Dog v. Dogma: Pip and the Pope

Today’s topic is a toss-up: the Vatican’s nonsensical response to the marriage equality vote in Ireland or teeny tiny animals. Why not both, you say? Agreed. According to Pope Francis, the vote in Ireland to legalize same-sex marriage “threaten[s] to disfigure God’s plan for creation.” Meanwhile, not far away in the United Kingdom, Pip, the world’s smallest pug, was keeping a close eye on the vote, and gleefully responded “woof-woof.” The official stance from the Vatican concerning the shrinking number of humans on the planet was easily rebuffed by the erudite counterclaim of a one pound dog.

 The official stance from the Vatican on the Ireland vote (go green!) is that marriage equality is a “defeat for humanity” because reasons. And also something about “the family.” Pip, ever-vigilant in staying current with contemporary world politics, responded to the Catholic Church’s assertion by cocking his head to one side and scrunching his eyebrows in confusion. His mother, Ruby, herself a god-fearing pup who’s done her duty and given birth to a bunch of pups, rested her head on the edge of the couch and dozed off. Not everyone is as politically-minded as Pip.

In case you’re not keeping track, there are over seven billion people on the planet Earth right about now, give or take a million, so the argument against allowing same-sex couples to marry based on the notion of needing to produce more humans is really the most ridiculous one ever. We have plenty of people. We don’t even know how to feed and shelter the one’s we’ve already got, and that includes people in so-called “first-world” countries, never mind all the ones in developing countries without access to clean water. Perhaps God is making more gay babies to put a limit on our out-of-control population. I have no hard evidence of this, but if Jurassic Park taught me anything, it’s that life finds a way. Pip agrees.

That’s right folks. The greatest “defeat for humanity” is allowing gay people to marry each other in a country of less than five million. Pip would like to do some simple math for the Vatican. Using Kinsey’s ten percent ratio (of whose accuracy I am profoundly skeptical) there are approximately 500,000 homos in Eyre. Of that number, approximately 66 percent are in their child-bearing years, which is 330,000, and then divided by 2 (you know, because couples) equals 165,000. Now assuming each of these couples had a baby that means the world would end up with 165,000 new humans every couple of years. So, the question I put to the Vatican is this: Are you legitimately arguing that the non-existence of these 165,000 completely make-believe theoretical babies in an already over-populated world is the greatest defeat ever faced by humanity? (Even in just the last 6,000 years, which is how old some of you think the world is.) Seriously? Pip the Pug questions your logic. Also, I should probably point out to the pope and his cardinals that even if Irish eyes had not smiled on marriage equality, and prevented these 330,000 people from marrying each other, their response would not be one of “Oh darn. Well, I guess I better marry someone of another sex and start popping out babies.”

There are plenty of reasons out there to oppose marriage equality, and while they’re all based on religious and moral reasons and not actual logic, the notion that we need more humans is really the dumbest one of all. We don’t need any more humans. Much like dogs, they’re cute when they’re small, but seriously, we have plenty of them already.

In summation, in a profound display of thoughtful logic over dogmatic nonsense, Pip the Pug says woof.