I figured there would be yapping from the kook pews about Ben & Jerry’s limited edition "Hubby, Hubby" flavor.  But I should have seen this coming too…

And though I agree with their sentiment, it’s a gloopy business when a company celebrates the election of a president with the flavour ‘Yes Pecan’. In an age when ice cream companies are melting away and reforming as purveyors of frozen yoghurt, is this dinky piece of homespun cheeriness really the best focus of the company’s efforts?

Ah, yes…the old Don’t We Have Better Things To Worry About sigh.  Followed up like night after day with…

That gay people should be able to get married seems to me a basic human right, and I admit that in a completely partisan way I was tempted to justify B&J’s action as part of the ongoing struggle against ignorance and fear. But what would I be thinking if a contrary point of view was being aired? I’d be first in line to denounce them as squalid influence peddlers, shamelessly meddlesome, shiveringly undemocratic tricksters.

Ice cream should be a relief from side-taking…

Yes.  And so should getting married.  So should taking your kids to the pool.  So should having lunch at the local diner.  So should a nice quiet stroll along the beach.  Life’s simple beautiful pleasures.  And next time you’re wondering why so many of life’s simple beautiful little pleasures have been turned into a scorched earth battleground, ask yourself what happens to any neighborhood, any community, any nation, when its people turn a blind eye to crime.

Because that’s what this is.  A bunch of low brow back alley, knuckle-dragging thugs are stealing all those beautiful simple life pleasures away from some of your neighbors.   In some ways it’s far more wounding then even those acts of outright violence against us.  Imagine how it is, to not even be able to walk down the street hand in hand with the one you love, without fear.  Life’s simple beautiful pleasures.

Ben & Jerry’s is, in their own hippy-dippy little way, giving it back to us.  Yes, it’s corporate marketing.  But also…love, marriage and ice cream.  Happiness.  There are worse things corporations can do to market their wares. Yes, this is taking sides.  It is always a matter of taking sides.  Every time you pause for a moment to take in the simple beautiful joy of life, you are taking sides against the pain and heartbreak and unmitigated horror that seems sometimes to make life utterly pointless.  Your gay and lesbian neighbors struggle to hold onto those moments every day.

Bishop Desmond Tutu, who knows a few things about life under the jackboot of hate, said "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."  Why does the right to marry seem like such a basic human right to you, one that same-sex couples should enjoy too, if not that giving that promise to love, honor and cherish, and receiving it, and keeping it in all those endlessly simple day-to-day ways spouses do together, is one of this life’s great joys.  If you believe that gay people are people too, then taking sides shouldn’t even be in question.  Especially when it comes to the simple things.  Especially those.

There are people in this world who wish your gay and lesbian neighbors to never know those joys…great or small.  But it seems sometimes, especially the small.  Because in their world, if we can love and laugh and live in peace and happiness, and find simple quiet contentment in the arms of the one we love, even for a moment, even for an instant, then they’re not hating us enough.  Are you tired of it all?  Trust me, you will never be tired of it as much as any of us are.  And…trust me…to the extent you can find your own moments of simple perfect joy too, then they hate you too.  You don’t have to be homosexual for them to hate you.  Just happy and content and in love with life.  Even for a just moment.  That is enough.  That is all it takes for them to hate you.  And all it takes for you to defeat them is to reach for one simple beautiful joy and let it remind you that life is good.