Nubian representatives say that the line compares black Egyptians to monkeys, and are suing the singer, her record label, and the songwriter. • The man charged with the kidnapping of Shaniya Davis has also been accused of raping and asphyxiating the 5-year-old South Carolina girl. Mario McNeill is being charged with first-degree murder and rape of a child. • Amanda Knox broke down in tears today in court as the prosecution closed their case against her, saying she "harboured hatred" for Meredith Kercher and "killed her to take revenge." • Amanda Knox's parents are so confident she'll be acquitted that they've already bought her a plane ticket home to Seattle. •  The British man charged with strangling his own wife on a camping trip was found not guilty on account of a rare disorder, which caused him to murder Christine Thomas in his sleep. "You are a decent man and a devoted husband. I strongly suspect that, not withstanding the circumstances here, you may well be feeling a sense of guilt about what happened that night. In the eyes of the law, you bear no responsibility," said the judge. •  Reporter Michael Crowley sat down in a restaurant the other night and found himself sitting two tables away from Sonia Sotomayor. Naturally, he sent out a Tweet, which read: "She left her purse on a chair; stern-faced security guys came back for it about 30 min later." •  Soldiers in Sweden are fighting for flame-retardant underwear. The Swedish Conscription Council claims that the female soldiers were promised appropriate bras and panties years ago, but the armed forces has failed to deliver. • Selma Aliye Kavaf, Turkey's minister for women's affairs, says, "The mentality change regarding women's participation in business or political life would take time. Legislation or laws are not enough for women to become active in business life." • A dad from Minnesota claims that during the first three years of his son's life, he spoke to him only in Klingon. The dad says it was part of an experiment, to see whether his kid would pick up the fictional language. He says he stopped when it became clear his son, now 15, preferred English. •  Warning: This story is disgusting and highly disturbing. Short version: a gang in Peru has been accused of murdering people in order to collect their fat, which is then sold on the black market for cosmetics. • The highest court in New York has rejected an attempt to throw out two government orders to recognize the rights of same-sex couples married in other states. While this is good news, the ruling was based on a technicality, and did not address the broader human rights issue at stake. • A team of researchers have made headway in understanding how the body metabolizes date rape drugs. They hope that the breakthrough "may provide new clues on how to counteract the drug's effects, or to enhance its metabolism and decrease toxicity for chronic abusers or victims of sexual assault." • A study from the Harvard School of Public Health found a woman's risk of developing multiple sclerosis during her lifetime is doubled if she was obese at age 18. This is the first time MS risk has been linked to obesity. The research was based on the Nurses' Health study, but doctors say "There's no reason to believe that the biological mechanisms would be different." • Ohio State University researchers found that alcoholics over the age of 60 have more than 40 alcoholic drinks a week on average, compared to between 25 and 35 drinks a week on average for younger alcoholics. The findings suggest older alcoholics have developed a tolerance and need to drink even more to get drunk. • A North Carolina doctor could lose his medical license for allegedly poking a patient's thigh and calling her fat and irresponsible for being unemployed and using taxpayer's money to pay for another pregnancy. The doctor admitted he told her that her fat thighs and diabetes could make her go blind. • Could "real" America's love affair with Sarah Palin be coming to a close? In this video an angry mob boos her and calls her a quitter after left a an event in Noblesville, Indiana without signing the books of about 300 families who had been waiting for more than three hours. • A few Indian travel agents are pushing "divorce tourism," package deals designed to help couples salvage their relationship. Viresh Hirjee, chief executive of a Mumbai travel agency, has been sending customers of vacation along with marriage counselors. "We are trying our best to bring the couple together," he said, but warned, "We are not destiny changers." • School officials in Orange County, California warned kids that if they skip school today to see New Moon they'll be marked truant. • The business information analysis firm IBISWorld says that the growing popularity of online dating sites is responsible for Australia's sex industry losing $67.6 million in the past year. "The rapid growth in online services means it has never been easier for like-minded individuals to organize casual liaisons for little or no cost," said IBISWorld analyst Edward Butler. • Barbara Ann Radnofsky, Democratic candidate for attorney general in Texas, says a clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages accidentally banned all marriages in the state. The clause reads: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage." Backers of the ban say she's reading too much into the clause for political reasons. • The city of Auckland, New Zealand paid $74,000 to give a 66-foot fiberglass Santa statue a facelift. One of his mechanical eyes had been drooping and people were worried it would scare children. His face has been bandaged and the repairs will be unveiled on Sunday. •

• Iranian police warned shopkeepers today not to use any mannequins with visible curves. Mannequins are also barred from appearing in windows without a headscarf. • In response to an abysmally low conviction rate for reported rapes, British officials have ordered a review of how rape victims are treated by authorities from the moment they report the assault onward. • Elizaveta Mukasei, who, with her husband, Mikhail, spied during the cold war for the KGB, has died at 97. The New York Times calls the Mukaseis "one of the most famous husband-and-wife duos in the history of espionage." • A new study reveals that more adults than previously thought (three out of five) have suffered from depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol addiction or marijuana abuse at some point in their lives. Previous studies had placed the number much lower, but they also did not follow participants over time, which doctors believe has lead to a more accurate picture of American's mental health. • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, who is a Yankees fan, is scheduled to throw out the first pitch on Saturday before New York's game against the Boston Red Sox. • A three-year custody battle over Dexter the pug has finally come to a close. A judge ruled that the dog will spend five weeks at a time with each of his owners. • Swedish female soldiers are demanding that the military provide them with combat-tested bras because the sports bras they're forced to buy unhook too easily. Men are provided with military-issue underwear, but there are no military-issue bras, so women have to buy their own. • According to the Census Bureau, 27% of gay couples say they are in a relationship "akin to husband-and-wife." This number is much higher than the number of gay couples who have been legally married, and analysts say it reflects the couples who would get married if they were granted equal rights. However, there were fewer same-sex couples reported this year than last, but that may be because fewer straight couples checked the wrong box on their forms. • Researchers have found that mice who are fed alcohol at a young age are more likely to make stupid decisions when they reach adulthood. Although this does not mean people who drink as teens grow up to be risk-takers, it does open up the possibility that the two things are related. • Tanning salons generally do not allow minors to visit without parental permission, but once they are in the door, they do not limit the number of tanning sessions allowed, a recent undercover operation found. •  A girls school in Pakistan was the target of another terrorist attack this Tuesday. Authorities believe the building was blown up by Islamist militants. • Researchers say when people are stressed they actually choose less familiar foods rather than "comfort foods." Study participants were asked to rate the level of change in their lives, then choose between American potato chips and British chips with odd flavors like Camembert and plum. Those experiencing more change were more likely to choose the unusual chips. • Australia's parliament will debate a bill that will decide whether two Kenyan woman can stay in the country as refugees, or if they will be forced to return and undergo female genital mutilation. Grace Gichuhi is seeking asylum because the Mungiki sect that killed her mother for refusing FGM wants to murder her for the same reason. She and fellow Kenyan Teresia Ndikaru Muturi both fled the country, but they'll be deported unless the parliament votes to expand refugee protection laws. • Researchers say people who are dieting should beware of naturally skinny friends who eat too much. 210 students participated in experiments in which a thin or overweight researcher ate snacks with them while watching a movie. The subject's portion choices mimicked the researcher's, but they adjusted and took a smaller portion if the researcher was overweight. • British Attorney General Baroness Scotland has been fined £5,000 for employing a housekeeper who wasn't allowed to work in the U.K. She didn't know it when she hired the housekeeper, but didn't keep a copy of her documents as required by law. • More women are murdered by men in Louisiana than anywhere else in the United States, according to a report from the Violence Policy Center. The national rate of women being murdered by men is 1.3 per 100,000, but in 2007 Louisiana's rate was 2.53 per 100,000. Alaska and Wyoming had the second and third highest rates. • A 19-year-old Indian girl confessed that she and her 20-year-old boyfriend strangled seven members of her family who opposed their relationship. They are charged with murdering her mother, father, grandmother, and four other relatives after lacing the family meal with a sedative. The family wouldn't let them marry because they belong to the same gotra, a group descended from a common ancestor. • Ron Paul on his appearance in the film Brüno: "I don't feel good about it because I was the subject of a trick, and nobody likes to be tricked. I understand they're not making a tremendous amount of money off this movie, so maybe the American people aren't as cynical as they assumed." •

[Washington, D.C., September 15. Image via Getty]

Jen and Dawn Barbouroske (L) pose with their daughters McKinley and Bre following a news conference with married same-sex couples, on legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) outside the Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 15, 2009. AFP PHOTO/Jewel SAMAD (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

It's believed that Suman suffers from a hormonal imbalance, but her family has been unable to afford to travel to Calcutta for expert medical treatment. WWKAD? What Would Katy Abram Do? • Margaret Bush Wilson, a civil-rights activist and head of the Missouri NAACP, has died in St. Louis at the age of 90. • Jose Garcia-Perlera, who tied up and gagged widows living alone in a series of attacks in 2007 and 2008 in Maryland, was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole. • The mom in North Dakota who was busted (heh) for breastfeeding while intoxicated can't stay out of trouble: She's been arrested twice since her sentencing. • Poor Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones. They paid a Utah newspaper to run their wedding announcement, only to have it rejected. The same-sex couple were legally married in California in June and wanted the announcement to run in Jones' hometown before a family get-together next week. "After all, our marriage is just as real and legal and entitled to celebration as any of the others that are announced each week in the pages of The Spectrum," Jones wrote to publisher Donnie Welch. Welch replied: "This simply is not true. While that may be the case in some states it is not the case in the state of Utah. As our policy is to run marriage announcements recognized by Utah law, I have made the decision not to run the announcement." • Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota has asked a judge to prevent the state from suspending its license to perform abortions in Sioux Falls. • A 35-year-old woman known only as Carole — a convert to Islam — was banned from her local pool in Paris for trying to go swimming in a "burquini." She bought the garment because: "it would allow me the pleasure of bathing without showing too much of myself, as Islam recommends." But officials claim the "burquini" is a possible public health risk. Daniel Guillaume, a regional official in charge of swimming pools, says: "These clothes are used in public, so they can contain molecules, viruses, et cetera, which will go in the water and could be transmitted to other bathers." • "Everybody used to say how radical I was. I just thought I was pragmatic." — Billie Jean King, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday, the "the highest honor a civilian can receive in the U.S." • Scary, but not surprising: Pregnant women who underwent female genital cutting as girls are at increased risk of needing an emergency Cesarean section or suffering serious tears during childbirth. • Filament, a UK magazine for women featuring semi-naked men, is have problems pleasing its audience, which wants pictures of erect penises; its printers, which refuse and object to working with such content; and distributors which won't handle a women's magazine with a man on the cover. Writes Kristina Lloyd, "When set against the plethora of men's lifestyle and top-shelf magazines featuring scantily clad and open-legged women, the struggles faced by Filament highlight a deeply entrenched sexism: Men can look at women but women cannot look at men… The sexism is in the inequality. • Wow: Women's boxing will be added to the 2012 Olympic Games. Boxing was the last all-male Olympic sport.

Kirchick, whose studied intolerance of the LGBT rights movement, dislike of liberal gay men and antipathy towards feminism hardly makes him a hard-hitting interviewer, lets that — and, let's face it, quite a bit — pass in his breezy interview of the woman who wants to be the voice of a Republican generation. He apparently rather likes being liked by Meghan McCain for his gayness, as opposed to his actual personality.

What Kirchick doesn't like is how mean everyone is to Meghan McCain.

Not surprisingly, McCain the younger has drawn poisonous quips from the party's moralizers-in-chief, including conservative columnist Laura Ingraham, who dismissed her as a "plus-sized model" ("Kiss my fat ass," McCain retorted on an episode of The View), and Rush Limbaugh, who suggested that she follow Arlen Specter's example and leave the GOP. More surprising has been the scorn of liberal writers such as Judith Warner of The New York Times, who called her Colbert appearance "stupid" and "foolish." Much of this has to do with McCain's slightly girlie, conversational speaking style, which lacks the spit and polish of professional pundits and occasionally strays into gauche phrases and pat formulations.

It also has to do with the fact that she does a lot of fluffy interviews, repeats talking points from her father's campaign ad nauseum and gets on Colbert to tell the world how she likes sex and the GOP should stop being so prudish about it (a position I agree with, but that hardly brands her as the voice of a new Republican generation).

But, hey! She's pro gay marriage! I'm sure that's why so many Republicans dislike her. Kirchick is, naturally, convinced that McCain's pro-gay marriage stance is the source of her power."

But it's her position on gay marriage that has garnered McCain the most attention. In a speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, she said that "old-school Republicans" were "scared shitless" of the future and retreating further and further into an ultraconservative crouch.

No, it might be the fact that she was the official blogger of her father's Presidential campaign (and a damn sight better than Michael Goldfarb, I might add), that she's quite pretty, and a young woman in a political movement that is increasing white, old and male (see also: Michael Steele). That she's opposed to the party's position on gay marriage is hardly the only reason she gets attention, or else her dad's former campaign manager Steve Schmidt would have a Daily Beast column, too.

Kirchick has also decided the conservative pundit class hates her, too, because she's so good at connecting with young people.

It turns out those old-school Republicans are not only scared shitless of the future; they're scared shitless of her. Or, as media writer Michael Wolff put it, Meghan McCain "was a mild diversion during the presidential campaign....But empowered, she's turned into someone who actually wants a seat at the table, apparently unaware of the incongruity and awkwardness of a 24-year-old girl among the guys with their pants pulled up high."

Well, how about the possibility that they don't like having a 24-year-old at the table who doesn't want to run for office, has no campaign or political experience outside of blogging for her father and little in the way of a coherent political philosophy other than "everything my dad thinks, plus gay marriage" and who seemingly is as interested in her own celebrity as policy formation and base-building exercises trying to brand herself as a Republican thought leader? I mean, plenty of people aren't exactly pleased that everyone's kowtowing to Limbaugh like he's Republican royalty either, for many of the same reasons.

Kirchick, again, slips in a gay stereotype as he asks Meghan McCain why she never said a damn thing about same sex marriage the entire time she was blogging for her father.

McCain — a fan of Lucky Cheng's drag club in New York City where she gets her Lady Bunny fix — says that during the campaign no reporter bothered to ask for her views on the matter. Had they, she would have told the truth and not worried about further upsetting conservatives already wary of her father's maverick reputation. "I never would have lied," she says.

I mean, she's obviously all gay friendly, she goes to drag shows! And despite the fact that same sex marriage and Prop 8 came up through the campaign, never once did she think to write or say anything about it, but now it's her big bugaboo? That might be why people think she's using the issue to seek attention, other than professional jealousy, sexism or homophobia.

And in a week when some Republican members of the Senate have quoted Ricky Ricardo at the first Latina Supreme Court nominee, lectured her about racism and the need to show empathy to the poor, beleaguered white man and repeatedly invoked her Wise Latina comment and yet other people have begun talking about how Regina Benjamin might not be the right body type (for a woman) for a Presidential appointment and the Young Republicans elect an unreconstructed racist to lead their organization (and all of this barely a year after Hillary Clinton ended her run for the Presidency which was marred by over sexism, especially among Republicans), this quote rings pretty hollow.

"Homophobia is the last socially accepted prejudice," McCain says, repeating it for emphasis. So it's only natural that she also views the fight for gay equality as "my generation's civil rights movement."

McCain must walk in some pretty rarified Republican circles to have missed all the racism, sexism and sizeism that some seem to find more than just socially acceptable. But I guess since there's only one prejudice Kirchick really cares about, that's what's important.

Megan McCain Will Be Heard [Out]

Related: — [Yale Daily News]
Shorter James Kirchick: I Can't Get Laid Because Of "Liberal Intolerance" [Ezra Klein]
Will Someone Tell Feminists to Get a Sense of Humor? [Commentary]
Surgeon General Post Is A Big Job For A Big Lady [MSNBC]
Young Republican Leader Finds Racism LOL-Worthy [Gawker]
Young Republican Leader Audra Shay Is Crazy, Illiterate, Racist [Gawker]
Audra Shay, Facebook Hate Monger, Elected Leader Of Young Republicans [Gawker]

Earlier: Female Nominees Continue To Face Scrutiny Over Their Size, Weight

[Sacramento, June 17. Image via Getty]

SACRAMENTO - JUNE 17: Surrounded by their children, Kim Coleman, (C) and her wife Jen Coleman, (R) celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary and the one-year anniversary of a California Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriages, during a press conference June 17, 2009 in Sacramento, California. On June 16, 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled providing a constitutional right to same-sex marriages went into effect, only later in November for it to be overturned by voters. The courts then announced a ruling on May 19 upholding Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages in California; but also upheld the marriages that had been performed before the proposition passed were still valid. (Photo by Max Whittaker/Getty Images)

Think about it: as a piece in Forbes explains, if even half of the approximately 781,267 same-sex couples in the U.S. were granted, and took, the opportunity to marry, it could save an industry that's otherwise been hit hard by the economy - to the tune of $10 billion in additional revenue.

Although the average same-sex couple spends only a third on weddings as do their straight counterparts, this could change as gay marriage achieves increasing acceptance and becomes more wide-spread. Part of the discrepancy, says one researcher, is due to circumstances, the fact that after waiting for many years for the right to do so, many couples - some already formally committed - want to be married as a quickly as possible. Or, as one researcher in the article explains it, "It takes time to spend a lot of money." And one imagines that attitudes towards gay marriage would also be a factor. Hopefully, the days of disapproving relatives boycotting the big day are numbered; an attitude change - and more tailored options for same-sex couples - could mean an embrace of more elaborate nuptials. To say nothing of the same parental money given towards same-sex marriages as funds many a hetero wedding.

One wonders, however, if it could take a few years for the excess levels to catch up: with the true meaning of marriage so fresh in everyone's mind, will the bells and whistles seem less important? Or - not? After all, however much we might bemoan the increasing materialism of the modern wedding,the chocolate fountain, the carpet of rose petals and the fortnight at Sandals is a right that all Americans are entitled to. And the wedding industry will surely be happy to remind you of this.

The $9.5 Billion Gay Marriage Windfall [Forbes]

And so he made this incredibly disturbing, word-for-word video of Glenn Beck's lovingly-written incest fantasy from his book The Real America. Beck used his incest-erotica to fap to demonstrate why society should never tolerate same-sex relationships, which are far less erotic to him than boning his sister.

Drill Baby Drill, Ep. 1 - Beck In The Saddle [Andy Cobb via News Hounds]

• Dick Cheney thinks: The Gays should be happy with whatever states choose not to discriminate against them; Americans should be glad George Tenet didn't have worse intel about the link between Saddam and Osama; and the Guantanamo detainees should be happy we didn't summarily execute them. [Time, CNN, MSNBC]

• David Duke is mad at Rush Limbaugh for comparing him to that Latina Sonia Sotomayor. But he's not a racist! [ThinkProgress]
• Dick Cheney wouldn't have nominated Judge Sotomayor, but even Dick Cheney is smart enough not to call her a racistwhile he's trying to rehab his image. [Politico]
• Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, however, is not as smart as Dick Cheney. [Politico]
• Sotomayor begins the obligatory meetings-with-Senators today; let's hope she wore some comfortable shoes. [Politico]
• The Obama Administration denies that any of the images of American detainees subject to the ACLU release lawsuit depict sexual abuse, as was reported last week. Please note the careful wording. [Salon]
• The Administration also says that it decided not to release the photos because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Malik objected and threatened to force us to withdraw even earlier than he planned, which is not nearly as dirty as it sounds. [McClatchy]
• Tom Tancredo staffer Marcus Epstein is a crazy-ass racist who assaulted a woman on the street last year because she was black, and he won't be going to law school now because of it. [DCeiver]
• Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Un, who is 7 years younger than I am, will be taking over the nuclear-armed country of North Korea. This is gonna go well! [BBC]
• Eliot Spitzer has spent a lot of money on sex workers. [NY Times]
• Norm Coleman has spent a lot of money masturbating to his electoral fantasies in Minnesota courts. [NY Times]
• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has finally learned how to relax and submit peacefully to our new Chinese overlords. [NY Times]
• You are correct: I have sex on the brain.

[Hollywood, May 26. Image via Getty]

A message left by demonstrators besides cartoon character Bug Bunny's Star on the Walk of Fame during a Gay protest rally in Hollywood on May 26, 2009. California's Supreme Court upheld a referendum that outlawed gay marriage, but said 18,000 same-sex weddings carried out before the ban would remain valid. Gay and lesbian activists had sought to overturn the result of a November referendum, known as Proposition 8, which redefined marriage in California as being unions between men and women only. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

As I've stated before, I'm not a great personal advocate of the institution to start with, and the more people like Katherine Jean Lopez and Ace of Spades shit all over feminists like Jessica Valenti for agreeing to try to make it something less of a wholly religious, patriarchal institution that strictly exists for the subjugation of women and their sexuality to men and their sexuality, the less keen I am. And then I read about how asswipes like Tucker Carlson thinks fucking can save a bad marriage and Dennis Prager thinks women should just submit to their husbands who, without the bounds of matrimony and civilization, would devolve into rape-y chickens, and I frankly begin to worry a lot about being involved with people to whom the institution is important. And let's not even get me started on the Wedding Industrial Complex.

You know what small things give me hope about marriage? Watching people who don't — and can't — take the availability of the institution to them for granted fight for their right to get married. Watching the enthusiasm with which, in a variety of non-traditional outfits, same sex couples flocked to courthouses and simple ceremonies, flush with the pleasure of having the state sanction their love and their relationship. Watching the emotions and pride in people's eyes when they can take part in a state institution that they thought their love for another human might permanently bar them from. Scrolling through pictures of same sex weddings on newswires was enough to make even me think that there might really be something to this whole marriage idea that wasn't encapsulated in Being A Princess For A Day and rom-coms and sad little people clinging desperately to an institution that has failed to live up to the expectations of more than half of the participants in it.

But then I read Sam Schulman's recent Weekly Standard piece in which he defends marriage as not — I swear to fucking God — about love or individual commitment or promises meant not to be broken (he ought to know, he's on his third). In fact, the very idea that marriage is about love and commitment, to Schulman, is an idea gayer than the Stop H8 movement. Schulman then defends straights-only marriage on the grounds that it is the only institution that, for centuries, has more-or-less successfully subjugated women and kept men from sleeping around — unless you're Sam Schulman, Dennis Prager, Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh, in which case it apparently doesn't keep one from having multiple sex partners and wives. Yup, Schulman thinks that marriage should only be for the straights, to keep us from fucking each other too much.

An example of the kind of marriage that Schulman decries:

The relationship between a same-sex couple, though it involves the enviable joy of living forever with one's soulmate, loyalty, fidelity, warmth, a happy home, shopping, and parenting, is not the same as marriage between a man and a woman, though they enjoy exactly the same cozy virtues. These qualities are awfully nice, but they are emphatically not what marriage fosters, and, even when they do exist, are only a small part of why marriage evolved and what it does.

The entity known as "gay marriage" only aspires to replicate a very limited, very modern, and very culture-bound version of marriage. Gay advocates have chosen wisely in this. They are replicating what we might call the "romantic marriage," a kind of marriage that is chosen, determined, and defined by the couple that enters into it.

Basically, Schulman says that the only things about the institution of marriage that make it remotely attractive to anyone uninterested in conservative religion and the subjugation of women don't require marriage and, in fact, might not exist at all.

And lest you think that I'm getting too paranoid that this guy wants to slap a chastity belt on us — or, rather, that he'd like to buy my dad one to slap on me — this is what Schulman explicitly defines as the purpose of marriage.

The first is the most important: It is that marriage is concerned above all with female sexuality. The very existence of kinship depends on the protection of females from rape, degradation, and concubinage. This is why marriage between men and women has been necessary in virtually every society ever known. Marriage, whatever its particular manifestation in a particular culture or epoch, is essentially about who may and who may not have sexual access to a woman when she becomes an adult, and is also about how her adulthood—and sexual accessibility—is defined. Again, until quite recently, the woman herself had little or nothing to say about this, while her parents and the community to which they answered had total control. The guardians of a female child or young woman had a duty to protect her virginity until the time came when marriage was permitted or, more frequently, insisted upon. This may seem a grim thing for the young woman—if you think of how the teenaged Natalie Wood was not permitted to go too far with Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass. But the duty of virginity can seem like a privilege, even a luxury, if you contrast it with the fate of child-prostitutes in brothels around the world.

Just to break this down:

• Parents (probably fathers) and marriage protect women from rape.
• Pre-marital sex is degrading to women.
• Marriage basically only exists to determine who can fuck certain women.
• A woman's only choice (and that of her family) is to protect her virginity until marriage or end up a child prostitute.

Not content to simply sound the horn of Jericho at the walls of his precious institution, shattering the illusion of many Americans that the institution is about love, fidelity, building a life together or even an equitable and state-recognized partnership, Schulman decides to dance on the ruins.

This most profound aspect of marriage—protecting and controlling the sexuality of the child-bearing sex—is its only true reason for being, and it has no equivalent in same-sex marriage. Virginity until marriage, arranged marriages, the special status of the sexuality of one partner but not the other (and her protection from the other sex)—these motivating forces for marriage do not apply to same-sex lovers.

Yup, marriage is solely about controlling who can impregnate the woman and has nothing to do with male sexuality... and that's why The Gays shouldn't be allowed to corrupt this precious institution of virginity-fetishization and control of women's sexuality. No wonder feminists keep saying same sex marriage is a feminist issue, if it can go so far as destroy this bullshit idea of the institution.

Also, by the way, according to Schulman, letting The Gays marry means that everyone will fuck their relatives and encourage interracial and inter-ethnic marriage (and, God, how I wish I was kidding).

Incest prohibition and other kinship rules that dictate one's few permissible and many impermissible sweethearts are part of traditional marriage. Gay marriage is blissfully free of these constraints. There is no particular reason to ban sexual intercourse between brothers, a father and a son of consenting age, or mother and daughter. There are no questions of ritual pollution: Will a hip Rabbi refuse to marry a Jewish man—even a Cohen—to a Gentile man? Do Irish women avoid Italian women? A same-sex marriage fails utterly to create forbidden relationships. If Tommy marries Bill, and they divorce, and Bill later marries a woman and has a daughter, no incest prohibition prevents Bill's daughter from marrying Tommy. The relationship between Bill and Tommy is a romantic fact, but it can't be fitted into the kinship system.

Just like it's important to keep Irish women from making out with Italian women, it's important to keep some bisexual man's future daughter from marrying his ex-lover, as though there's some current prohibition on me marrying my mother's ex (not that she had one). Actually, it seems to me there were at least two movies based on the concept of that happening. But, you know, whatever! People will start fucking dogs!

Schulman, having thus totally proven his point that social conservatives spend way to much time thinking about fucking dogs and family members, then goes on to say this:

Third, marriage changes the nature of sexual relations between a man and a woman. Sexual intercourse between a married couple is licit; sexual intercourse before marriage, or adulterous sex during marriage, is not. Illicit sex is not necessarily a crime, but licit sexual intercourse enjoys a sanction in the moral universe, however we understand it, from which premarital and extramarital copulation is excluded. More important, the illicit or licit nature of heterosexual copulation is transmitted to the child, who is deemed legitimate or illegitimate based on the metaphysical category of its parents' coition.

Now to live in such a system, in which sexual intercourse can be illicit, is a great nuisance. Many of us feel that licit sexuality loses, moreover, a bit of its oomph. Gay lovers live merrily free of this system. Can we imagine Frank's family and friends warning him that "If Joe were serious, he would put a ring on your finger"? Do we ask Vera to stop stringing Sally along? Gay sexual practice is not sortable into these categories—licit-if-married but illicit-if-not (children adopted by a gay man or hygienically conceived by a lesbian mom can never be regarded as illegitimate). Neither does gay copulation become in any way more permissible, more noble after marriage. It is a scandal that homosexual intercourse should ever have been illegal, but having become legal, there remains no extra sanction—the kind which fathers with shotguns enforce upon heterosexual lovers. I am not aware of any gay marriage activist who suggests that gay men and women should create a new category of disapproval for their own sexual relationships, after so recently having been freed from the onerous and bigoted legal blight on homosexual acts. But without social disapproval of unmarried sex—what kind of madman would seek marriage?

Let us now take it for a given that Schulman knows no actual same sex couples well enough to have been invited into their emotional lives where — surprise, asshole! — there are tons of questions of love, fidelity, commitment and the right time to engage in intercourse. That's the whole fucking reason they want to be able to participate in the fucking institution. But, hey, since no one can be threatened with a shotgun for having impregnated someone else's daughter through "illicit" sex (which will get less exciting but more "noble" after marriage, as though the beast with two backs is somehow an ennobling act) it's not for The Gays! Also, Schulman's wife should probably watch her back, as he just said the only reason he married her was because he couldn't otherwise fuck her, which is probably why he has two ex-wives.

At this point, he's basically just urinated on the ruins of the institution, but oh yes, now it's time to straight-up defecate on them, and someone's been eating his fiber. Schulman's final argument is that marriage is just a way for dudes to find new hunting partners in their father-in-laws and wives to find new book club participants (fucking gag me with a spoon), and since gay people are inevitably rejected by their parents, this doesn't happen in same sex marriages, so they shouldn't get married.

Even in modern romantic marriages, a groom becomes the hunting or business partner of his father-in-law and a member of his clubs; a bride becomes an ally of her mother-in-law in controlling her husband. There can, of course, be warm relations between families and their children's same-sex partners, but these come about because of liking, sympathy, and the inherent kindness of many people.

Oh, yes, and let's not forget how all women are harpies who set out to "control" their husbands and sons. I love how Schulman starts out defending it as a way to control women's sexuality, and ends up deciding that it's just a way to control men. If he's this concerned with power dynamics, I hope his wife's got some lovely fetish gear under the bed.

Oh, and the final nail in the coffin of same sex marriage, as far as Schulman's concerned, is that same sex couples are all too old.

In contrast, gay weddings are rather middle-aged affairs. My impression is borne out by the one available statistic, from the province of British Columbia, showing that the participants in first-time same-sex weddings are 13 years older, on average, then first-time brides-and-grooms. This feels about right. After all, declaring gay marriage legal will not produce the habit of saving oneself for marriage or create a culture which places a value on virginity or chastity (concepts that are frequently mocked in gay culture precisely because they are so irrelevant to gay romantic life).

Yes, undoubtedly, Schulman is an expert on "gay culture" having obviously been so friendly with so many LGBT people in his short, well-examined life.

And, so, Schulman says, The Gays will eventually grow tired of getting married, as so very many breeders have done — except for Schulman, who just gets tired of being married to individual women, one at a time.

Since gay relationships exist perfectly well outside the kinship system, to assume the burdens of marriage—the legal formalities, the duty of fidelity (which is no easier for gays than it is for straights), the slavishly imitative wedding ritual—will come to seem a nuisance. People in gay marriages will discover that mimicking the cozy bits of romantic heterosexual marriage does not make relationships stronger; romantic partners more loving, faithful, or sexy; domestic life more serene or exciting. They will discover that it is not the wedding vow that maintains marriages, but the force of the kinship system.

Schulman knows a lot about how getting married doesn't keep a relationship together. In one sense — not the kinship system bullshit — he is right. Wedding vows and state approval don't alone make a spouse faithful or a relationship work or the spark remain intact — and that goes the same for everyone participating in any relationship, as the thrice-married Schulman well knows.

But in the mean time, unlike Schulman's rants about controlling my uterus, having boring sex, controlling my husband and not fucking my relatives, same sex marriages will destroy the institution to which Schulman has so proudly submitted 3 separate times in order to gain sole access to some sweet, sweet pussy for some period of time before he becomes utterly bored with it. You know, 'cause otherwise who would get married if they could just have sex?

Every day thousands of ordinary heterosexual men surrender the dream of gratifying our immediate erotic desires. Instead, heroically, resignedly, we march up the aisle with our new brides, starting out upon what that cad poet Shelley called the longest journey...

And that's why gay people shouldn't get married, so that Schulman can't have more sex. Actually, that's probably the sole legitimate argument against same sex marriage Schulman made the entire time: if keeping same sex couples from entering into state-enforced contracts with one another really would keep Sam Schulman from having more sex with women, it might be worth considering.

The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage [The Weekly Standard]

Earlier: Conservatives Think Feminists Should Stay Away From Marriage
Tucker Carlson's Guide To Not Getting Divorced
Conservative Dennis Prager Knows It's Not Rape If His Wife "Submits"
Dennis Prager Still Thinks Women Should Just Give It Up Already
Dennis The Menace

[Los Angeles, May 26. Image via Getty]

[San Francisco, May 26. Image via Getty]

SAN FRANCISCO - MAY 26: Kerri McCoy (L) and her partner Erin Carder embrace following the California Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Proposition 8 May 26, 2009 in San Francisco, California. The California State Supreme Court voted 6-1 to uphold proposition 8 which makes it illegal for same-sex couples to marry in the state of California. More than 18,000 same-sex couples that wed before prop 8 was voted in will still be legally married. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

• A court in Germany has fined a man for beheading Hitler. Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened, the 42-year-old man ran in and grabbed the head off a wax Adolf statue, claiming that it is inappropriate to include an image of the Nazi leader so close to the Holocaust memorial. • Spain has announced plans to make the emergency contraceptive pill available over the counter. There is also a movement in Spain to loosen the strict abortion laws, which only allow abortions in cases of rape, or when the mothers health is seriously at risk. • A small team of students at the College of Textiles in New Jersey are currently working on an update for the standard hospital gown. • Researchers have found that mothers who experience a traumatic experience prior to becoming pregnant may still pass certain behaviors (stemming from the trauma) onto her offspring.  •  A recent study indicates that women across America are forgoing their annual recommended mammograms. • Good news: a new study shows that there are now more women in corporate boardrooms than ever before. •  Horrible news: An Argentinian man has been charged with incest and the rape of his daughter. Armando Lucero allegedly had seven children with his daughter, who he began abusing at age eight. Naturally, Lucero's case has been compared to that of Josef Fritzl. • In the African country of Mauritania, rape is defined as "domestic violence," regardless of whether the rapist was a stranger or an acquaintance. Furthermore, rape is not generally prosecuted as a crime, and under current laws, the only illegal part of rape is the sex-without-marriage thing. • Scientists have found that smoking may enhance the activity of a gene that aids in breaking down body fat. • A 15-year-old Australian girl named Jessica Watson hopes to become the youngest sailor to make it all the way around the world. Her solo trip will begin next week, right after her 16th birthday.  •  A new survey found that 3 out of 4 domestic violence shelters have reported an increase in women seeking aid in the past few months. Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, believes that this may be due, at least in part, to the recession. • This London sexual health clinic is a far cry from the local Planned Parenthood I visit. Pap smears in style. • A California woman has been accused of making over $8.5 million in an online prostitution ring. The website claimed to offer dates with porn stars and fashion models. • French kissing (or "tongue kissing," as we called it in grade school) increases the risk of contracting oral HPV, study says. • 

Polyamory is likely as old as time, love, censure, and certainly marriage. And now that same-sex marriage is gaining a legal foothold in more and more states, the World Polyamory Association, is, as the Daily Beast puts it, "pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships." Says one member of the "triad" profiled (a married lesbian couple who recently committed themselves to a man), "I want to walk down the street hand in hand in hand in hand and live together openly and proclaim our relationship. But also to have all those survivor and visitation rights and tax breaks and everything like that." The concern, of course, is that they'll block the sidewalk for same-sex couples.

While polyamory as a concept can encompass any number of partners, WPA is seeking legalization, at this point, only for triads. As distinct from the fraught Jules et Jim-style menage a trois of popular imagination, triads are about stability:

Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That's closer to bigamy. Instead, triads-"triangular triads," to use precise polyamorous jargon-demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other.

These are relationships which, if they are to succeed, demand a level of communication, clarity of expectation,organization, grasp of math, and maturity that few of us can aspire to - maybe a clue to why the vast majority of the community are, apparently, of the boomer generation. The truth is, while the notion of verboten "threesomes" still has a lurid grasp on the popular imagination, an untitillating adult version strikes the same people as weird. And yet, it's not hard to imagine that agitiating for legal acceptance of the three-way marriages would be prize ammunition for those anti-gay-marriage types who feared doomsday "floodgate" scenarios. While caution rarely changes much, would running in this case jeopardize the right to walk? (To use that metaphor, yes, again.)

Of course, it's hard to get a read on exactly how many triads would take advantage of legal marriage - although the nonprofit "Loving More" estimates that a quarter of "the estimated 50,000 self-identified polyamorists in the U.S" live together. That's not a big number, although one imagines a lessening of stigma would swell their ranks somewhat. In any case, the triad whom the author introduces as the "face" of would-be legal polyamory is, how shall we put it, far from mainstream: the most vocal of the three, Janet, claims on her website to "travel astrally," while all three "helm the school of tantra." In short, it's easy to dismiss them as crackpots, which, while it may do the movement a disservice, certainly makes the notion less scary to those who'd be alarmed. (The WPA website home page, it must be said, features a first-person account titled "More to Love!") Says Janet, <"We should have every right to inherit from each other and visit each other-I don't care what you call it, we're not second-class citizens! Any people who wish to form a marriage with all the rights and duties of a marriage should have the legal right to." But, the thing is, they, um, don't. And in legal terms, we're guessing this is very much a discussion for another day - if not another decade. Insert walking metaphor.

Threesome Marriages [Daily Beast]