Last week's Judiciary Committee hearing on VoteOnMarriage's proposed amendment brought out many of the older, well-dressed "alternative families" and poised professional same-sex couples, pleading that their "marriages" and "families" not be disrupted. (It's only hateful people who would argue that thousands of years of cross-cultural traditions and the Bible are correct in defining marriage as a man and a woman!) Noticeably absent were college-age or younger rabble-rousers. Clearly, the strategy was to present same-sex headed households as "your best neighbors", the professional or author next door, the stable parents who are just as good as you heteronormative parents -- if not better, because they won't bring their child up with hateful prejudices!
Notable was the celebrity appearance by the author of Wicked ("The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"), now a hit Broadway musical. With a his sleeping adopted Asian son on his shoulder and "husband" standing nearby, Gregory Maguire (a Mass. resident) explained how, as a "gay", he was able to conceive the character of the horribly wronged green witch.
Elphaba, "the little-green skinned girl ... [was] a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil." She was terribly discriminated against, because through no fault of her own she was born green. And of course, she wasn't really wicked. It was just a big conspiracy by the nasty society she lived in. And in the end, that horrible Dorothy killed her, though she had done nothing wrong!
Any time you hear of some new hit novel or musical dealing with discrimination, there's a good chance it's really all about discrimination against homosexuals, and how evil traditional society is. (New York Newsday calls Wicked a "political cautionary tale".) Homosexuals are just like the green witch: they were born that way. So accept them as they are! Stop discriminating!
