double check me - it's weird that we're behind South Africa now, right?

So. Tuesday, the parliament of South Africa enacted a law making equal marriage rights available to all citizens. (South Africa. A week after the Commonwealth of Virginia, which was, shoot, at least a generation ahead of South Africa on the race-relations front, adopted a constitutional amendment that -- well, we all know what the amendment said. RAR.)

Wednesday, the WaPo had a piece about how three Christian denominations are reasserting themselves in the condemnation of all things gay. The Catholic bishops are flinging around the old "disordered" cant, and would like their homosexual parishioners to embrace self-denial and get back in the closet, please; the Presbyterians are putting a minister on trial for performing a marriage ceremony in which both participants happened to be women; and the Baptists in North Carolina have moved to expel any congregation that condones homosexuality.

In our day and time, no other sin marches so defiantly across our national landscape," [said] Mark Harris, the head of the committee that introduced the measure ... .

Here, for comparison, is a quotation from Aristotle: "men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater." That would be the sin of pride that he was referring to. Mr. Harris may want to give that some thought.