Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver has a wife, and her name is Anita. She’s actually the president of the Liberty Counsel! Anita has decided to write a poem about marrying a tree, because she thinks it’s a funny way to make the stupid “slippery slope” argument against marriage equality, which is popular with a dwindling number of shut-ins and nursing home patients. Let’s take a looksee at her work of art. As you will see, Anita is very gay for her ficus, and may be inadvertently venting about her own marital problems throughout the stanzas:
Oh how I love my ficus tree
It’s one with whom I long to be
I rub its bark and shine its green
She never rubs Mat’s bark anymore.
It’s calm and never makes a scene
We’re quite content and never shout
When I stay out late it doesn’t pout
Betrays a sense of longing, don’t you think? Shouldn’t Anita and Mat save this for couples’ counseling, or do fundamentalists believe in that?
Or tell me how to spend my money
It leans toward me and I call it “honey”
Ooh. She’s tired of being told how to spend her own damned paycheck, and I bet I agree with her!
It fills a special place in my heart
I promise that we will never part
I can even quote a Bible verse
Of the fig tree that Jonah loved first
Yeah well, David loved Jonathan more than he EVER loved a woman, so maybe we should all agree to stop cherrypicking Bible verses that support our deep, irrational bigotry, shouldn’t we, hmmmm, Anita?
Now there’s a judge on the west coast
I know he’ll give what I want most
To marry my precious ficus tree
Me, a ficus and baby makes three
Actually, you’ll have to go argue that on your own, babe. I doubt you’ll make it to court, but you’re welcome to try. Try to wash the bark off your hands first…
This may never become a trend
So I may tire of my woody friend
Gross, Anita.
Wait, maybe “ficus tree” is a pet name for something else entirely.
GROSS.
And if I decide to give up my Mister
The judge would then let me marry my sister!
Whatever.
Again, wingnuts: Don’t attempt “funny.” It always comes out sounding sad, lonely and pathetic.
But can a ficus legally consent as an adult human to be married to someone?
It can when Anita’s got her hand up its trunk.
aGAIN the uneducated have a chance to parade their lack of knowledge far and wide.
I’ve never been overly fond of precocious children. Give her a cookie, her colouring book, and send her off to her room so the adults can talk.
Just what you expect from the House of Fallwell, a lunatic asylum where science classes are brought to you by ‘researchers’ from Answers In Genesis, and where they exhibit dinosaur fossils that, they say, are 3,000 years old.
RKO- the idea of consent simply doesn’t enter into it for the radical right, because deep down they still haven’t gotten over the idea of women as property. That’s what they’re really defending.
Absolutely correct! Same as when they “defend” the unborn, they really don’t care about the fetus, they just care about enforcing patriarchy, and making sure women have limited power over their bodies.