The Book of Merman

I bolted awake at 3 am this morning with another epiphany. Apparently the universe has not yet gotten word that I’m sober and I now sleep at that time. Before, the biggest problem with my middle of the night revelations was that I had no idea what they were when I woke up in the morning. For awhile I kept a notepad by my bed so I could write these pearls of wisdom down, but after about the fifth time I woke up to a note that said, “Blue hens need bklsjglsehi” I decided maybe I was wasting my time.


Lately, the problem is that I wake up and my mind starts going a mile a minute and I can’t shut it off. It’s gotten so bad that I have to keep the computer on all night so that I can get up and type out the sentence or thought and get it out of my head. The typos involved in 3 am typing can be comical, but at least I can make out what I was trying to write this way.

Last night what it was that needed to be communicated before I could sleep again was, “The Defense of Marriage Act should be unconstitutional based on the first amendment right to freedom of religion.” Considering the argument against marriage equality has been mostly made about religion by people of religion, this seems like a fairly ludicrous thought. But hear me out.

Now that there are several states that have full marriage equality AND there are churches that will marry gay and lesbian people, isn’t denying those people the same federal rights that other people married by churches receive a form of religious persecution? It seems pretty clear that if there is a faith that allows the marriage of same-sex couples, that right to marry should be protected by the first amendment. There are several Presbyterian churches in New York – where same-sex couples can legally marry – that will perform ceremonies for those couples. How on earth can the federal government step in and say that opposite sex couples married by the Presbyterian church are valid, but those of same-sex couples aren’t? It seems completely wrong to me.

Be that as it may, if that argument doesn’t work, how about this? Why haven’t we started a religion where one of the rules of the faith is that you marry someone of the same sex. It certainly doesn’t seem to be all that hard to start a religion and get recognized in this country. What are we waiting for? If it’s a religious leader we need to start spreading the word of God’s will for gay men and lesbian women to be married to their partners, I’m throwing my hat in the ring now. I love to travel. I’ll gladly go from city to city preaching about the message I received from God. It had to be from God. Who else is sending messages to people in the middle of the night, almost knocking them out of bed?

So there you have it, send as much money as you have to me right now and I’ll become a missionary (no need to make the joke – we all can see it clearly). Who’s with me?