"The Slippery Slope of Marriage"-a Fictional, but Very Possible, Look At the Future of Marriage

It's fiction but it will someday be very true as the writer of the diary asserts.

For now, it's up to Youtube to provide a scary but very believable illustration of how marriage will be defined in America's future.
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Pic of the Day

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The Slippery Slope To Marriage

It’s like abortion.

Or course those are rather abrupt and sudden words as I sit here composing a diary entry on a rainy afternoon. I can be abrupt, and shocking with my diary entries because, well I am the only one who reads them.

At least until my death.

At which time I suppose my diary will be found along with my other personal effects and someone, very likely my precious granddaughter Mary Louise, will read it.

This is fine because reading a grandmother’s diary after her death is a long-established American tradition and like so many grandmother diaries before mine, I hope that my descendents learn something about life in my time.

Which gets me back to abortion because Mary Louise has lived her entire life knowing that should she desire and have the need, she can have an abortion any time she wants, even at most any point during the term of the fetus if you add that damnable catch-all, “the health of the mother”.

Although it is a given here, should I be dead and Mary Louise is reading this diary, that Mary Louise is vehemently against abortion, as am I and as is her mother and most other females in our extended family. Most of us being devout Catholics and everything is what I’m saying here.

This was not always the case and I document now that back in the early 1970’s, abortion on demand was made legal and as a young and pretty woman just coming to that age when pregnancy is paramount in a female life, I was very relieved. The notion that desperate young woman, scared, financially trapped, perhaps even raped into an unwanted pregnancy, could be jailed for obtaining an end to a condition that would so horrifically alter their lives simply infuriated my young self. Not that any women were ever sent to jail for such a thing, or at least none that I knew of, it still was a possibility and an American female public undergoing a transformation to an exciting “liberated” status was ready for freedom from the ravages of an unwanted pregnancy.

With the passage of time and as I closed in on my age as of this diary entry, 63 years, myself and many other formerly pretty and young women grew horrified with each passing year at females who cavalierly aborted one of their gestating triplets that they not be condemned to a life shopping at WalMart. Babies are now being pulled from the womb up until a mere week from birth, this after their heads are pierced by a long surgical instrument that shuts down their brains lest they live after being yanked from their womb.

Babies of the wrong sex, babies with a birth defect or even babies believed to have a birth defect, can all be aborted and without fear of breaking the law and I can hear the howls of damnation across the land, the cries of the infants, helpless as helpless can be defined, as they are denied a life those of us now out of the womb obviously did not suffer.
What started out as a simple procedure that would take place, almost effortlessly and without pain within the first trimester of a sudden and unexpected pregnancy ballooned into a horror that has shocked so many of us who once thought abortion on demand to be a fine thing.

It’s the law of unintended consequences, to put a more sophisticated turn of phrase on it. I call it the “slippery slope” and this term applies to any situation which might have seemed good at the time but granted, legislated or given without a complete thought, can be that terrible thing we should have been careful in wishing for.

“But you said I could stay out until midnight on a weekend night,” my daughter Shelly, Mary Louise’s mother told me the night riots raged in a nearby city. Another night an icy rain started off and on and again, I’d told Shelly that she could stay out late, all because she harangued on me that I treated her like a baby, that all her friends could stay out to watch the midnight cult movie. In desperation to stop the pleas I threw out that casual promise about weeknights and riots and I spent many evenings going against my own parental ruling when a simple “as I determine” addendum would have given me room to get around bad weather and nearby riots.

It might be a simple example but we all learn from it, whether we are supervising assigned employees, trying to properly parent our children or even setting rules for the family pooch regarding begging for food at the table.

Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.

It’s not that I am especially “political”. I only vaguely understand the difference between a liberal and a conservative. I am a registered Democrat but I daresay I’ve voted Republican as often as I have Democrat and on more than one occasion I’ve voted for some crazy 3rd party candidate or another. Granddaughter Mary Louise knows this and, in fact, she just last year registered to vote and she registered Independent rather than being a hypocrite by not voting for her registered party’s candidate. I tried to explain that back in my day unless you were a millionaire or a son of a Republican, you just automatically registered Democrat but Mary Louise just snorted.

Like most Americans I suspect, I do pay close attention to issues that concern me. Abortion of course worries me no end and I’d sure like to see some limits put on abortion. I don’t suppose that it should be outright banned as this would never work but a) there’s no good reason for an accidental pregnancy any more as darn, they even have little patches you only need put on once a month and poof, no babies. And b) pregnancy tests are now available that reveal pregnancy like a few days or so after conception. So why are so many near-term babies being yanked out of their mother’s womb when it would have been so easy to avoid some nine months earlier? Plus, do we really, as a country and a compassionate people, want to go killing babies if they are not the sex of choice? And so-called “birth defects”, again, do we really want to be God and decide who should be born and who should not? Is possible ugliness a birth defect?

I know I don’t have all the answers and sometimes it seems like I have all the questions.

Of late I have become alarmed at yet another social trend in this country and I ponder that it will take more than my diary entry to avoid a slippery slope that will have us, some many years later, all regretful and bereft of how to go back and change the outcome.

“But Grandma, you met Bob and you know as well as I do what a nice guy he is. He and Michael adore each other. Why can’t they know the joy of being married, the security and commitment of it, just like Alan and I?”

This was how Mary Louise presented her argument about same-sex marriage and, indeed, I did know both her “fiancé” Alan and his, ahem, homosexual brother Bob. That’s the problem when discussing the tricky subject of same-sex marriage. This is an era when stepping out of the closet is considered good form and, in fact, our homosexual brethren, both males and females, make no attempt to hide their sexual orientation in any manner.

Which I do not think should be the norm, for homosexuals have the right to pursue their happiness as guaranteed by our constitution and folks like me just have to get used to Bob holding hands with Michael.

But marriage?

Like Mary Louise says, why not?

I wonder if some thirty years ago I’d have presented my scenario about babies being pulled from the womb a week before birth, or about babies being aborted for being a triplet when the mother only wanted twins, or babies being stabbed in the head and allowed to slip out of the womb because they were not the right sex…well I wonder if I had somehow envisioned such a thing and managed to write it down as I have above, would it have changed a thing?

For my argument against same-sex marriages I will not be caught off guard again. For now, yon reader of this humble diary, we have YouTube.

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It took quite a while to convince my daughter to help me with this endeavor. Shelly is an English teacher at the local high school and she does assist with the production of the annual senior play. But she finally agreed and for now I compose the screenplay until Shelly and I can get this up on YouTube.
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Scene opens. MSNBC TV News anchorman stands outside a residence, microphone with network call letters affixed around the mouthpiece.

“Hello I’m Mark Roehmer and I’ll be your host tonight on this MSNBC special …”The New Marriage, How It Affects Our World.”

I’m here in front of the Todd Bulling household. In a minute we will be going inside to meet Todd and his family. We’ll discuss his marriage, a marriage that is quite different from the marriages we knew back in the 2010 era. For now, let us meet a couple of the pundits who will be discussing and debating the various issues and accusations. Representing the Conservative Party, formerly the Republican party, from Delaware, we have Mary Louise Morrison. Representing the Progressive Party, formerly the Democratic party, we have Bob Morrison, actually Mary Louise’s brother-in-law, who has been married to his husband, Michael, for some twenty years now, as long as Mary Louise has been married to her husband and Bob’s brother, Alan. Good afternoon Mary Louise, Bob.”
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Scene changes to talking heads. Mary Louise nods a greeting, Bob mouths a soft “Good afternoon.”

“Mary Louise, the head of your party, President Sarah Palin, vows to introduce a bill to override the current definition and return it to the old biblical definition of marriage being between a man and a woman. Palin says that the new forms of marriage in this almost mid-21st century have hurt both this country’s economy and social welfare. Do you agree?”

“I do,” Mary Louise says when camera is on her. “Home ownership has dropped to half the levels that they were in 2015, the year following the end of the great depression caused by President Barack Obama. In that year, fully 80% of America owned a home or condominium. That rise was caused by Obama’s defeat and the dismantling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With each new definition of marriage put on the books, home ownership has dropped until now, in 2039, only 45% of Americans own their own home.”

“Why is this, Bob?” the MSNBC anchorman asks, turning to Bob Morrison.

“Home ownership has simply dropped down to the more normal percentage that it was at before the Obama caused second depression. The difference in the definition of marriages as has evolved in these last 20 years has nothing to do with the percentages of Americans who own their own homes.”

“That’s not true, Mark!” Mary Louise Morrison shouts. The MSNBC host tries to go on to another issue but Mary Louise keeps shouting. Finally, in exasperation, the MSNBC host says, “Why not?”

“The Conservative party has done many surveys of various banks and bank presidents over the past ten years. Many of the results are published online at Conservative.com for verification and details. The consensus is that the confusion and chaos by the many definitions of marriage have virtually eliminated the concept of “tenants in the entirety”. This now old-fashioned notion was used for mostly married couples that had each one owning a house completely in fusion with his or her spouse. The bankers say that they simply cannot use this term, and the resulting financial security the concept brought with it. There’s too much deceit and uncertainty in the notion so mortgages are now almost always based on the ability of only ONE partner in any marriage to pay it off. This has effectively brought down the number of people who would have, in the age when marriage was defined as strictly between one human man and one human woman, to half of those who would have once qualified for a mortgage.”

“Let us go and visit Todd Bulling and his family,” the MSNBC host says with no comment or further questions about home ownership issues in America.

“Hello,” a big and friendly fellow says upon opening the door for the MSNBC host. “Please come in and meet my family.”

The door opens and the viewer sees about ten children from toddlerhood up to adolescence. Seated upon the couch are three women.

“These are my wives, Sarah, Nancy and Willamena,” Todd says, pointing in order to the appropriate of the three adult women by name.

“Mr. Bulling,” the MSNBC host says. “Please call me Todd,” Bulling says.

“Todd, how much easier is your life now that you can legally be married to these three fine women than it was when you all had to live your life in secret?”

“Life couldn’t be better for us, Mark,” Todd says, extending his arm and swinging it around to show the expanse of his large and beautiful home. “My children are relieved at not having to hide their lives. Men are allowed multiple wives in my religion and before it was nothing less than blatant discrimination to not allow me the sanctity and social credibility of a legal marriage.”

“How do you like no longer having to lie about your father and his wives?” the MSNBC host asks one of the teenagers sitting on the couch. “It’s just so much better,” the adolescent girl of around 17 years of age says. “Our religion has just recently made a change in the by-laws by the supreme leader and now I will be able to marry both of my current boyfriends. Having such sensible marriage laws in America has finally made this a country I can be proud of.”

The MSNBC host stays inside the Bulling house for about ten more minutes, the film crew making a tape of the three wives happily cooking while the many children play board games at the dining table. The host exits the house and again addresses the pundits.

“So you see, Mary Louise and Bob, some Americans that until the redefinition of the marriage laws who were kept deep and unhappy in the shadows, overlooked by those who would insist on their narrow world view in the definition of marriage. The Bullings are Mormans, for the record, but let us not forget the many Muslims now living in America whose religion also allows for multiple wives. Religion is supposed to be kept apart from state in America so why did the marriage laws intrude on a person’s religious belief?”

“Just because someone has a religion that preaches it is okay to murder doesn’t mean America as a country has to accept it,” Mary Louise shouts quickly in response to the MSNBC’s host rather silly argument.

“What do you think, Bob?” the MSNBC host says, ignoring and now mad at Mary Louise for intruding on what he thought was a dynamite roll.

“You’re absolutely right, Mark. Between our Muslim citizens and the many Morman citizens who follow the teaching of multiple marriages, we used to force many millions of Americans to live a life of shame, not to mention a loss of benefits by those who rightfully deserve health and other benefits once only given to those covered by the ancient marriage definition of one man and one woman.”

Mary Louise tries to inject a thought but the MSNBC host moves on, happy with Bob’s summary of the manner.

“We will now visit the home of Jane Snyder and see yet another happy marriage once forbidden by the evangelical zealots of Sarah Palin’s voting base. But before, let’s discuss the continuing accusation that the new definitions of marriage has somehow undermined this country’s social setting. Mary Louise?”

“Mark, almost every state reports an almost bankrupt economy due to covering the descendents of folks just like Mr. Mulling who you just interviewed. In addition, child support payments are down. Seems that with so many different sorts of marriages now legal, many men are not bothering to marry the mother of their children. They are also not supporting their offspring. Many are claiming that they were but one of several husbands of their wives and getting DNA samples is not so simple anymore. Ever since the failing public health care system implemented by President Obama, private businesses no longer provide health insurance for their employees. Folks like the Mullings suddenly have a multitude of wives and husbands and children until no one can keep track of it all much less the government. We have millions of people collecting double on hospital bills, actually making a profit! And the public is footing the bill for more children of the lazy and thoughtless.”

Bob laughs loudly. “None of this has anything to do with the new definitions of marriage, Mark, as my good but misguided sister-in-law would have you believe. Whether or not the Mullings were married or all three of his wives were single, they would be eligible to government health care…”

“…many of them file double…,” Mary Louise tried to interject.

“Here we are at the home of Jane Snyder,” the MSNBC host cuts off further debate on the matter and knocks on a door. A women of about 50 years old opens the door. Using a white cane she opens the door and invites the MSNBC host in. It is obvious that she is blind. Her German Shepherd guide dog leads her to a couch.

“This is my husband, Rusty,” Jane says, wrapping her arms around the dog’s big head in endearment.

“How does it feel to finally be married to the one living thing on this planet you love with all your heart?” the MSNBC host asks.

“It’s positively wonderful and I can’t thank the congress enough for finally making me and people like me complete. Plus the free health veterinary care for Rusty keeps me financially solvent. He’s saved my life a few times and without him my life would be a real horror. Now he’s my husband and receives all the benefits thereof.”

“Were you and Rusty able to buy a house, Mrs. Snyder?” Mary Louise asks.

“I tried. Soon we’ll have to have congress start punishing those banks for their so obvious discrimination. I could have bought a house but the bank wouldn’t let me put Rusty down as tenant in the entirety and of course I’d want him protected in the event of my death and both of us to be safe from lawsuit. Further, Rusty should be counted as having an income same as mine because without Rusty I’d have no income at all. The American Kennel Club as well as PETA are lobbying furiously to get equal rights for animal spouses the same as human spouses under the law.”

The MSNBC host stays around the Snyder house, filming scenes of Rusty and Mary Louise eating a dinner at the same table as well as playing together in the yard.

“As you can see, folks, these two living creatures love each other as much as any human male ever loved a living human female. And Bob you and your husband Michael have been together for what, almost 20 years now?”

“Yes, Mark, and we love each other as much now as we did the day we married.”

“President Palin is considered too old to run for a second term,” the MSNBC host says to the camera now focused on him. “Her first term might not allow enough time for her efforts to tear down the new definitions of marriage. In fact, tune in tomorrow night. For if Rusty and Jane Snyder love each other, who are we to deny Cathy Spitzer and her llama the legality of marriage they deserve? As you shall see, Charlie, Cathy’s beloved llama, serves as Cathy’s ears. Cathy was born deaf. Charlie has already saved Cathy from death by a sudden fire in her home as well as chasing off a bunch of burglars who might have killed Cathy.”

The camera pans to a picture of an American flag waving strongly from a breeze.

“For America is truly a great land, a land of the free and the brave. Why should the benefits of marriage be denied to so many of our citizens? We’ll see you tomorrow night when we investigate more happy marriages and joyful Americans who have all emerged from the shadows where they had to live before the redefinitions of marriage our maturing country has enacted.”

TV screen fades to black.

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Dear Diary,

It’s Mary Louise. We buried my grandmother today. About 3 hours ago I found this diary. Such an old-fashioned concept, a hand-written diary. Well actually this diary is on Grandma’s computer but she printed out the pages and stored them in this folder. I know she wanted me to find it.

At first I laughed, through tears admittedly for Grandmother’s death was sudden and too soon, at the stories of my childhood, her own struggles with life and her health issues, the loss of grandfather.

Then I came apart this section….The Slippery Slope of Marriage as Grandma called it.

I am just shocked.

Grandmother is right. As much as I love my brother-in-law Bob and respect his right to pursue his happiness with his friend Michael, I think it’s best we keep marriage as defined between a man and a woman. A HUMAN man and a woman, of course, I write with a smile.

I plan on continuing this diary and maybe someday a child born of me and my beloved fiancé Alan might too continue this document of life ongoing here in this great country.

My grandmother planned on creating a YouTube type of amateur production of a mythical future and how changing the definition of marriage evolved through the years.

I intend to work with my mother to make this happen.

Only my fiancé has some contacts in the movie industry and I am going to take Grandmother’s idea and make it in to a big screen movie, maybe even 3-D.

Look for it, coming to a theater near you.
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