Listen to me!

Imagine, if you would, George W. Bush arguing for a constitutional ban against gay marriage on the Judge Judy show. Two lesbians on one side, smartly dressed in pantsuits, another lesbian 'witness' waiting patiently on the bench behind them for Judy to call her forth: "You sir, stand up and tell me your name." And on the other side, Bush himself, shifting from one foot to the other, pulling out his best Texas drawl. How might Judge Judy Sheindlin respond? Would she dress the man down with one of her tongue-lashings? "You are trying my patience, SIR!" Would she look askance at hunky black bailiff Petri Hawkins Byrd and issue a snide rejoinder: "I eat morons like him up for breakfast." Or would she respond as she did when Larry King asked her opinion on the subject:

SHEINDLIN: "Naked City" there were a million stories. As long as people remain different and whether they come from New York, Los Angeles, Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin they are the same in many respects but there are nuances and it's the nuances that make them interesting.

KING: Gay marriage?

SHEINDLIN: Yes.

KING: Favor it?

SHEINDLIN: You know I think that we have so much to worry about in this country and in this world. I'm going to give you a long answer. If I said yes, no, it would be boring. The show would be over.

We have so much to worry about in this country. We have Katrina. We have people who aren't being educated. We have people who are living below the poverty line. In this world we have global warming. We have everything else.

KING: And we have gay people.

SHEINDLIN: And we have gay people. Who is it hurting? You know, my grandmother used to say who is it hurting? So, I ask you, Larry, if you have two adults and they happen to both be of the same sex and they love each other and they want to set up a home with each other they have as much of a shot as heterogeneous couples do. Fifty-two percent of marriages end in divorce, you know.

So if it works it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And if it's important for them to use the word marriage, rather than civil union or whatever other language that some people would prefer that they use I ask you it's not hurting me. It doesn't impact on my life. Why is there such a big fuss about it? Why are people so invested in it? I just don't get the negativity. I don't get it.

Via Good As You...

i once pranked my friend mike with this judge judy soundboard; via harriet mier's blog, you knit what???; melrose, minnesota...meth capital of the midwest; changes in uptown; ask me about bird flu; god told me to end the tyranny in iraq