If there is an achilles heel of America's right wing elites, it is that they take themselves far too seriously. Republican fundamentalist activists believe so stridently that their beliefs are at the center of the universe that they are incapable of being light hearted. As a result, they end up saying and doing an awful lot of absurd things, with complete, dim-witted sincerity.

Take, for example, following the pro-marriage bumper sticker, which the American Family Association sent to me in a recent unsolicited email newsletter. At first glance, it appears to be a straightforward argument that marriage ought to be legally defined as solely available to adult, heterosexual couples.

Take a second look at this bumper sticker, however, and its message becomes less clear. The words say that marriage is one man and one woman, but then who is that other little person in between the man and the woman?

This bumper sticker illustrates how the reliance of right wing evangelicals on blind faith in religious and political doctrine leads their preachy cliches to get all tangled together in knots of unintended meaning. We are to assume, I suppose, that the little third person in the American Family Association's bumper sticker is a child of the man and the woman. But, if the child is really at the center of a marriage, as shown, doesn't that suggest that men and women who don't have children are not really married? What about men and women who have children, but don't get legally married? Do they have more of a marriage than married couples without children? Is the marriage for the man and woman, or for the child, anyway?

Oops. It seems that the definition of marriage really doesn't fit well into a simple little motto. The truth, of course, is that marriage is a socially-defined institution that has changed as society has changed. There is no universal definition of marriage, whatever evangelical activists would like to believe. The American Family Association claims to be biblically-informed in its efforts to limit the legal definition of marriage, but overlooks the fact that the Christians' Holy Bible itself contains instances in which God is purported to have encouraged marriages that did not consist of one man and one woman.

The over-reliance of America's right wing on tradition leads to blindness on simple problems such as these. Educated Americans recognize that tradition cannot be allowed to limit the progress of our society. Just because something has been done in the past does not mean that it is wise to continue the practice into the future.

As American progressives are confronted with groups like the American Family Association that have their perspectives so firmly set within the boundaries of tradition, how can hope to widen the debate to include the full scope of options for our society's future? With rational citizens, direct discussion and debate are helpful. However, there is another set of citizens who act out of mere habit, comfortable with the same old ideas because they've never fully considered the logical implications of those ideas.

When it comes to this segment of tradition-bound citizens, satire serves as an especially powerful tool. Satire takes a familiar idea and turns it slightly to the side so that people can see the form that lies behind the facade that they are used to looking at. With more honest right wing activists, an unexpected exposure to new ideas through satire can sometimes lead to a shift in perspective, or at least a new openness to those who have a different perspective.

In the case of the bumper sticker offered by the American Family Association, we might start out with a parody of the simplistic form of the fundamentalist argument that marriage ought to be restricted to the old definitions of particular cultural traditions. Thus, we have produced a bumper sticker that reads simply, "Porridge = One cup oats plus two cups water", and then features a plea to save oatmeal from fundamentalist judges, mirroring the Republican right wing hysteria about "liberal judges".

What's the point, the reader asks, of what someone's recipe for porridge is? In merely asking this question, the point may start to dawn on them. A recipe is merely an option. People can make porridge any way they want to, and it doesn't hurt anybody. Marriage is the same way.

The use of the word "porridge" in this example also makes use of the satirical tool of alliteration. Finding a word that sounds like "marriage" draws the reader's attention to the quirky parallels that are being drawn. How is porridge like marriage? Fundamentalists who dare to even ask such a light hearted question may find their tight rules for life loosening up a little.

Alliterative playfulness is also used in another bumper sticker parody: Carriage = One Horse Plus Four Wheels. The parody in this bumper sticker offers yet another twist on the same basic concept: To insist upon a single mathematical definition of marriage is as silly as insisting upon a single arrangement for all carriages. We can have two-wheeled carriages, or carriages pulled by two horses, after all, and nobody gets hurt.

There's a use of graphic design in these bumper stickers that's important to the element of satire. The look of the parodies is similar, if not exactly identical to, the original American Family Association bumper sticker. This similarity breaks the power of the original design, by forcing people on the road to question the message that they're seeing. It's always the hope of an organization like the American Family Association that they will be able to distribute enough bumper stickers so that the graphic of the sticker will become automatically associated with their organization's agenda. The result, they hope, will be that people will, after merely glancing at the design, conclude that the owner of the car carrying the bumper sticker agrees with the American Family Association's message that many Americans should not be allowed to get married.

Satirical bumper stickers break the ability of bumper stickers to create such an automatic association between a visual design and a particular agenda. After seeing two similar bumper stickers with contrary messages, people will always have to wonder, when they see another similar bumper sticker, which message they are supposed to be receiving. Thus, satirical bumper stickers open up what had been a closed debate, keeping fresh in the minds of all citizens the truth that the issue at hand is still up for discussion, no matter what the right wingers say.

Thus, we end this discussion with a more earnest form of parody. After stretching the minds of bumper sticker readers, we offer a serious counter-proposal with this bumper sticker: Marriage equals trust plus love. With this statement, we bring the political conversation to a higher level, suggesting that marriage is not really about mathematical formulas, or unthinking traditionalism. Instead, we propose that the essence of marriage is trust and love. Every other consideration is secondary.

Consider a similar response to a 700 Club bumper sticker attacking freedom of marriage.

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