He should have shown them "Electro-Gonorrhea, The Noisy Killer"

Robert Broadus, a Maryland resident, is opposed to legalization of gay marriage. Here's why:




This is amazing, of course. I've heard all sorts of reasons offered by people opposing gay marriage, but this is the first time I think I've heard someone object because Buster Bluth might want to marry Lucille's Roomba someday.

This is the kind of thing where you have to wonder if it's even worth criticizing the rest of everything else Mr. Broadus gets wrong. (Animals from different species do, in fact, reproduce sometimes. The ankh has nothing to do with Christianity.) I mean, do we even need to pick on his facts when the thesis he's driving his premises to has nothing to do with biological hybrids and ancient Egyptian mythology and everything to do with the seemingly-distant hypothetical possibility that some church might be forced to recognize robosexual marriage?

For that matter, is it worthwhile to engage Mr. Broadus on his own terms? Lieutenant Data, after all, was one of Star Trek: The Next Generation's usual vehicles for the show's message of tolerance: the whole idea of Data is that human worth should be judged by how a sentient creature behaves, not his origins or what he's built out of. Episodes where Data has a sexual encounter or romantically fraternizes with another crewmember weren't played for squick ("Eww, Tasha Yar used the navigator as a vibrator!") but to attack prejudices about "human" relationships. Had TNG ever done an episode where Data gets married, one can be certain it would've been presented as a joyous occasion for the characters and the viewer, and any squeamish objectors making Broadusian arguments would be the episode's villains, to be overcome by a rousing Patrick Stewart monologue and/or a last act exposure of the character's essential hypocrisy and bigotry.

Add to the irony this: that TNG, like pretty much everything Roddenberry did, was explicitly agnostic and implicitly premised on the idea that religion wouldn't exist in the future. So, y'know, we're not talking about Broadus dealing with a phildickian scenario concerning whether robots can have souls and would it be okay to marry one if it did or hell no, never, regardless. Out of all the science fictional robots Broadus could've picked on, he picks the human android from a television show where nobody has a soul because there is no God, just godlike beings of the week. He might have been better off rhetorically asking if it would be an affront to God if C-3P0 were allowed to marry R2-D2, though I guess that begs us to ask what percentage of Anakin Skywalker would have to be chopped off before his marriage to Padmé was an affront to the eyes of the Lord.

Hoo, boy.

I suppose, to be clear, that this isn't ridicule out of anger or a need to vent, but ridicule inspired by ridiculousness. Lest one ask why I'm going to the trouble to poke this poor, poor man, it's because it's not trouble at all, it's fun. How often do you get to do a post that works in Futurama, Arrested Development, ligers (and tigons and grizzly-polar bear hybrids1, oh my!), a characterization of Lt. Data as a sex toy space pilot, and a question about the Skywalker marriage. I think this stuff is all awfully funny, and I have to thank Mr. Broadus for bringing it all up, even if it is in the context of him being a total dick about stuff he shouldn't even care about.

Earlier in the week, I was wondering if America had crossed an event horizon of stupidity, if we were just beyond the point of recovery and doomed, doomed, doomed all the way down the rest of the spiral. Needless to say, Mr. Broadus hasn't reassured me at all, quite the contrary. On the plus side, though, he does offer the hope we'll be laughing during the great spaghettification of America. It's a long way down, but at least we'll get in a giggle or two.



(H/t to Alan Boyle!)








1Also, before I wrote this and went to Wikipedia for the snarky linkfest, I didn't even know that there was any such thing as a grizzly-polar bear hybrid. Is that not the baddest thing ever? It's like the bears are fucking with us or something. Like, hey, let's take the two most brutal ursines in the world and mix 'em up and see what happ--oh my God, get it off me, it's eating my skull! It's eating my--GAAAAAAAAAH!

If Syfy announced they were doing a movie about grizzly-polar bears fighting sharktopus, I would call the cable company today and have the TV hooked up. Because that would rawk.


Comments

Phiala said…
He's a twit, and I hope his stupidity does more harm to his own side than to his opposition. He isn't worth my time, except as entertainment (as you so ably point out.)

But grizzly-polar hybrids? Now THERE'S something interesting.
Phiala said…
Blogger appears to have developed a new and annoying quirk: "You will be asked to sign in after you submit your comment" but you will not be given a chance to check the check box.
Nathan said…
I'll leave it to you to find the connection, as you're much better at it than I am, but I was reading an article the other day announcing that they'd found some sunken ships in the Gowanus Canal here in Brooklyn. The article went on to recap some background about the canal; about its history and how it has become a superfund site for cleanup.

And the part that got me was when they were talking about the toxic stuff that oozes up out of the sludge at the bottom and how it includes GONORRHEA! The Gowanus Canal has an STD!

If anyone tries to legalize marrying bodies of water, I may have to oppose it.
Steve Buchheit said…
Oh, we're far beyond the event horizon.

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