Same-sex marriage remains illegal in most U.S. states, including the state of California where comedian and actress Wanda Sykes was "married" last October prior to the successful passage of Proposition 8. What's more, the issue is highly contentious in the District of Columbia where many religious African-American Democratic voters are upset with the city council for approving a bill to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.
Yet the Washington Post seems confident that its readers will take no offense to the paper's granting the label of "wife" to the Limbaugh death-wishing comic's lover.
From today's Reliable Source gossip column:
Born: Twins to Wanda Sykes and wife Alex, reports People. The comedian kept mum about the babies -- Alex gave birth to Olivia Lou and Lucas Claude on April 27 -- while at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. The couple married last year.
Yes, technically, under California law Ms. Sykes and her lover are married and may well remain so even if the California Supreme Court upholds Prop 8, only failing to apply it retroactively.
All the same, that the Post is fine with co-opting the term "wife" for the members of a lesbian couple shows that the paper is agreeing with homosexual activists on the argument that there is an essential equivalency between the complementarian union of a husband and wife in marriage with the joining of two men or two women in gay "marriage."
Had the Post attempted an artful compromise, it may have played around with the gender-neutral term "spouse."
Of course, the Post is often careful to use "so-called" or dismissive quote marks around political terms favored by conservative activists, so why not adopt the same stance when it comes to gay marriage, which has been mostly forced into law books through judicial activism (Massachusetts, California, and Iowa) rather than legislative change (Vermont)?
