Micky to attend same-sex weddings

It seems that Disney is working to shake off its history of exclusion (a la banning the long-haired in the 60s) and will start allowing same-sex couples to purchase its Fairy Tale Wedding packages. For the sake of fairness, I'm unclear whether their previous exclusion from these packages was intentional or a thoughtless side-effect of requiring a valid marriage license for booking. Now, the many Mickey lovers of the gay community can now enter connubial bliss with the grand rodent by their side.

The timing is right for such a move because even though statistics compiled by The Third Way show that the country is still a ambivalent about full marital rights for gays and lesbians (61% of Americans support legal civil union), an overwhelming majority believe that the GLBT community should have equal job opportunities (90%) and should be allowed to serve openly in the military (80%).

Interestingly, 56% of Americans do not think that same-sex couples lack significant legal protections. Sadly, that's just plain wrong. There are so many things that those of us in hetero marriages take for granted - that if our spouse is sick, we can stay with them in the hospital; if they should die, what's theirs is automatically ours; that if we have children and are both good parents, we have equal rights to see our children should we divorce. None of this is true for same-sex couples. I have one lesbian friend who is counting down the days until her daughter is 18 because her ex had sole legal custody (two people of the same gender cannot share legal custody under our laws) and has chosen to keep the child from her.

And though I think the civil rights implications of the gay marriage debate are the most important part, there are practical reasons that allowing the same rights of marriage to the GLBT community would benefit the whole country, one of which Disney has cleverly tapped into: the millions, perhaps billions, of dollars gays and lesbians would pump into our economy to throw the sames kinds of elaborate weddings that hetero couples indulge in. Someone should remind Bush - that kind of tax revenue could fund a couple more days in Iraq...