Divine Intervention

I  would
like to thank Joan Christensen and Dave Valesky for trying their best
to protect us from tornadoes and giant trees. Christensen, longtime
119th District state assemblywoman, saw fit to join a losing cause on
May 12, voting against legislation that would make it legal for people
of the same sex to marry. Valesky, the high-flying sophomore and golden
boy of the Senate leadership, pledges to do the same when the bill
comes before the upper house.

I take it as no coincidence that within
days of the Assembly’s passage of the bill trying to make gay marriage
legal, a giant tree fell on my house. The next day there was a tornado
watch in DeRuyter. Anyone who doesn’t see the connection between the
engraved invitation to sodomy issued by the lower house of our
dysfunctional Legislature and the swirling windstorms threatening the
southern reaches of Central New York hasn’t been reading their Bible
enough. Next time you’re squinting by the light of the candle listening
to your neighbor’s generator while waiting for the bucket trucks to
come rescue you, I strongly recommend Leviticus. 

Even a cursory reading of the Old
Testament will make it clear that storms are high on the list of means
employed for the punishment of evil deeds. Still, ya gotta wonder—why
poor DeRuyter? Their Assembly representative, Bill Magee, voted against
the measure (Magee was first elected to the Assembly before there were
gay people).

I have no firsthand knowledge of what
was going on in those lakeside cottages out there, but God no doubt
chose DeRuyter for a reason. The rest of us cannot sleep easy whilst
this beast of wickedness strides the land. If DeRuyter is at risk, can
Solvay be far behind? 

This must be the plague that Valesky and
Christensen are trying to help avert. By the way, wild beasts can also
be instruments of celestial vengeance, and in case you didn’t notice in
between the bursts of licentiousness emanating from Albany, we are in
the grip of a wild beast escape epidemic. The same week that they
half-passed the law conferring on Adam and Steve what rightly once and
forever should be the province of Adam and Eve, no less a plague than a
romping wallaroo was let loose on our community. 

Then things got serious. The car
dealerships started closing. Within days of New York state following
Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa (yes Iowa) and New Hampshire to the altar of
gay marriage, 1,100 GM dealers were told they were shutting their
doors, and a few of them, it turns out, were on Erie Boulevard and
Route 31. The ripple effects of this are still being felt throughout
the cheap suit industry. Not to mention the drop in commercials from
Ziebart.

The economy is in shambles, wars are
burning in places we can’t pronounce, and the great state of New York
is diddling with who gets to diddle whom with legal imprimatur. Isn’t
it time we grew up? It required five changes of Republican hearts to
gain a majority in the state Assembly for the gay marriage proposal
which, for the first time, has the support of the governor. 

It is a matter of time before we
recognize the folly of regulating passion, and these good people will
one day come to regret their (ahem) backward positions. Perhaps because
it has been framed so much as a moral issue, conservatives seem to be
able to strike fear into our agents in Albany, even those who know
better.

We can put this behind us if we reframe
gay marriage as an economic tool that can get this state once and for
all off its knees (metaphorically speaking, of course). 

Other states have let taboos on gambling
go by the wayside in order to prop up their economies. Why doesn’t New
York gamble on letting gay marriage lead us into the new era of peace,
love and rising household incomes?

The great mall of Congel doesn’t seem to
have what we need. The Empire Zone program has become the refuge of
scoundrels and shirt changers, enriching only attorneys. The
traditional engine of New York state’s economy, Wall Street, is flat on
its back and not enjoying it one bit. I say let’s make gay marriage the
next big growth industry and lead New York out of the financial
doldrums.

Think of the catering halls, the florist
shops, the limo companies, the hotels that would benefit. The boom in
gay weddings could lead to a boom in the balloon business. We are just
hours away from Niagara Falls, where the honeymoon was practically
invented! Wouldn’t Niagara Falls just love to lead a romantic
renaissance for upstate, uncorking Finger Lakes wines weekend after
weekend as the pent-up demand for newlywed bliss takes the northern
border by storm? Same-sex households, one study notes, have on average
one-and-a-half times the income of their straight counterparts. There’s
an economic recovery juggernaut just begging to be let loose. 

Up until now, our economic development
wizards at the state, county and municipal levels have taken it as
sacred truth that in order to stimulate business growth, we have to
give up tax revenue. It may turn out that the only things we have to
give up are bigotry and small-mindedness.