To wrap up Freedom to Marry Week, I’m going to write tomorrow about my thoughts on civil unions vs. marriage. For a Friday night, however, I’ll stick with something lighter, a passage from the inimitable Dr. Seuss that I was reading to my son earlier.
In his story The Sneetches, the star-bellied Sneetches think they’re better than the plain-bellied ones, and they both get taken advantage of by an enterprising shyster, Sylvester McMonkey McBean:
And he laughted as he drove
In his car up the beach,
“They never will learn.
No. You can’t teach a Sneetch!”But McBean was quite wrong. I’m quite happy to say
That the Sneetches got really quite smart on that day,
The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches
And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.
That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars
And whether they had one, or not, upon thars.
The story isn’t an exact parallel to the fight for marriage equality, but it’s a nice message of tolerance in a world that needs more of them.