It's Funny Because It's True
Is it Nick Coleman or is it Jim Styczinski? Based on Jim's most recent effort, I can no longer tell the two apart. He's obviously cracked the equation for the Grand Unified Theory of Nick Coleman style journalism - right down to the scare quotes and melodramatic sledge hammer conclusion. I’d call this brilliant satire, but I don’t think there’s any irony or sarcasm present. It IS Nick Coleman. Or rather the column Nick Coleman would have written about gay marriage, if he would have applied himself. Take it away Jim ....
Is Nick Coleman slipping? I was a little disappointed in his gay marriage column, I was expecting something more like this:
While a couple hundred people waited in a subterranean tunnel between the Transportation Building and the State Office Building, hoping to weigh in on the burning issue of our time (whom can marry whom), Bob and Frank were miles away huddled under a freeway overpass in Woodbury.
“Bob and I would like to be there right now, but with the bus strike and all, that’s just not possible” said Frank, who preferred not to give his last name. “If you’re homeless in America that’s one strike against you right there, but if you’re also gay and want to marry your partner, forget about it.”
Bob and Frank have been together since 1995, longer than a lot of couples. They have been homeless for about eighteen months, since Frank lost his job to Republican budget cuts at the Junior High School where he was an Assistant Principal for Diversity Enforcement. “Like all couples, we’ve had our ups and downs, and this is definitely a down”, said Bob.
Frank and Bob seemed unconcerned that marriage would alter their relationship -- for example turning one of them into a raving lunatic who forced the other to go collect cans on the other side of the river. “I just don’t see that happening to us, we just want to have our relationship recognized by society at large.”
Bob and Frank are not without worries, however. “I do wonder how some of these so-called ‘faith-based’ homeless shelters would receive us, if we were married”, said Frank referring to George W. Bush’s “faith–based” charities initiative. “I would hope that Minnesota Nice would kick in and they’d let us in out of the cold, but you never know with these religious fruitcakes.”
Indeed, maybe God thinks it a bigger sin than sex to let homeless gay couples freeze to death.
Back at the same-sex marriage hearing in St. Paul they were worried about turning down the thermostats, but here under I-94 there are no thermostats to adjust.
