In a GQ article entitled, «Is this guy for real?» Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee explains that gay marriage will end civilization. «There's never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived,» says Huck. Except, of course, for the civilization Huckabee proposes to lead--the United States of America--which has radically redefined marriage several times since the nation's inception.

Here's a news flash: Women and children are no longer the property of the household's alpha male, as they were when the US started writing its many radical revisions of the definition of marriage and family. We've been changing the rules in this great nation of ours since 1830. That's 177 years, Huck. Try to keep up.

Next, Pope Benedict XVI piled on with his claim that gay marriage is on par with nuclear proliferation as a threat to world peace. Gays. Nuclear warheads. Gays win. All righty.

Then this week's edition of our local Drudge Report attempted to blame Eureka's continued decline in marriage licenses on--you guessed it--the gays. What daring! What brazen disregard they must have for civilization-- the way they toy with our awesome power! What? Didn't they get the memo from the pope?

The story explains that the number of marriage licenses issued in Eureka Springs has been on a steep downward spiral since 2001. Nobody knows why but, this year, one possible excuse is Eureka's DPR.

Coincidentally (wink nudge), the business group quoted for publication, the one that has been excusing its own declining performance with, «It must be the gays! They're killing our business,» is looking into the matter. Expect the utterly predictable announcement, «Yep. It's the gays,» but only in whispers, only in private--because, in public, they love, love 'em some gay money.

We'll admit that our fingers got a mite itchy over the global destruction trigger when we read this comment:

«At the Western District Courthouse, the notice telling persons to apply for domestic partnership registry in the city hall downstairs has been removed, largely due to persons getting upset when finding out, after questioning workers, that the domestic partnership registry can be used by same-sex couples.»

So we made several calls to the Western District Courthouse, the office of the Carroll County clerk, and city hall, asking if this statement was true. Everyone we spoke to, at every office, said they hadn't heard any complaints. The signs were simply, and temporarily, taken down because they were getting tattered and needed to be replaced.

The signs are up; public notices continue to direct couples to resister on the DPR, downstairs, at Eureka Springs City Hall. Couples continue to buy marriage licenses, upstairs, at the Western District Courthouse. No incidents of anyone fleeing the courthouse out of fear of the DPR have been reported.

But we have decided it's time to stop fiddling around with false modesty.

Look, if an aspiring, «Leader of the Free World» and God's personal, infallible middleman-on-Earth say gays and lesbians have the power to end life as we know it, why argue? We'll take the job--at an obscenely high salary with full benefits.

Don't worry ninety-percenters! Civilization will be allowed to continue as long as it continues to amuse us. Fortunately, for those who prefer civilization to, say, a random collection of barbarians chasing wild beasts with stone axes--we're easily amused.

But we'll keep the button right here...just in case.

We won't push it.

Yet.

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