Wedding

Today we went to our neighbor across the street, Mr. Jackson's, wedding. He is in his early 80's, a widower, and married a widowed woman he used to date in high school 65 years ago. How cool is that? Congrats to the newlyweds!

However, I was not too thrilled with the ceremony. We were told it was at 11 AM. OK, fine, we got ready and to the church at 11. Turns out that we had to sit through the entire service first. I was a little annoyed by this, because honestly that is a cheap trick. I got back at the pastor for this by staring right into his eyes as the offering plate went by. That's right, mothafucker, I am NOT giving you anything. I was TRICKED into coming today! Yeah, I am probably going to hell...

Then the pastor started to preach. Oh.my.God. I hope that the words that he spoke are soon smitten from my daughters' ears. He started in on how a wife should submit to her husband, and how a woman needs her man to help lead her away from sin, and by golly, gentlemen, if you are manly enough and are willing to take a bullet for your wife, she won't mind submitting to you at all! In fact, it will be her joy to do so, and she will do it with love! But remember, though, even though there is all this submitting, your marriage is still a partnership. But also remember, the man is the head of the household! But that does not mean you can say to your wife, "Woman, submit to me!!!" Oh no, sirree, you need to make sure that you have Christ in your marriage!

It was amazing to hear this man of God fumble through this sermon...at first, proposing the whole conservative Christian man's wet dream of a mindless woman who relies totally on her man to make her decisions for her, to placating the liberals by saying, "but your marriage is a partnership!", to once again insulting women by saying, "You will WANT to submit and it will be a JOY to do so if your man in manly enough and provides for you!" Then he went on to suggest that you need Christ in your marriage in some sort of weird religious menage a trois. And trust me, he definitely made it sound sexual.

These are the kind of men who give religion a bad name. I could not believe this woman in front of me, nodding her head enthusiastically. Now, if you want that kind of marriage, if you want to have your husband (or wife, I suppose) think for you and make all the day to day decisions and whatnot, then that is your business. I know I could never survive in an environment like that. I know men who could not be the ones to be in charge of that kind of thing, either! But do not sit there and tell me that God is saying that this is the way a marriage HAS to be because "these are the talents that men and women have". If they are God-given talents, and they happen to be atypical, then where is that argument? Oh, right, there is something wrong with you for being different! How silly of me! Must be that I don't have a manly enough man to keep me from straying and I am not submitting to my husband...

Anyways, congrats again! I would wish for a long and happy life for the two of them, but they have already had a long and happy life! I guess I will just go with whatever time they do have, I hope they thoroughly enjoy...God knows they earned it!