Some privileged scion of a Mississippi political family, Representative Chip Pickering (R) announced in August 2007 that he was not going to run for re-election. He wanted to spend more time with his family, he said. He’s all set to take a cush lobbying job when he leaves Congress at the end of the year.

Last week, he filed for divorce from his wife, with whom he has five children. I guess spending more time with the family is out of the question, now.

So, why do I bring this up? Why do I care about the personal life of an obscure and undistinguished Republican congressman?

Because he’s one of those self-righteous, moralistic imbeciles who believes that permitting gay marriage somehow harms the sanctity of the institution of marriage. He is against adoption by gay couples, because evidently a child being in an orphanage or some other institutional environment is healthier for that child than to be raised by a loving same-sex couple in a stable home. He does not think that other states should have to recognize same-sex marriages or unions performed in other states. While full faith & credit applies only to judgments, I wonder whether Mr. Pickering would have supported the rights of states not to recognize, e.g., interracial marriages back when some states were ok with them while others weren’t.

The hypocrisy, which is evident even to the most ignorant, is par for the course. There are so many politicians who proclaim their piety and traditionalism to the mountaintops. They quote from the Bible to support policies that oppress people who bother no one.

A gay marriage hurts no one. It doesn’t affect anyone else in the entire world. It will not bring a plague of locusts falling from the sky, and it won’t bring down the wrath of God, and it won’t make God cause terrorists to hijack planes and hurl them into buildings. A gay marriage won’t cause your heterosexual marriage to be cheapened. It won’t make your kids gay. It won’t hurt you in any way, shape, or form. A gay marriage doesn’t alter your political or religious beliefs any more than those beliefs alter the gay couple.

The fact that this self-righteous, pious defender of faith and family is getting divorced (I think the Bible has something to say about that, incidentally), is an actual, physical destruction of a family. It doesn’t get more direct than rending asunder a solemn oath and vow you take with your spouse and your God. It doesn’t get any worse than bringing a quiverfull of kids into the world, and then ripping the family in two.

When contacted about it, Pickering says it’s a painful, private matter and he doesn’t want to comment. No shit it’s painful. Ask your kids, Congressman. But for someone who so publicly assailed the private lives of people different from him, he should be ashamed.

If God will not be mocked, maybe it’s the hypocritical self-righteous Republican values-mongering divorcees who are doing the mocking.

Want to see the erosion of family values? Want to see the sancity and tradition of marriage be mocked and diminished? Look no further than Representative Chip Pickering.

The other day, Governor Paterson declared that New York would recognize gay marriages performed in Canada, Massachusetts, and California.

Naturally, some are up in arms about it. Outgoing crap Congressman Tom Reynolds said,

This is a terrible decision, directed in a secretive and abusive manner, designed to circumvent any sort of public hearing or comment from the New York people. The Governor should full well know the rightful role and prerogative the legislature has in the rule of law in this matter.

Therefore, I am calling on the Governor to suspend this ill-advised executive directive. I intend to call the Catholic Conference, the New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, legislative leaders and other interested parties to assist in looking at the options available in helping cease and desist the Governor’s directive.

Frankly, this is yet another example of a New York Governor abusing his power to disregard the legislature, the rule of law and most importantly the people of New York. Whether it is trying to issue drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants or attempting to recognize gay marriages this pattern of circumventing the legislature and the will of the New York people is not only troubling but should not be recognized by the legislative or judicial branch or the public as a whole.

Why?

I mean, why not just consider my Massachusetts marriage invalid in New York State, too? It was entered into outside the purview of New York statute and law, after all.

I understand that there are people who are opposed to this quite strenuously on a variety of grounds. Primary among them is religion. But when you subtract relgion from the argument, what are you left with? What is the reason why we shouldn’t just let gay people get married to each other? Does it really cheapen or weaken heterosexual marriage? Then ban divorce. Is it really equal to letting pedophiles marry kids, or letting people marry pets? Of course not, and it’s just idiotic to suggest that.

Watch liberal pinko commie Bill O’Reilly tackle the issue with a gay marriage opponent:

UPDATE: There’s a debate going on in comments, where some are alleging that Paterson’s directive to state agencies that they recognize same-sex unions entered into legally out-of-state is an improper usurpation of democracy and the rule of law. Naturally, I disagree strenuously.

But I wanted to add that I listened to Paterson’s statement on this issue just now, and to his rationale. For instance, New York State has no such thing as “common-law marriage”, but other states do. We have traditionally recognized the validity of those unions when those couples come to New York.

Furthermore, Paterson’s order is based on a February 1st 4th Appellate Division decision, (penned by Republican Supreme Court Justice Erin Peradotto), in the case of Martinez v. County of Monroe, linked to here. (.pdf) The key point and rationale:

For well over a century, New York has recognized marriages solemnized outside of New York unless they fall into two categories of exception: (1) marriage, the recognition of which is prohibited by the “positive law” of New York and (2) marriages involving incest or polygamy, both of which fall within the prohibitions of “natural law” (Matter of May, 305 NY 486, 491; see Moore v Hegeman, 92 NY 521, 524; Thorp v Thorp, 90 NY 602, 605; see generally Van Voorhis v Brintnall, 86 NY 18, 24-26). Thus, if a marriage is valid in the place where it was entered, “it is to be recognized as such in the courts of this State, unless contrary to the prohibitions of natural law or the express prohibitions of a statute” (Moore, 92 NY at 524; see also Thorp, 90 NY at 606; Van Voorhis, 86 NY at 25-26). Under that “marriage-recognition” rule, New York has recognized a marriage between an uncle and his niece “by the half blood” (May, 305 NY at 488), common-law marriages valid under the laws of other states (see Matter of Mott v Duncan Petroleum Trans., 51 NY2d 289, 292-293), a marriage valid under the law of the Province of Ontario, Canada of a man and a woman both under the age of 18 (see Donohue v Donohue, 63 Misc 111, 112-113), and a “proxy marriage” valid in the District of Columbia (Fernandes v Fernandes, 275 App Div 777), all of which would have been invalid if solemnized in New York.

We conclude that plaintiff’s marriage does not fall within either of the two exceptions to the marriage-recognition rule. “[A]bsent any New York statute expressing clearly the Legislature’s intent to regulate within this State marriages of its domiciliaries solemnized abroad, there is no positive law in this jurisdiction” to prohibit recognition of a marriage that would have been invalid if solemnized in New York (May, 305 NY at 493 [internal quotation marks omitted]; see also Van Voorhis, 86 NY at 37). The Legislature has not enacted legislation to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages validly entered into outside of New York, and we thus conclude that the positive law exception to the general rule of foreign marriage recognition is not applicable in this case.

(Emphasis added.) So, as you can see, there is not only legal precedent, but legal justification and rationale for what Paterson did, which is merely to implement the holding of the 4th Department across all state agencies and entities.

That’s how a democracy works.