joined in acrimony

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Apr 25, 2008

Titters the headline in the Calgary Herald, "Retired Lesbian Priests Marry at Nursing Home." I know what you're thinking: who gave away the bride?

The scene -- popping corks, tinkling glasses and loving vows -- was typical. But the wedding couple -- two retired lesbian Anglican priests -- were far from it.

At a Victoria-area nursing home Wednesday, Ruth Pogson, 83, and Beth Aime, 79, exchanged those simple vows in front of a small group of family and friends. The pair, who have been committed to each other since 1995, wanted to make the reality of their relationship legal, said Pogson.

"In the church, ritual is important as rites of passage. And this for us is a rite of passage. It's a whole new stage of life. It changes everything," she said.

For all its solemn insincerity, this is a pretty fair illustration of the motive behind the wider campaign for same-sex unions. Even had the "marriage" never been contemplated, these lovebirds were obviously free to exchange any affections -- godly or ungodly -- toward which their impulses inclined them. The union effected by the ceremony confers no good upon them or upon society, even within the terms of their own defective understanding of those goods. The wedding was an act of aggression. It's a step toward the destruction of the institution of marriage and of the Judaeo-Christian concepts of sexuality that underlie that institution. The joke -- an angry joke, in spite of the champagne and flowers-- consists in public legitimation of a sham marriage under conditions in which sentiment and fecundity are not merely light years apart but intrinsically un-connectable.

The point of the vows is their pointlessness.