Christopher Pearson, and the joys of heterosexual marriage, present company excluded ...

(Above: screen cap, link below. We just wanted to preserve on the intertubes the strange sight of 'dictatorship of relativism' for all to enjoy).

There's no more whimsical, or perhaps bizarre sight, than a self-admittedly gay man (nurture or nature?), who hasn't experienced the joys of heterosexual marriage, starting off a piece by quoting a pope who also hasn't experienced the joys of heterosexual marriage (no, being a bride of Christ isn't quite the same thing) ...

It always seems to involve warbling on about the joys, benefits and singularity of traditional heterosexual marriage.

It seems Pope and Pearson follow the Mae West line: Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.

The pond of course likes marriage so much it's sampled it several times, and believes firmly in Ambrose Bierce's definition: Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two. It would only take the most minute edit to bring it up to date: Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a master, and two slaves, making in all, two.

Never mind, let's gloss over the way the tradition of marriage has at various times embraced polygamy, civil marriage, common-law marriage, and nikah urfi, amongst other odd rituals.

Let us not recite as our text for the day Matthew 25:

25:1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
25:2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

Yes, the five that were foolish probably read Christopher Pearson carrying on about the dictatorship of the relative, while failing to note the way a single bridegroom could score ten virgins even in Christ's time.

Now where were we?

Oh that's right, humbuggery and dictatorship and moral relativism and Pope and Christopher Pearson scribbling his opener for Vote against gay marriage:

Days before he was elected Pope, Joseph Ratzinger attributed the crisis in modern Europe to "the dictatorship of relativism". It was an interesting choice of words for several reasons.

Most of us don't associate autocratic systems with shifting values. Nor do we tend to think of absolute values as some sort of birthright. Yet the notion that a web of contingent values - or what used to be called political correctness - can amount to a form of tyranny is quite plausible.

Yep, plausible tyranny. Put it another way: high falutin' blather and abstract nonsense is what you get, and not a single mention of the long and varied history of marriage.

I guess if you actually got to talking about relative social structures through the ages, or even worse love and intimacy and the sharing of juices in tongue-smacking lip kissing and emotional commitment and engagement ... well it all might get a little unseemly, sordid and racy, perhaps even personal, and certainly relative, and perhaps even involving relationships.

You might even wonder why a gay man who's never going to embark on marriage is so keen to defend conventional, traditional heterosexual marriage against the forces of evil determined to bring it down:

That marriage is a specifically heterosexual institution has been a tenet of all the main religions and every legal system of any consequence before the present day. The onus of persuading people to support a fundamental change to the character of so sturdy an institution is considerable. Normlessness hasn't yet become entrenched enough in suburban Australia.

Uh huh. Well there seems to be no impediment for Pearson to perform what was once a tradition for gays, and indulge in a sham heterosexual marriage.

It was quite the done thing in the glory days of studio Hollywood, and celebrated as marriages of convenience or lavender marriages, a la Rock Hudson.

It was the sturdy response of a sturdy institution to sturdy stupidity in the matter of sexuality, and surely if it's good enough for Cole Porter, and Harold Nicholson and Rock Hudson, it's good enough for such a sturdy supporter of the sturdy joys of heterosexual marriage.

But enough of the fun of seeing a gay man and a chaste priest praise the joys of marriage, without indulging, because it seems Peter van Onselen got up the high-minded Pearson's nose by arguing:

"I would have more respect for opponents of gay marriage if they simply stated they didn't want homosexuals to have access to it. It would carry the virtue of honesty, if also the vice of bigotry."

Oh dear, does this upset Pearson, or what:

As many readers will know, I came out of the closet in my student days, back in 1971. When I argue against homosexuals having access to marriage, as I've done consistently in the intervening 40 years, am I guilty of bigotry?

Surely not. Nor, unless they also have an unreasonable - and now rare - hostility to all homosexuals, are heterosexual people who mount the same arguments.

Can gays be guilty of self-loathing? Surely not.

You see, it's all a matter of upholding a tradition, even, if as Groucho Marx suggested, it's a tradition you'd prefer not to get involved with. (How did he put it? I don't care to belong to a marriage club that accepts people like me as marriage partners, or some such thing).

It's rather like the argument against female priests. Opposing female ordination can't just be construed as evidence of bigotry or misogyny. Rather, it's based on respect for the 2000-year-old tradition, following Christ's example at the Last Supper, that the priesthood be exclusively male. Not all roles are unisex. Men are categorically unfit to be nuns, as are women to be priests and blokes to be brides.

So there you have it. A couple of thousand years of patriarchy is a really good argument for the continuation of the patriarchy for a couple more thousand years...

This is of course an equally excellent argument for the Lutheran practise of separating men and women in churches, or the Islamic one of herding women into veiled segregation, or any other example you might want to emulate about keeping the gig male.

It'll be a handy argument next time you attend a board meeting.

Really we've had so many hundreds of years of men running companies as company directors, because let's face it, we're just following Christ's example in the last supper, and not all roles are unisex, and women are categorically unfit to be company directors.

Yes there's nothing like a couple of thousand years of misogyny to justify current misogyny, and the wonder of it is the way that Islamics and Catholics manage to sound exactly the same:

Women are not given the right to instigate divorce because they are prone to emotional and irrational decision making. A husband, however, can divorce his wife at any time he so wishes. Ayatollah Ali Moghtadai

Yes, and it's been going on as a noble tradition for hundreds of years, so why change it.

Well by this time in proceedings, the pond was in fits of laughter, and rolling Jaffas down the aisles, while wiping away tears from Pearson's comedy stylings, but then it turned out that Pearson was a complete and utter tease:

I had intended to use the rest of this column to flesh out why the prospects of any gay marriage legislation being passed in the present federal parliament were negligible. But word has just reached me that Arthur Sinodinos, an old friend and comrade in arms, is going to nominate for the Senate seat vacated last week by Helen Coonan. This is a great coup for the Coalition and good news for anyone interested in the quality of governance in Australia.

So there it must rest. We cannot flesh out this column any further because Pearson has failed to flesh out his explanation of why gay flesh can't mingle in matrimony.

Could it be that he suddenly got tired of the absurdity of his arguments, and seized on Arthur Sinodinos as a lifeline? Anything to stop parroting the same tired, absurd, desperate, bigoted, misogynist arguments?

Still, we've learned a couple of things. You can't take the bigotry and misogyny away from conservatives and traditionalists, not when they have several thousand years of bigotry and misogyny as a precedent.

But perhaps the funniest styling is to learn that tolerance and a 'live and let live' philosophy is in fact a form of tyranny, a kind of dictatorship.

We look forward to Pearson explaining to Irish parents how their politically correct desire that priests not fiddle with their children is a kind of tyranny ...

Meanwhile, conservative gays who want to experience the joys of marriage, such as they are, are somehow pilloried as radical extremists intending to bring down an institution neither Pearson nor Ratzinger feel strongly enough about to participate in ...

As we often note, every day with the commentariat is a day down the rabbit hole with Alice, a veritable hookah with the caterpillar, a mushroom with the mouse, and a tea party with the mad hatter, but some days are more rabbit hole than others ...

Perhaps what we need is a Lobster quadrille, with Pearson and the Pope joining in the dance:

‘“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail.
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle — will you come and join the dance?
 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”
But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance —
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

‘“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied.
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France —
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”’

(Below: and a couple of cartoons to fill in the unfleshed gap in fleshy arguments).