Littwin: Dobson to 7th District: Guard your armoires

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 31, 2006 at midnight

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Today, we are conducting a laugh test. In politics, as you know, if you can't pass the laugh test, you're toast.

So, I offer you this excerpt of a letter from James "Chuckles" Dobson - a funny guy, you'll admit - to those of his friends living in the 7th Congressional District. And I quote:

"As a result of . . . his championing of homosexual causes in the Colorado legislature, Sen. Perl-mutter has become a favorite of gay rights organizations around the country. They . . . have even hired homosexual youth to work on his behalf."

I added the italics because, despite the recent gains in technology, columns do not yet come with a laugh track.

Let's be clear what we're talking about. If Dobson has it right, Ed Perlmutter supporters have dispatched roving bands of homosexual youth to the 7th CD, working not only for Perlmutter but also for the right of homosexuals of all ages to do whatever it is that homosexuals in the 7th CD do.

There are various reactions you could have to this news.

A. You could be outraged/alarmed by the presence of roving bands of homosexual youth.

B. You could be outraged/alarmed that Dobson thinks you should be outraged/alarmed by roving bands of homosexual youth.

C. Or you could just laugh.

I laughed. I'm guessing many of you would laugh. I'm guessing many of you would crack up trying to imagine the Dobson vision of the roving bands of homosexual youth - you'll recognize them, I'm told, by their creative facial hair - being chased, no doubt, by Mark Foley.

I'm guessing that Rick O'Donnell, who's running against Perlmutter, would laugh at Dobson's vision, too, even though he favors a national gay-marriage amendment. You see, unlike Dobson, O'Donnell's favorite century is one sometime after the 16th. And, besides, O'Donnell's campaign is too busy trying to defend the beyond-ugly Colorado Republican Party mailers that would link Perlmutter to, of course, sex offenders.

But what is it exactly, you might ask, that one has to fear from roving bands of homosexual youth?

I can see the panic in suburban Denver neighborhoods now: They're coming to steal our armoires! (See the hilarious Seinfield episode: In which Kramer loses Elaine's armoire to gay toughs.)

The reason I bring this up, other than to brighten your morning, is because the New Jersey Supreme Court has handed down the radical decision that gay people who live in New Jersey should enjoy the same rights as everyone else living in New Jersey.

This decision was welcomed by some in the religious right as the long-awaited October surprise - one that reminds the base that, as Marilyn Musgrave warns us, gay marriage is the greatest issue before the American people.

Funny thing, though. Since the New Jersey ruling, there has been almost no reaction. Maybe it's the carnage in Iraq that has somehow distracted people. Or maybe it's the latest wedge issue - embryonic stem cells.

And you know who's getting the wedgie this time. That would be Rush Limbaugh for his . . . uh . . . impersonation of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease and Limbaugh's accusation, since semi-recanted, that Fox was either acting or had gone off his meds.

I will say this: Limbaugh has much more experience than most of us in judging what happens when you stop using meds.

Not that George W. Bush isn't trying to make gay marriage an issue. He has to talk about something on the campaign trail, which leads to Greeley on Saturday. Since he has forsworn using "stay the course" any more to discuss Iraq, maybe he'll use it here: "As Americans, we need to stay the course on marriage. Otherwise, the terrorists will win."

In Colorado, as you know, there are two gay-rights/marriage issues on the ballot. You know this because you watch TV, and if you watch TV, you can't avoid the political ads.

The most disturbing political ad is actually a Chevrolet truck ad, but it's easy to get confused. It's the this-is-our-country ad, with a sound track by the relentlessly named John "No Longer Cougar" Mellencamp. The ad features - and this is all true - Rosa Parks on a bus, Martin Luther King giving his "I Have a Dream" speech, Richard Nixon waving farewell, scenes from the Katrina disaster and, most disturbingly, a shot of the twin lights pushing into the New York sky, representing the lost towers. Yes, Chevrolet is using 9/11 imagery to sell pickup trucks. No wonder Toyota is winning.

You watch the local ads and you see an angry Angie Paccione or Moses talking to God about minimum wage (apparently the Lord favors low wages) and Bob Beauprez still on the wrong end of a horse, and you think, next time, you'll definitely get TiVo. And then there are the ads opposing Ref I.

In Colorado, if you look at the polls, Amendment 43, the marriage amendment - restricting marriage to one man and one woman - is leading. And so is Ref I, the pro-civil union referendum. That seems counterintuitive, but it actually makes sense. Social movements don't come together immediately. Look at women's suffrage or the civil rights movement.

We're in what you might call a transitional phase on gay rights, although I think the marriage-ban vote will be quite close. It is 2006, after all. In 20 years, you'll be thought of as, well, a James Dobsonite for trying to ban same-sex marriage. In fact, 20 years from now, we'll look back at this entire matter and laugh.

And note to Dr. Dobson: Maybe, by then, the roving bands of homosexual youth will have returned our armoires.

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com

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