Hello, Internet.

by Benjo

Let's get right to the issues. First up: gay marriage.

Let us be lovers; we'll marry our fortunes together.
- Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (gay musicians)

The last week has seen an outcry among liberal Californians who are angry about the passage of Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. Many of my readers have requested that this blog's first post be devoted to my thoughts on this important issue.

Now, in thinking about any ballot measure, we must carefully consider both its moral and legal implications. Having spent literally hours looking into both aspects, I can state unequivocally that gay marriage is both wrong and illegal.

I can personally attest to its wrongness: one time I put it as the answer to a math problem about the slope of a line, and to be sure, that test came back with more red ink than Ashley Todd's face. Astute readers will no doubt accuse me of logical fallacy in this explanation. To them, I submit: of course, gay marriage has changed since the days of grade school. Today, it is a problem not of algebraic slopes, but of slippery ones. To wit, if we start allowing gays to marry, society will take its cue from Simon and Garfunkel, who not only wanted America to let them be lovers--i.e., gay marriage--but also, to let them marry their fortunes.

For input on the legal end, I turn to my colleague Benjo Joben, who blogs about legal issues. Says Joben:

Benjo, you are absolutely correct to draw the parallel with fortune. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled on exactly these terms in the historic Schiavone v. Fortune case, 477 U.S. 21 (1986). I don't want to wade too deep in the findings--which involve mandamus, writ, statute, and a bunch of other really wonky stuff. But to put it in layman's terms: the Court ruled 6-3 that the slope was indeed slippery. The dissent, which has spurred a decades-long wave of activism aimed at overturning the ruling, argued heatedly that the Constitution contains no Slippery Slope Clause. But Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority, famously stated, "Would that we were a nation of spelunkers, my mind might be elsewise. But, as nature provides no carabiners, this slope is simply too slippery."

So there you have it. I don't know about you, but this is one fortune that I think we ought to keep in the cookie.