Last Thursday, Uruguay became the first nation in Latin America to marry a gay couple, after a law allowing couples living together to formalize their union went into effect at the start of the year. Couples who have lived together for five years, regardless of sexual orientation, will be granted spousal rights at the federal level under Uruguay's «cohabitation union law.» Though several cities, including Buenos Aires and Mexico City, have inclusive civil union laws on the books, Uruguay's law is the first nationwide measure in Latin America.

As expected, the Pope is in a holy uproar over Uruguay's move to join Canada as the second nation on the American Continents to support civil and human rights for all. His Holiness is reportedly quite annoyed that he will be required to take time out of his busy schedule of covering up the misdeeds of altar-boy-buggering priests to take a firm stand against the «moral decline» of Uruguay.

Go figure.

Meanwhile, here in the United States of America, formerly known as the world's «beacon of freedom,» unemployed--and unemployable--mental patients rove in packs to harass the occupants of America's outposts of common sense--like Vermont, Massachusetts, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Here at Gay News, we're pretty sure there are readers who have been leaning forward, wondering if we're ever going to say anything about the duty-free import of unhinged lunatics that was foisted on Eureka Springs during Spring Diversity Weekend by Eureka's own un-medicated patients, otherwise known as First Christian Church pastor «Flip» Wilson and Eureka's lone Jericho Rider, Kevin B. Thompson.

(We're mostly sure that people are wondering because they keep asking. «Are you ever going to write about it? Huh? Huh? When?)

Well, OK. We will. Now.

If you missed Spring Diversity Weekend, here's the short version:

Long time readers of Gay News will remember-- when Eureka's Domestic Partnership Registry was passed, three times, by a unanimous vote of city council, local First Christian Church Pastor Phillip «Flip» Wilson tried, and failed two times, to mount a referendum designed to defeat the ordinance. Eureka laughed him off... so he escalated by calling in the American Family Association (AFA) to teach Eureka a lesson. Eureka laughed at the AFA too.

But the AFA, ever willing to exploit every opportunity to increase their bottom line, decided to make a movie about the ominous gay menace in Eureka Springs. (On sale now for just $14.95!) They called it, «They're coming to your town,» and the mockery went viral. Suddenly, everyone was laughing at the AFA (and cheering Eureka Springs) nationwide.

Not that reality made a dent in the zealotry of our self-righteous heroes. They escalated again.

This time, according to AFA movie star Mark Kiser, the AFA went door-to-door in Eureka Springs to every church, asking why the local churches wouldn't beat up on homos «like Jesus said.» Every single local church declined to help the «righteous mission» of the AFA....which would tell most normal, well-adjusted people that they were trying to do the wrong thing, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But not our guys.

Since they couldn't find anyone in Eureka Springs to support their point of view, including Eureka's most conservative churches, they got the bright idea to send out what they referred to as a «Macedonian Call» to every organization that is crazy enough to fly halfway across the country to harass people in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

We can only assume that Fred Phelps is holding bake sales, selling «Christian» cookies to pay off his $11 million dollar federal fine, because the AFA and Jericho Riders couldn't even find a group that specializes in harassing gays and lesbians to import for Diversity Weekend. They had to settle for agitators who spend their time marching against Planned Parenthood and burning the Koran on the front steps of mosques.

So the bottom of the barrel was scraped, and the scrapings came to Eureka Springs to shout through bullhorns at all the people who happened to be in Eureka Springs on Diversity Weekend...some of whom were, in fact, gay. Most of whom were, in fact, Christian heterosexual parents who had spent a whole lot less time in jail and drug-rehab than the unhinged folks who have the self-aggrandizing delusion that they're in the world to save gays... and Christians who have read more of the Bible than a single verse in Leviticus.

If you're wondering what all of this has to do with Uruguay, it's this:

There are places in the world that might seem out of context when it comes time to recognize that the world does not, in fact, end when governments give rights and recognition to legal, committed, loving relationships. All over the world, reasonable people are realizing that it is in the interest of society to support consistent love, that the «family as the pillar of society» can, and should, accommodate gay families too.

The debate has moved past sophisticated, industrialized nations like Canada, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands--where gay marriage is legal. It has now expanded to include nations that the US once mocked as «third world,» like South Africa and Uruguay. Argentina is expected to follow in the steps of Uruguay...soon.

Here in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, «the hole in the buckle of the Bible Belt,» it's impossible to find public support for the viewpoints of people who like to claim that the world will end.--immediately--if gay people get to visit their sick spouses in the hospital and leave legacies to the partners they built those legacies with without punishing tax penalties.

The world is changing rapidly for the good. As Uruguay and Eureka Springs goes, so goes the nation.

So here's to you, Uruguay. May we be the first to congratulate Adrian Figuera and Juan Carlos Moretti, Uruguay's newest First Couple.

Oh. We're not the first? Of course not.

Thank God.

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