Dear Attorney General John Ashcroft,
Last night, I dreamed of you naked. Naked and stacked like firewood on top of a pile of bodies consisting of our naked President, our naked National Security Advisor, our naked Secretary of Defense—in fact, our entire naked Presidential cabinet. Everybody's butt was hanging out, Mr. Ashcroft—especially your butt, to which my girlfriend was affixing a little American flag, as she leered proudly into the lens of a digital camera.
I admit this was only a dream, Mr. Ashcroft, but it made me think of you in a whole new light. This John Ashcroft, I thought, might not be the rabid-police-state-anti-terror-pit-bull-of-Jesus he claims to be. He may, in fact, be what we homosexuals like to call 'kinky.' Maybe my girlfriend and I should invite him to our lesbian wedding.
Which is why I am writing, Mr. Ashcroft. Please come to our lesbian wedding. You could wear a little tux and sing your 'Eagle' song.
Now, I know you are a fervent Pentecostalist who disapproves of drinking, dancing, and premarital sex. But my girlfriend and I don't drink, we're horrible dancers, and, in your honor, Mr. Ashcroft, we have decided to give up sex until we are married.
'Married!' I hear you say. 'Don't those same-sex Jezebels know that my best friend—God—will send them straight to hell? Why, God—author of the best-selling Holy Bible, available now in hardcover and paperback—calls homosexuality a gross abomination! A gay wedding would be ten times the abomination!'
At the risk of sounding secular, Mr. Ashcroft, I'd like to call on the legal intellect and logic that you have accrued over your 40 years in academia and government. Point 1: According to a recent article in Salon.com,* it was your own Justice Department, after 9/11, that wrote legal memos advising the Bush administration to flout the Geneva Conventions. Point 2: You are therefore responsible for giving the green light to the U.S. military to hold men and women in cells akin to dog kennels, where they were stripped, screamed at, raped, beaten, electro-shocked, ridden like animals, deprived of sleep, food, light, water, and the basic decencies of life. Point 3: Nobody's heard you call THAT an abomination. Ergo: Where's your best friend, now, Mr. Ashcroft?
Speaking of God. Thank you for taking the 'men' out of 'fundamentalism.' Every time I look at the pictures of what our soldiers did, and I see those proud women warriors who were allowed to participate equally with the men, I get a little feminist hard-on. How ironic that you, a man who condemns a woman's right to abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, could promote a woman's right to torture. Blisterhood is Powerful, Mr. A.
So abomination, schmabomination: how bad could a gay wedding be? We'll have nonalcoholic punch, volleyball, a nice Brazilian band, lots of hummus and stuffed grape leaves, you can watch as my girlfriend and I stomp each other's wine glasses—oh, and let's not forget the presents! Gay weddings bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of presents! Why, the toasters, butter dishes, microwaves, and other fine booty sucked in by one gay wedding alone could cause an uptick in the economy capable of financing at least another week of detentions.
Another plus for gay weddings is that they're one of the few occasions these days where people are openly happy to be American. You'll relax and enjoy yourself amid a lot of queers, who are obsequiously grateful that the United States allows one state among its 50 to conduct legal same-sex marriage ceremonies. You'll have your own receiving line, Mr. Ashcroft. We will line up to thank you for the opportunity to be, at some slight yet significant level, just like you.
See, my girlfriend and I want to live together with all the tax benefits, rights of inheritance, ownership, joint custody of possible children, and the legal dignity of being allowed to visit our spouse's hospital death bed that you and your wife take for granted. My girlfriend and I have only each other and our waning years on this planet. Years that could wane quickly, because what might look to you like prophesied Armageddon looks to us like needless destruction and horror and grief. But maybe that's because my girlfriend and I are, after all, evil, Mr. Ashcroft.
That's why we need your blessing. To make us less evil and to stave off another terrorist attack, you've got to watch us get married.
RSVP, Mr. A. My girlfriend and I are registered at Target. We could really use some new pads for our Swiffer.
© Susie Day, 2004
__________
* Salon.com, Joe Conason, 'From John Ashcroft's Justice Department to Abu Ghraib,' May 22, 2004.
