Dancing with the Stars, the hit ABC Network television show, got political last night, and we’re only into week three. If you’ve been living in a cave and are not familiar with the show, it pairs “stars” (and sometimes that term is used loosely) with professional dancers (think ballroom dancing) to compete against other pairs week after week. Professional judges score the performances, and those scores and mixed in with caller votes for total scores, and the couple with the lowest score gets eliminated.
This week, each couple tried to tell a story through their dancing.
One of the pairs is Niecy Nash and Louis Van Amstel. Amstel is the professional dancer. Nash is a comedienne and actress who is mostly known for her work on cable television shows.
Each show has a very limited amount of time to show tape of the couples rehearsing earlier in the week, before they dance live on television.
I'll let the CBS website describe how those who put the show together decided to use the sparse airtime time for showing rehearsals:
The dance that had everyone talking - and speculating - Tuesday morning was Nash's Viennese waltz with professional dancer Louis Van Amstel. Challenged by the judges to tell a story through dance this week, the two chose a story about an interracial romance in the 1960s.
In rehearsal, Nash spoke about how much she loved her boyfriend and said she coundn't imagine not being able to be with the person she loves because it was illegal. Van Amstel said it was a way to show "how far we have come" and then added that he still was fighting his own battle, in an apparent reference to the illegality of gay marriage in California.
On the dance floor, Nash ended her waltz with tears. In an interview afterward with co-host Brooke Burke, Van Amstel said he wanted to celebrate the strides of the last four decades, adding "everyone should be able to get married."
He is the one who used the word “everyone”, not me. So is he also in favor of licensing group marriages? Polygamous marriages? Incestuous marriages? If not, why not? Aren't they "everyone", too? Currently, everyone is California has the exact same access to marriage licenses - the restrictions apply to all. That is true whether or not marriage is neutered. His statement implies that there shouldn't be restrictions. And as we've pointed out many times before, in the past, "interracial" marriage bans were something that prevented a long and universally established practice and prevented freedom of association. Comparing that ban to two women or two men not being able to get a state marriage license together, but still being able to live together, form a domestic partnership, have public ceremonies, etc. is absurd.
[More after the jump.]
It is also strange that someone who would feel so strongly about a need to neuter marriage would continue to work on a show that only pairs men with women in competition. Surely dancing isn't as important as marriage. Why can't the rules of the dancing be changed?
ABC, which decided to make this manipulative appeal to emotion (instead of a reasonable argument) is part of the Walt Disney Company.
Oh, and before any of our critics who favor neutering marriage make snide comments on their blogs, my wife was the one watching the show on DVR and pointed that segment out to me. But it would be interesting to see snide comments about my viewing habits made by people who would feign indignation if I implied that watching the show (or being a professional dancer on the show) could be a signifier of a man's homosexuality.
Personally, the only interest I have in the show is whether or not the latest "Bachelor" falls for the professional dancer with whom he’s paired. That other ABC show is a mockery, and I'll be shocked if that guy actually sticks with his pick from his show, marries her, and stays married.
People need to follow through on their own logic to see where it really leads. So many people are unable to do this; they are only thinking cause-of-the-moment.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said many times, it is entirely inconsistent for people to attack opponents of neutering marriage for bringing up the question of what it means as far as other combinations not currently allowed to marry (close relations, three or more), while also constantly using the case of interracial marriage as an alleged parallel with their cause.