Oklahoma Rep: Hope You Like Your 'Common-Law' Marriages, Godless Hippie Homo Folk!

Todd Russ likes steers, not queers

If you’re like us — and we know you are because we’ve seen you in the shower — you find the ongoing right-wing freakout over gay marriage delectably amusing. Whether it’s the Florida clerks of court stopping all courthouse weddings so they wouldn’t have to pronounce Adam and Steve husband and husband (in fairness, they’re all from the hillbilly parts of the state, which, contrary to popular belief, is not the whole thing, shut up comment section; we also have Miami) or Mike “Fat Again” Huckabee, constitutional expert and Ted Nugent fan , declaring that hey, maybe states don’t need to listen to the Supreme Court anyway , there’s an endless bounty of schadenfreude to be had, and we need to enjoy it while we can.

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So let us turn our attention, then, to the great state of Oklahoma, which we drove through once and whatever dipshit town we stayed in only had near-beer and what the fuck is that, where State Representative/Great Christian Hero Russ Todd has come up with an ingenious solution to activist judges cramming buttsex down his throat:  No more marriage licenses, for anybody .

Marriage licenses would become a thing of the past in Oklahoma under a bill filed by state Rep. Todd Russ. The Cordell Republican says he wants to protect court clerks from having to issue licenses to same-sex couples. He doesn’t want these workers put in the position of having to condone or facilitate same-sex marriage. […] “Marriages are not supposed to be a government thing anyway,” he said Wednesday.

Here’s the thing: We kinda agree with that last bit, even if Todd Russ, who has two first names, came to it for a shit-heel reason. Yes, let’s get government out of marriages, and out of our bedrooms altogether while we’re at it. (Still with us, Todd Russ?) And yes, having people pay the government to have the government validate their relationship for tax purposes seems a wee bit cumbersome and intrusive. So, cool.

But here’s where we get off:

Under his plan, a religious official would sign a couple’s marriage certificate, which would then be filed with the clerk. Marriages would no longer be performed by judges. If a couple did not have a religious official to preside over their wedding, they could file an affidavit of common law marriage.

So, just to be clear, only religious officials can marry people? Everyone else — i.e., nonreligious people — has to sign an affidavit and be “common law,” whoopty-do? And do these religious officials have to be legit, or does The Church of the Holy Internet count?

This plan does not sound entirely thought out. Which maybe, just maybe, is because it’s rooted less in some deeply considered libertarian philosophy than in the fact that homosexuals make Todd Russ very uncomfortable.

Russ, a credentialed Assemblies of God minister, is upset with rulings that have supported same-sex marriage. “There’s a lot of constituents and people across the state who are not through pushing back on the federal government for the slam down they’ve given us with Supreme Court rulings,” he said. […] “Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage, and yet the Supreme Court stuck it down our throats,” Russ said.

Speaking of things being crammed down throats, are we not correct that Todd Russ looks a lot like a younger Beau Bridges, who just played a repressed homosexual in Showtime’s Masters of Sex ? We’re just asking, that’s all.

[ The Oklahoman ]