Dan Savage takes note of the case of the California teenager who escaped his captors with the chain still dangling from his ankle, and complains, thusly…

Paul linked this in Morning News, but more details are emerging…

A husband and wife have been charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday.

Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy.

They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating the couple, Robinson said…. Robinson said the boy was confused when approached by detectives Monday, unsure where he had come from and how long had been held against his will. He was taken to a hospital.

"The wounds he had and his physical condition as well as having a chain around his leg corroborated his basic statement that he was being held against his will," Robinson said.

Kelly and Michael Schumacher are legally married—and they can stay legally married, even if they’re found to be guilty of this horrendous crime. They can stay legally married even if the decomposing remains of twenty other teenagers are found buried in their backyard. Their marriage license cannot be revoked. If Michael dies in prison, Kelly can remarry—even if she’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If Kelly decides to divorce Michael, he can remarry—even if he’s sitting on death row. He can remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce until he runs out of prison pen pals. Because the courts have declared that marriage is so fundamental a right that it cannot be denied to convicted rapists or to serial killers.

But it’s a right that’s denied to me and my boyfriend. Because we’re both men and that ain’t right.

What you have to understand, and I’m sure Dan Savage understands this perfectly well, is that killing twenty teenagers isn’t nearly as big a sin as loving someone of your own sex.  You can sit on death row for torturing, killing, and eating an entire classroom full of children and still get sympathy from the kook pews.  They forgave Susan Smith the moment, the instant, it was discovered that she, and not the black man she’d claimed, killed her own two boys by locking them in the family car and pushing it into a lake and letting them drown.  Her stepfather, Beverly Russell, who had abused her since she was 15, was a figure in the South Carolina republican party, and the Christian Coalition, and after all Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.  But if someone splits your head open because they saw you walking down the street with your boyfriend’s hand in yours, you had it coming.