June is all about weddings.  Charles and I even attended a lovely one yesterday.  (Our gift:  soup bowls.)  So you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the President’s speech on small business and my dissertation on dozens.  Today . . . marriage.

GLEEFUL

I was late to “Glee” (well . . . it’s so gay), but as its ratings attest, it turns out to be big, big fun – not least because of Jane Lynch, who plays the brassy cheerleading coach.  (“Just because you like show tunes doesn’t mean you’re gay,” she advises the student approaching her in the hallway for advice.  “It just means you’re awful.”)  Well, as referenced in the Frank Rich column below, Lynch (who also made “Role Models” such a fun movie), got married this month.  Who could not wish these people happiness?  

FRANK RICH ON MARRIAGE

What were James Carville and Elton John doing at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding?  Frank Rich tells all.  Or at least most.  (Elton came for $1 million.  Not clear why Limbaugh wanted him – maybe because he doesn’t really mean all the anti-gay stuff he says, and says it just to make his own millions?  Also not clear why Carville was there, but presumably on the arm of Mary Matalin.)

ONE MORE REASON TO VACATION  IN ICELAND

Now your LGBT friends and acquaintances* can get married in the shadow of a volcano.  Iceland joins Iowa, South Africa, Holland, Massachusetts, Canada, Connecticut, the predominantly Catholic countries of Portugal and Spain, Vermont, Mexico City, Washington, D.C., Norway, Sweden, New Hampshire, and Belgium in embracing civil marriage equality.

California, Uganda, Syria, New York, North Korea, Maine, Russia, and New Jersey are among the many that still ban it, but several of them are getting close.  For example, Maine’s legislature and governor signed civil marriage equality into law, but the good people of Maine voted by a narrow margin to overrule that law and deny their neighbors equality.  And in California, where 18,000 couples did marry before the same thing happened, closing arguments begin Wednesday in a trial to assess the constitutionality of such discrimination.  The case is expected ultimately to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.  As described in this New York Times editorial (and the Frank Rich column above), the case for discrimination is pitifully thin.  Then again, it is a conservative Republican Catholic court, so you never know.

*And by now, 77% of Americans say they have one or more gay friends or acquaintances, up from 42% in 1992.

closeted REPUBLICANS TAKE NOTE

Ray Ashburn, the long-serving Republican state senator who consistently voted against gay rights – but then turned out to be gay himself, arrested recently for drunk driving on his way home from a gay bar – was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

In small part:

Q.  A lot of people, gay or straight, are probably wondering why you voted even against issues like insurance coverage for same-sex partners.

A.  The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic "no" vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation.  This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that.

☞  The part to note, later in the interview, is that he’s so much happier now that he’s not hiding. 

Iphone upgrade

The estimable Alan Rogowsky:  “For your new iPhone 4: from your current iPhone simply dial *NEW# and you will get a text message with your status for upgrade with or without discount and when.  Then, to avoid those Apple Store lines, just go to http://www.att.com/wireless/iphone/  or apple.com and order online on June 15 – tomorrow!  Your new phone will show up at your door as/when available. Just plug into computer and activate. No muss no fuss.”

☞  Tomorrow?  I plan to sign on seconds after midnight.