SmartRemarks

When people look back years from now, they may well mark spring of 2009 as the point when America really changed its attitude toward same-sex marriage. Call it “gay marriage,” call it what you will—I prefer the simple descriptive term “equal marriage”—it seems clear that we’ve passed a tipping point.

At the start of this year, equal marriage laws were on the books in only one state:  trailblazer Massachusetts. Since then the list has grown to include Connecticut (following through on a court order from last year), Iowa (also in response to the state’s high court), then Vermont and Maine and (as of this week) New Hampshire, in each case enacted not by court order but voluntarily by the state legislatures. Meanwhile there are bills working their way through the legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania. On the next tier down, three states (New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon) recognize same-sex civil unions, and Washington, D.C. has recently joined Nevada and California in recognizing slightly more nebulous “domestic partnerships.”

There are still setbacks—notably California’s regrettable Proposition 8, which passed last November and was upheld (on very narrow grounds) by the California Supreme Court—but compared to just five years ago, when the issue seemed like a sure-thing hot-button winner for right-wingers across the country in the 2004 election cycle, the change has been remarkable to behold.

It stuns me to realize, given that I used to work for a GLBT-rights organization, that I haven’t written about this topic before. Then again, perhaps that’s because in the circles I move in, it’s just not a controversial issue. Everyone understands that equal marriage is quite simply the right thing to do, and that those who oppose it are either trogolodytes or politicians trying to appeal to troglodytes. (And yes, this issue is another one of Obama’s shortcomings.) There is, quite simply, no remotely plausible argument against it. 

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Can this be real?

Out of all the floods of commentary generated by the economic collapse of the last few months, variously thoughtful and outraged, panicked and funny, this is the first site where I’m left admitting I have absolutely no idea what to make of it. It’s about… well, it’s about young New York women who (used to) date Wall Street bankers, complaining to allegedly comic effect that their gravy train lifestyles have been disrupted by their boyfriends’ dissolving professional lives. From the site’s mission statement:

Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together – free from the scrutiny of feminists – and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships. DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time — we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter…

Is it meant to be satire? Can it possibly be intended to be taken straight? Should readers be in on the joke, or cringe at the shamelessness of it all?  Read the rest of this entry »