My wife, Monica, has been involved in a really intriguing debate over the past couple of days. It involves God, journalism, the sanctity of independent thought, the Civil Rights Movement, The LDS Church, speeches, Gay Marriage, Twittering, blogging, media embargoes, politics, fevered opinion, and a specific moment in Idaho when someone said something revealing in the afternoon.
Sheesh.
Me, I've just sat back here on the couch eating the whole time. I dip chocolate bars into Diet Coke, walk to the porch for a smoke, return to my perch.
But, I'll say this much. I love my wife a little more this week than last week. Here's why.
Monica doesn't care about skin color. She is one of the few people I have ever met who just doesn't see black or white or tan or whatever. And she doesn't care if men fall in love with other men, or women with women. It doesn't scare her. It doesn't repulse her. It simply doesn't register a complaint with The Department Of Her Heart. Illegal immigrants don't bother her. She is not worried about her right to have a .357 on her nightstand. And she isn't worried about spending an eternity in Hell whenever she makes up her own mind about things based on her experiences here on Earth, in this life that she is living as we speak.
Hate, and fear, and not paying a penny towards someone else's welfare, and archaic and questionable books/men/slave owners/documents/beliefs don't grab her mind each morning and drag it far away fast from her beating heart. In fact, its just the opposite.
And this thrills me beyond most of the words I can really come up with.
Should our daughter, our beautiful and wonderful gift from God/nature/outer space, ever decide that she loves a man of another shade, or a woman...I am comforted beyond the realm of any Earthly dictation...that it will be so very ok for me and her Momma to keep on loving her and her life and her choices and her magical experience.
It makes me sad/it makes me motherfucking livid sad to know that there are so many parents out there who would put themselves first, before the love they have for their own kids. It sounds insane and it is.
But Constitutions and Churches and Bibles and Grandpa's Prejudices and Thomas Fucking Jefferson don't mean shit at the end of the day, people. Not when it gets in the way of love in the here-and-now. Monica's God doesn't dress in old robes and hurl bolts of mental madness at those who don't fit into Old Testament Mad Libs. No, no, no. Monica's God...and mine too...she puts down her Virginia Slim to flick over to the baseball from The Pill Poppin' Wives of Beverly Hills (her little secret!) and scribbles down names in her Book Of Goin' To Hell...names often pinned to people who were so very sure they had Heaven all locked up. After all, they did everything they were told. They believed exactly what they were told to believe.
Sucks for them.
Luckily for me: I get to learn from a master. My wife.
Plus she's hotter than hell.
Plus, I get to eat like Bridget Jones on a Cherry Garcia Bender while she teaches with her heart.