Gays Suck

I thought I would move away from my enjoyment of 70s music and move on to more current fare. There's a singer named Katy Perry who has stirred up the listening public and members of the blogitariet with a song called "I Kissed a Girl." After seeing the video on VH-1 I took a little look around the web to see her inspiration for writing the song.

I found a lot of interpretations of her inspiration for writing the song. One near the top of the list was a column at MSNBC.com, where if the song were titled "I Kissed Obama and I Liked it" would probably become the new theme song for Hardball. Contributor Tony Sclafani lambastes the content of Perry's music, then grudgingly accepts her right to make it.

Besides bicurious kissing, Perry had previously penned a song titled "Ur So Gay" about an ex-boyfriend who was so pretty and emotional it was hard to believe he didn't date guys. These songs go to an annoying part of the gay community, whiny victim mentality. Basically, homosexuals are a repressed minority, and these songs perpetuate a series of stereotypes about gays and lesbians not reflective of the diverse community of people.

Boo hoo. Comparing gays to other minority groups tends to break down on its face. Namely, you can't tell by someone's face if they're gay, unlike say, by ethnicity. One of the only minority groups not associated by physicality are religious groups. Of course, gay groups are very tolerant of religious differences.

Except....

The gotcha point of the criticism is that Perry is a Christian, and recorded a gospel album under the name Katy Hudson (How dare she change her name slightly? I'm sure Reg, er, Elton John would be shocked). Remember, tolerance works best with groups who are well tolerated.

Katy Perry is a 24 year old girl who didn't find out about pop music until the 90s were nearly over. Her look and her stage performance tend to reflect a girl who is being sexual in only a superficial, flirtatious manner. And at her age, the term "gay" is bandied about as much as in the average South park episode. You'll probably hear young adults pepper their language with words like "ghetto" and "retarded" as well. But then, if you're the Black Eyed Peas, you'll just change the name of the song to "Let's Get it Started." If I were her, I'd be more afraid of the Chapstick people going after her.

I personally think the song is fun and catchy. Have you heard music from politically active gay musicians? Most of it sucks.

Valentine, Marriage and the Catholic Church

Every year I try to do this blog post and I usually get sidetracked to the point of not doing it. I also would have liked to source it more, but a lot of this is from memory and the loathesome Wikipedia.

Valentine's Day itself is based on Saint Valentine, who is something of an arguable historical figure. Not much is known about the various saints named Valentine, but "he" is generally associated with messages, love and marriage. Valentine's Day has settled into a day of acknowledgement for married and unmarried couples alike.

I thought I would instead look at the Catholic Church's contribution to marriage itself. In the past, marriage fell somewhere between arranged unions and informal hookups. In the Middle Ages, marriage became more based on the choice of the couple themselves.

Still, this had its own problems. It was possible for the engaged couple to marry themselves before God without the presence of witnesses or a priest. It was the norm to have a ceremony, but this unwitnessed marriage was a good opportunity for a man to bring more than one woman to the marriage bed without proof of an actual wedding.

This is the point where the Council of Trent formalized the verification of the marriage union. Much of the Western world followed, making an official marriage based on love the cultural standard.

This is what I consider when I think about the expansion of the definition of marriage. In a way, the Catholic Church's strict rules about marriage were the basis of modern society. Arguing against the need for a definiable marriage seems to fly in the face of history.