What's not Traditional About Same Sex Weddings?

When Christians rant on about "traditional marriage", the tradition to which they refer isn't all that old (if you exclude the fact that some of them believe the Universe is only 10 thousand years old!). But when they imply that same sex unions are a 21st century phenomenon, they're on very dodgy ground.

Here's the science part:

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the
“Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century). These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE)and his companion John. Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also
took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Sounds like gay marriage is pretty traditional to me.

I heart the Olympics

The Olympics are very important to me! I'm crap at most of the sports that we used to play on the street when I was kid... but the sports from the Olympics are a different matter. For a start they are a lot more glamorous. There's synchronised swimming and diving (where I would kick-ass if I could only swim properly). Also, I can out-ribbon most people I know doing my rhythmic gymnastic and I'm not even classically trained. Actually I'm not trained at all.... I taught myself to control this very "difficult" piece of sporting equipment as part of Shirley Temple Bar's entry in 1997's Alternative Miss Ireland. Needless to say, Shirley won that year and the rest is historical....

All because the lady loves the Olympics. Yes, I heart the Olympics. But still I don't do competitive sports.

You can hang out with all the boys...

One of the first records I ever owned was the disco era classic Y.M.C.A. It took the world by storm in the late Seventies but now I suppose it's cheesy pop at its horrifying best! Weirdly, I see this record on children's party albums all the time. Strange; if you consider the song is about men hooking up with men in the showers of the local Y.M.C.A. (And Jesus wept.)

As a kid, I never identified The Village People as gay. (And since it was my mother who bought me the record, I'm guessing she didn't figure that one either!). The "I'm a little teapot" dance moves and the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" costumes clearly worked well as a smokescreen!

Looking at the men now, they seem strangely assexual. Like H from Steps or that children's TV presenter from Rainbow, I wouldn't wanna "do" them. I certainly didn't want to "be" any of them. I guess that's why I didn't end up becoming a construction worker when I grew up. Or a Policeman. Or a Cowboy. (Now, Wonderwoman.... she was aspirational!)

You can hang out with all the The Village People when they play Tripod on Sunday 21 September.