A Stitch in Haste

Maggie Gallagher is getting pretty desperate in her quest to find a reason, any reason, to oppose gay marriage (but remember, she's "not a bigot"):

But to find out whether marriage is doing just fine, the New Jersey judges might learn more listening to Kanye West.

His latest hit, "Golddigger," is the quintessential postmodern love story told from the male side, full of fantastic need and longing, punctuated by the grim reality of sexual betrayal and gender mistrust...
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So call me dubious: Right smack in the middle of this unprecedented marriage crisis, what should courts do to marriage, according to these distinguished scholars? Why, gut it of the presumption that marriage has something to do with joining the man and the woman who make the baby.

Putting aside any racial analysis (since Gallagher is so good at being "not a bigot," I'm sure she's also an exemplary "not a racist").

Here we have the same tired Gallagher gobbledygook that inspired literally hundreds of rebuttals to her recent humiliating stint as a guest blogger elsewhere. Here is her thesis: Heterosexuals generally have undermined marriage via liberal divorce laws. Hip-hop heterosexuals specifically have undermined marriage via violently misogynistic lyrics. Therefore, the solution is to codify, and perhaps constitutionalize, discrimination against those who are neither heterosexuals generally nor hip-hop heterosexuals specifically.

Because it is, somehow, "all about the children."

This is the logical equivalent of banning cats because some dogs bite people. Because it is, somehow, "all about the children."

Of course, if Gallagher really wanted to take on hip-hop, then she should start by recognizing that marriage isn't even part of the equation. The problem with sexist hip-hop is not that it blanks out marriage or blanks out babies, but rather that it blanks out love and respect. Get that back into the picture, and hip-hop marriage and will take care of itself, complete with happy, healthy hip-hop babies.

For someone who is so good at blanking out love and respect when it comes to gays, one might think that Gallagher would actually be more sympathetic to misogynist hip-hop artists. She and they are actually more alike than they are different: both motivated strictly by hatred, contempt and narcissistic self-absorption.