The Primrose Path to Norway
It should be telling that when social conservatives are pressed to actually adduce some evidence to suggest that gay marriage would have consequences so deleterious as to justify state-sponsored discrimination, the best doomsday scenario they can come up with, the bottom of the slippery slope is… Scandinavia. As it turns out, the argument is even sillier than it first sounds. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Scandinavia? So if we allow gay marriage we'll all turn into Volvo-driving ABBA fans?
Maybe gay marriage IS a bad thing, after all.
Don't nobody be bustin' on ABBA. Seriously. "S.O.S." is still a better song than anything that Britney will ever lip-synch to. If I'm gonna have cheese, at least it should be good cheese, not hard, bland government-issue cheese.
The problem with that, "big gay", is that most of the enthusiastic prohibitionists don't want gay civil unions, either.
The prohibitionists don't want gay people, period.
Hey Phil, why don't you re-post that link about how Michigan wants to allow doctors to refuse medical treatment to gay people?
Seriously, that law is nothing more than a polite way of saying "Drop dead, fags." Imagine--a man who took the Hippocratic oath can, for "moral" reasons, stand by and do nothing as another human being dies?
I've been putting some thought to the whole issue of matrimony ever since this gay marriage issue starting getting significant play in the media. The idealistic side of my nature tells me marriage is wonderful, beautiful institution; an eternal affirmation of love and commitment.
Then I remember my own parent's messy divorce and think "why the hell would ANYONE, gay or straight, get themselves into this lunacy?" It seems like a whole lot of nonsense that usually ends with broken hearts and ruined credit ratings.
It would be nice if everyone put some thought into marriage and family planning. Do you REALLY want to spend the rest of your life with this person? Are you really prepared for the responsibility of kids and family life? Common sense should tell you that if the answer is no, then you should stay away from the alter and (if you're sexually active) invest in some birth control until you really are ready.
Of course, we don't live in such a utopia. People get hitched for all the wrong reasons. People fool around. They sire children they can't support or didn't want in the first place. In the end it all ends up the same: Divorce, child support payments, alimoney.
Why bother? Marriage seems to be, for a large percentage of people, a one way trip to depression and unwanted financial obligations. We should avoid it like the plague.
Personally, I don't expect that I'll ever marry. This is largely because I'm a physcially replusive troll whom no woman would touch. Also, the thought of being made by the state to fork a large portion of my property as wergeld just because she doesn't want to live with me anymore does not appeal to me.
However, you never know. If I do find Ms. Right, and she wants to be with me, then we'll stay together without the need for ceremonies and scraments that are meaningless beyound the power of the state to regulate the terms of our relationship.
I had prepared some serious comments, but I accidentally deleted them. Instead, I thought I'd update Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" to reflect the, uh, new type of Scandanavian that has emerged since the age of the Vikings.
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the sauna baths with Sven's handsome glow.
Our international flights will bring us to shop in new malls,
To beat the rush, singing and crying: Bloomingdales, I am coming!
We ignore the plane engine's roar,
Our only goal will be to shop and shop some more.
We come from the land of the ice and snow
With our dresses on and our hair in bows.
(That purse that Gunnar's carrying-did he buy it at a discount store?
It clashes with his outfit so.) We are your fashion overlords.
Rouge on our cheek, powdering our nose,
Our only goal is to shop some more.
So now we've come to shop, gay marriage is a shoo-in,
With Danes and Norsemen gone so soft, how long 'till we're all ruined?
I had prepared some serious comments, but I accidentally deleted them. Instead, I thought I'd update Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" to reflect the, uh, new type of Scandanavian that has emerged since the age of the Vikings.
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the sauna baths with Sven's handsome glow.
Our international flights will bring us to shop in new malls,
To beat the rush, singing and crying: Bloomingdales, I am coming!
We ignore the plane engine's roar,
Our only goal will be to shop and shop some more.
We come from the land of the ice and snow
With our dresses on and our hair in bows.
(That purse that Gunnar's carrying-did he buy it at a discount store?
It clashes with his outfit so.) We are your fashion overlords.
Rouge on our cheek, powdering our nose,
Our only goal is to shop some more.
So now we've come to shop, gay marriage is a shoo-in,
With Danes and Norsemen gone so soft, how long 'till we're *all* ruined?
Okay, maybe Hagar the Horrible is not as macho as he was, but has anybody seen Icelandic movies? I rented Reykyavik 101 from the library over the weekend. It was satisfying on several levels. The protagonoist was Hlymur. Can you say Hlymur? Not that I'm an expert on Icelandic movies, but it's charming how they go from subtitles; then next thing you know, they're speaking English. First thing you think is, "Wha?? What happened to the subtitles?"
But setting up Scandinavia as a boogie is like what the durg wurriers did setting up Needle Park over in Switzerland. They make a big (true) assumption that no ugly Amerikun will actually venture over there to learn the truth.
To no avail, as I'm sure you understand, I've been trying for some time to get Cincinnati declared to be a textile-free, police-free, vice zone: Sinincincinnati.
It would obviously have the effect of concentrating wonderful, wonderful people: somewhat like what San Francisco has stumbled on by accident.
Unfortunately, careful forethought of gifted people never produces the desired result.
But the real question is: where can you see lions?
Only in Kenya. Not in Norway.