The Gay Marriage Debate Hits Home

A conversation between N's 3.5-year-old best friend, WeeyumWise, and his mother, Joan, as reported to me by Joan:

WW: Mommy, I want you to sleep in my bed with me tonight.
J: I can't sweetheart. You sleep in your bed, and I sleep in my bed, with my husband.
WW: Who's your husband?
J: Daddy.
WW: Who's my husband?
J: You don't have a husband.
WW: Yes, I do. You're my husband.
J: No, I have a husband already: Daddy.
WW: Oh, I know who's my husband!
J: Who?
WW: NSamyooKookoo. [Apparently, Weeyum has taken to calling N by his whole name the way N calls him by his whole name.]
J: N's not your husband; he's your best friend.
WW: Oh, yeah. You're right. He is my best friend. [Pause.] And my husband.

So there you have it. Lobby against gay marriage, and you're lobbying against my son's right to marry his best friend. Now, it's REALLY personal.

[When Joan told me this story, she kept shaking her head at me and laughing. "It's all your fault, you know," she said at the end. "You're the one who's been predicting this since they first connected in the infant room. But, hey, it'll be great for us to be mespuchah. (Mespuchah is the undoubtedly misspelled Yiddish word for extended family.) We'll just all have to move to Massachusetts, is all. Or Canada."]