I’m putting together a lecture on the perception of gay marriage under the Howard governement and thought I’d use this as a bit of comic relief for what is a very controversial topic. It’s old so many of you may gave seen it but its sure to elicit a grin. 😀
Saving the Species: It’s an Ugly Job but Bo-Bo Stands Ready
August 9, 2003
I feel sexier. More primitive. I prowl the kitchen, looking for my mate. I spot Jocasta, by the toaster, trying to fish out an English muffin that has become stuck. She is dressed, alluringly enough, in spotty pajamas and ugh boots.
I growl and beat my chest. “Come on, baby. You haven’t the time for muffins. Marriage is about procreation. It’s about the survival of the species.”
Ever since the Prime Minister made his comments about marriage, the suburbs have felt different. We can’t allow gay marriage the PM said because marriage is bout the continuation of the species.
Suddenly I see myself in a new light, as the last of my species, swinging from tree to tree. I am the last of a mighty line, the last large-arsed male Bo-Bo still alive in the jungle. I must find another large-arsed Bo-Bo and breed. “Come on, Jocasta,” I say to her, “we must multiply, for marriage has no point without procreation.”
“I’ve already multiplied,” she says, distractedly, “and now I want some breakfast.”
“But Bo-Bo want to breed. Bo-Bo want species to continue.” I beat my chest, but to no avail. Sometimes I suspect Jocasta takes no notice of the Prime Minister at all. “Poor Bo-Bo,” I mumble, stumbling out into the back yard in order to urinate against a tree.
So many species have become extinct, but until now I’d never spotted the connection with gay marriage. The dodo. The Tahitian sandpiper. The Tasmanian tiger. Presumably all of them, at one point or another, relented and allowed gay marriage. Next thing: poof. The whole species gone. The Mauritian flying-fox. The Tongan giant skink. The spectacled cormorant. All victims of gay marriage.
Take the mystery of the dinosaurs. For millions of years, dominating the earth. And then sudden extinction. The Prime Minister of Australia may be the first to solve the mystery. They allowed gay marriage. A few years on and the whole institution of dinosaur marriage was sapped of meaning. The straight dinosaurs began standing around in ugh boots, toasting muffins and forgetting to procreate.
Worse, the straight dinosaurs could no longer get anyone to cater their wedding parties because all the gay dinosaurs were too busy doing their own receptions. Ten years on and there goes the whole order.
It takes a pretty special Prime Minister to understand this sort of hidden evolutionary history. We are indeed lucky people.
Certainly, I’m starting to see Jocasta in a new light. She is no so much a woman as the bearer of her evolutionary history. “You are primeval slime,” I say to her, “phylogenically speaking.”
“There is no need to take like that, just because I won’t come across,” she says, with a mouthful of muffin.
“No, its wonderful,” I say. “You were slime and then divided asexually. You turned into a tiny sea creature, clambered on to land, grew wings and experimented with flight, then evolved into a mammal.
Jocasta takes another bite of toast. “No wonder I’m tired.”
“Only recently,” I continue, “have we learnt to walk erect.” “Well,” says Jocasta, pointing with her muffin, “you don’t seem to be having any trouble in that regard. Not from the look of things.”
It’s true that I, Bo-Bo, stand ever ready to attempt the continuation of the species. In the past, some males have been embarrassed by this ever-readiness. But no longer. I look downwards and what I see is now bathed in a sort of heroic light. In my mind’s ear, I hear trumpets playing. A choir of angels sings off to the side.
“The very species,” I say to Jocasta, “It depends on me. On this.” I gesture, hoping she will share my sense of awe.
“Bo-Bo is but a tool of evolution,” I say to Jocasta tenderly. “Certainly, Bo-Bo is a tool,” she says, popping the last of the muffin in her mouth.
“But marriage has no point without procreation,” I say.
Jocasta slings her plate in the sink and heads of work. “Personally I’m not surprised Howard thinks it’s a good idea. He’s been doing it to the country for years.”
I, the noble Bo-Bo, the last of my species, take that to be a “no”. I slink out to once more urinate against a tree.
It seems that, yet again, the species will have to wait. Right now I’m just not in a position to save it.
Written by Richard Glover for the SMH.
|