We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
[youtube:v=Ruh3TZvdkQ0]
Conservative stunt journalist James O’Keefe—-of alleged Mary Landrieu wiretapping “misunderstanding” and ACORN pimp fame—-joined forces with another straight guy in 2008 in an attempt to enter into a Massachusetts same-sex marriage. The secretly-videotaped shotgun wedding was cooked up in order to score one of O’Keefe’s more bizarre wingnut points: To prove that government bureaucrats in charge of administering marriage licenses don’t care about love.
“What if two straight men wanted a same-sex marriage?” the video asks to a stock investigative soundtrack, before running the tape of O’Keefe and friend informing Massachusetts government officials that they are 100 percent hetero, dating women, and interested in getting hitched. For the insurance benefits. Here’s the “Gotcha!” moment: The officials don’t appear to give a shit. Probably because no American couple, gay or straight, has ever had to prove to their state government that they really, truly want to fuck each other in order to secure their official paperwork.
O’Keefe and his stunt fiancee take this to mean that same-sex marriage is bad because . . . maybe gay guys who don’t really love each other can get married, now? Or something? Meanwhile, gay men and women have been cornered into opposite-marriages far before the institution of marriage edged away from the strictly heterosexual.
When asked why, exactly, the totally straight O’Keefe and his totally straight friend tried to get gay married, O’Keefe told the Washington Examiner that he was “investigating the way soulless government bureaucrats treat the institution of marriage in Massachusetts.”
Exactly! This is why the government should concern itself solely with administering legal benefits of its citizens’ partnerships, and not at all with the moral business of determining what sorts of people should be allowed to couple up. Thanks for reminding us, O’Keefe.