in 1919, did people stop drinking? Hell, no. But thousands of people were massacred in the booze wars, and lots of gangsters became obscenely rich and built themselves the pleasure dome of Las Vegas, so they could keep on fleecing the public long after Prohibition was repealed in 1933.

No one is likely to realize quite the same sort of financial profits from a ban on gay marriage. Except that Bush's political stock will soar even higher with the all-powerful right-wing doofus vote if he anoints himself head warrior in this divisive crusade.

Meanwhile, Kerry's position on this issue is profoundly and decisively in the middle. While he claims to support the full legal rights of same-sex domestic partners, he balks at granting them permission to use the "M" word (principally, one assumes, so as not to rile up the aforementioned doofus vote), a position with all the moral resonance of Bill Clinton's inane "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. Domestic partners in love looking for a champion will have to look elsewhere.

Foreign wars that swallow up our children, our economy, our civil rights, and our future, have defenders in evry quarter. But who is standing up for love? Fiddle-dee-dee, indeed.