True Story

This past week I read a great rant by Paul Rudnick entitled "True Story" in The New Yorker. In summary, the story followed a fictional Mormon family from Utah on a road trip to Massachusetts, a state where gay marriage is now legal. The hypocritical extremes of both sides of the religion vs. gay feud are explored through gross over exaggeration and fantastic stereotype. Cars drive by with license plates that read "Massachusetts--The Anal Sex State," and it's the law that all gay couples recieve a 50 percent discount on everything. As any devout couple would do, the Mormon husband and wife pretend to be gay to take advantage of this discount. Once they reach their relatives' house, they notice a rainbow-painted mailbox that prevents their gay mailman from trashing their mail, and they are instructed on how to interact with the neighbors so that the heterosexual couple's house won't be vandalized. Beautiful.

Knowing that the author is not Mormon made this story even better for me. It is refreshing for someone to be able to admit that the extremes at both sides of this issue are rediculous and sometimes at fault. At the same time, some of the stereotyping did go too far. Assuming that all Mormons are so naive and against gay rights is like assuming that all Muslims are terrorists--it just isn't true! And many gay individuals respect others' religious beliefs. I would also suggest a little more research on the author's part. For example, Mormons don't use collection plates; they use envelopes and can even write checks! It always amazes me how much writers think they know, especially when they have a prescient for hating the thing they're writing about with no intention of changing their opinion.