Let the Culture Wars Resume

Today President Obama decided that the Justice Department will cease legal defense of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.

After this announcement, Senator Diane Feinstein stated that she intends to introduce "legislation that will once and for all repeal the Defense of Marriage Act."

If my father has caught news of any of this, he's probably having fifty conniptions... like he nearly did on Christmas eve, when somehow, I guess it was a bad idea now that I think about it, we were watching Miss Congeniality over at my sister's house. Well, somebody (not me) brought up some minor controversy over a beauty pageant. No, it was not the controversy where that ditz defended "opposite marriage," but some other totally different controversy, but the point is my dad reflexively assumed we were discussing that case. So he instantly got himself into one of those loud, boiled, acrimonious speeches that makes sense to him alone.

Somewhere in between hyperventilating and foaming at the mouth he brought up a California case where the judge was known to be gay. In the mind of a septuagenarian straight white male, this is indisputable proof of bigotry. Because in his world, men just like him are the de facto standard for neutrality. Because if there are two sides of a coin, then his side is always somehow neutral.

But then, when my dad took a breather, my niece... she's my sister's stepdaughter through her most recent marriage... said, in a very tiny, polite voice, "Oh, but I think everybody has biases." And that shut my dad up, at least for one night.