EXTRA: A Hannukah wedding?

Vernita Gray and Patricia Ewert on Wednesday became the first same-gender couple in Illinois to marry – with the ceremony being performed at their home by Cook County Associate Judge Patricia Logue.

The couple were the ones who were able to get a marriage license just over seven months before the law permitting such marriages to occur because Gray has brain tumors and breast cancer – and it was considered unlikely she would survive long enough to have a wedding in June 2014.

ALTHOUGH THE COUPLE had the legal benefits of a civil union – which was the political maneuver approved two years ago to try to appease those people who will argue that some people should not be permitted to have their relationships legitimized by the concept of marriage.

For what it’s worth, society as we know it did not immediately crumble into dust the moment two women were permitted to marry. Nor will it do so once such marriages become commonplace later in 2014. This really will be an issue that future generations will wonder why we made such a big deal out of it!

For those who like wedding trivia, the couple had their first dance to a friend who sang “At Last,” the ballad made famous by Etta James, but who some people think Beyonce invented.

So here’s hoping that Gray and Ewert enjoy what is left of their lives together. Also consider that it may be appropriate that the wedding took place on the date of the first night of Hanukkah – which inherently remembers the ongoing survival of the Jewish people in the face of forces that would just as soon have seen them disappear.

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What kind of “God” do we back?

I wonder if the conservative ideologues of our society envision “God” as packing some sort of powerful pistol (or maybe an assault rifle) underneath his robes, with which he uses as part of his efforts to punish the wicked amongst us.

Personally, I find that image to be appalling – bordering on sacrilegious! But some of the nonsense-talk I hear on many issues makes me wonder.

WE DEFINITELY HAVE a difference of perspective amongst us when it comes to the concept of God and organized religion and its role on so many issues.

For when it comes to anything related to gay people, we often hear how religion is the reason why we should be opposed. Their behavior is an abomination, we’re told. It is the factor that will bring down the very fabric of our society.

Because, as we always hear from the Rev. Fred Phelps at his group’s outrageous protests and pickets outside of funerals, “God hates fags!”

Which is why I was pleased to learn of a group of clergy members – including many from Chicago – of many denominations who on Sunday came out in support of having the Illinois General Assembly pass changes in the law to allow gay couples to marry just like straight ones have been able to for generations.

THEIR LETTER, AS reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, said, “We dedicate our lives to fostering faith and compassion, and we work daily to promote justice and fairness for all. Standing on these beliefs, we think that it is morally just to grant equal opportunities and responsibilities to loving, committed same-sex couples.

“There can be no justification for the law treating people differently on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” the letter read.

Yet I notice that some of the responses I’m reading on the Internet to this action implies that these religious leaders are not being legitimate. If they were, they’d be opposes – is what the ideologues seem to want to believe.

It actually reminds me of an old Doonesbury comic strip in which the “B.D.” character is arguing with the “Rev. Scot Sloan” character about whether a “God of Compassion” or a “God of retribution” is more legitimate.

I’M NOT ABOUT to get into a theological dispute over whether God exists to punish the wicked. Although a part of me thinks that such a god is not one really worthy of our respect or worship. Maybe our fear and/or contempt, but little else.

But it has me wondering how the role of the clergy will play in the upcoming political debate concerning gay marriage – which in Illinois is likely to be a hot-button issue at some point during 2013.

I’m not about to say that only the absurd people who have managed to get themselves ordained as ministers are going around speaking out against homosexuality. We’re far from that point.

I don’t doubt that many of my fellow Catholics will come up with their own arguments – although it should be noted that there are many Catholics who disagree with the church’s official teachings on the issue.

BUT THE IDEA that the masses among the clergy are a little more concerned with equality, rather than punishment, is a sign that we really are changing as a society.

And maybe the Illinois legislators who are preparing to bring up gay marriage as an issue will actually have a chance in the near future of getting a favorable vote on the cause – which many people really view as being solely the business of the individuals involved; and no one else!

It may also be the reason why the ideologues who also are concerned about firearms and their all-consuming “right” to possession may be taking to that issue so much in recent days.

Why else would we have National Rifle Association officials going around talking about the need to have armed guards in the public schools, if not arming the educators themselves?

THEY REALLY DO think it would be an “ideal” if a teacher could pull out her pistol and shoot dead the mentally ill individual such as the man who walked into a Connecticut school building earlier this month and caused the deaths of 26 individuals.

Somehow, I’d like to believe that God almighty (in whatever form you conceive of him to be) finds that image to be as horrific as I do.

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Is decade-old West Wing 'reality' TV?

I can’t help but remember a decade-old episode of “The West Wing,” that television drama starring Martin Sheen as an idealistic take on who at least some of us wish were our nation’s president.

SHEEN (as Bartlet): 'Reality' TV?

In this particular episode, there was a subplot about how the president’s staff was dealing with a member of Congress who (they thought) had a reputation for being flaky.

WHAT WACKO IDEA did he come up with this time? It was an amendment to the Constitution that would completely take government out of the equation when it came to the recognition of marriage.

The Bartlet administration didn’t want to be bothered with the issue. They wanted it to go away. And they didn’t want this member of Congress to get all hissy-fittish, because that might get the gay rights activists all worked up against them.

Yet letting this member of Congress proceed with his rhetoric surely would stir up the religious right.

Yes, all of this came back to my mind when I learned Wednesday of the lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal. The two groups represent 25 gay couples across Illinois who are upset that all they can do is get their match recognized with a civil union – and not something that bears the name “marriage.”

THEY CLAIM THAT the due process and equality clauses of the Illinois state Constitution can be interpreted to mean that these couples have every right to be “married” as any heterosexual couple does.

Which, I’m sure, on a certain level is giving the Barack Obama White House staff the same headaches that the fictional Bartlet administration acted out all those years ago – and for the very same reason.

OBAMA: Seeking advice from TV?

Fiction predicting reality? It’s kind of eerie, to tell you the truth.

Because the arguments made by that wacky congressman character a decade ago on television are literally the ones being heard Wednesday in Illinois.

GOVERNMENT SHOULDN’T BE getting involved in deciding whose “union” is legitimate and whose isn’t.

Let religions have the claim to the phrase marriage, and turn everybody’s matchup into a civil union. The people who want to go the additional step of being “married” in their church can do so.

Those who don’t have strong religious convictions could get that same City Hall wedding service, or can seek out those people who manage to get themselves certified to perform marriages by filling out a couple of forms.

And before it seems like I’m making fun of those people, I must confess to having a sister-in-law who performs wedding services as a sideline. If that kind of service makes one happy, who am I to mock it?

THE REAL BOTTOM line is that it takes away any legal distinction between a “marriage” and a “civil union,” which is a distinction that ought to be erased.

For the only people who really want to have any distinction exist are the ones who are looking for a reason to be able to look down upon other people for whatever reason. That is something we should go out of our way to discourage.

Because I think for many couples, the religious rites (a few seconds of holiness) are far less significant than the legal rights and benefits that couples gain from being “legally bound” to each other.

The real negative of a couple just “living together” isn’t so much that they’re in sin, but that they’re putting up with each others annoying moments without getting the benefits come Income Tax Day.

IN FACT, IF you think of it objectively, the only people who ought to be “opposed” to this idea are the ones who will be upset that they can’t denigrate other couples for not having the same service they had.

Which isn’t much of an excuse, to me, to keep the status quo.

It also makes me wonder if I should start scouring those DVDs of “The West Wing” episodes that I have tucked in a drawer. Maybe we’ll get a sense of where we’re headed in the next few years. Particularly since the past decade’s television joke may have a strain of legitimate policy to it.

Let’s only hope we never get a real-life take on that one episode where Big Bird and Elmo turned up at the White House!

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