"For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy."
--1 Corinthians, Chapter 7, Verse 14

We here at the Humor Desk of QMinnesota have never taken the path of least resistance to discourse ... therefore, we've lent a forum Mister and Mrs. Dennis Thirteen, just back from their eight-minute wedding and two-day, one-night honeymoon at Bob's Wed-O-Mat Bridal Shack, Sweet Suite, & Big House o' Hash in Las Vegas. (The slogan posted over the arched egress: "We wed ya; we bed ya; we fed ya.")

Mister and Mrs. Thirteen are here to detail why the sanctity of marriage must be defended from the abhorrent onslaught of—eep!—GLBT marriage. Following is an unedited transcript of their comments, which is completely true (except for the parts we made up).

Mister Thirteen: Thanks. Okay. I mean, the first thing we should establish, okay? The first thing is, the Mrs. and me, we don't have a hateful bone in our bodies. Not a stirrup, not a femur. Not one.

Mrs. Thirteen: Oh, no, no. These days, it seems like you can't even express a dissenting opinion without being branded a hate-spouting bigot. Some of our best friends are qu*...uh, that way. Oh, and so is Dennis's barb*....ah, Dennis's hair stylist.

Mister Thirteen: Right, Ramon. Our main concern is that the qu*...the, uh, gee, el...the gee, tee, el...ah, well, the gay folk, they presume to know God's will. I mean, that's humankind's gravest sin--pride. Adam and Steve, and all that. I mean, no offense, but this homo hubris makes me so angry, I can't see straight. GLBT marriages are...are b.s.!

Mrs. Thirteen: Now, Dennis...what did we say about that phrase? We only use it during moments of the gravest duress.

Mister Thirteen: Sorry, Turtle Dove. Now, regarding this whole sanctity of marriage debate, alot's been said about "gay" and "marriage," but the Mrs. and me, we're more interested in the term "sanctity," okay?

Mrs. Thirteen: Dennis is right. We take sanctity very, very seriously--the ink is dry on our paperwork, so the sanctity of our union is proven. In fact, it's our shared belief in and on sanctity that brought us together in the first place.

Mister Thirteen: Yeah. I remember the topic originally came up when I was interviewing prospective wives for David Weinlick.

Mrs. Thirteen: Who?

Mister Thirteen: Weinlick. David Weinlick. After a preliminary search on the Internet, he had family and friends interview dozens of applicants, and the finalist married crazy Davey in the Mall of America. I was an interviewer; you were an applicant.

Mrs. Thirteen: No, dear. That was your previous wife. That was Mrs. Thirteen Number Six.

Mister Thirteen: Uh? Are you sure, Turtle Dove? I thought Mrs. Thirteen Number Six was--ahhh, what was her name again? Juanita..? No--Dolores! She was the Nicaraguan immigrant I married so that she could stay in this country.

Mrs. Thirteen: You make me proud to be an American, hon.

Mister Thirteen: Talk about pursuing happiness--I made $10,000! I used that do-re-mi to buy Monica Lewinski's blue dress on Ebay.

Mrs. Thirteen: So that's where you got this, our 25-y*...eh, our 25-hour anniversary present! How do I look in it?

Mister Thirteen: Thin. Huh...so, if Dolores was Mrs. Thirteen Number Six, which one was the Weinlick castoff?

Mrs. Thirteen: Mrs. Thirteen Number Five, I suppose. Number Four was pregnant. [Under her breath.] Wonder what happened to that kid. [Louder] Numbers Three and Two were rich widows. Number One was your high school sweetheart...oh, and way to get even with your mother, of course. You told me that you'd met Dolores proposed in a drive-in to her after a double-feature of The Crying Game.

Mister Thirteen: Eesh. Right. So when did we meet, light of my life?

Mrs. Thirteen: We met in Burbank, thirty-seven blissful hours ago. I was accidentally applying to be a prospective wife for the "Who Wants To Marry a Hundredaire?" pilot. What's funny is, I took a wrong turn at the green room. I was supposed to interview for another show...

Mister Thirteen: Hah! I knew there was an interview in there somewhere.

Mrs. Thirteen: You interviewed me, and, after I answered your question regarding the sanctity of marriage, we fell in love, and you asked me to share the most important segment of your life.

Mister Thirteen: Hyup. We went cow tipping.

Mrs. Thirteen: I remember when Dennis proposed later that night, inside the Brown Jug, sometime between the breaded steak and the mega-sized mudpie. He was so romantic: the Brown Jug had no candles, so Dennis held the button down on his leopard-skin-patterned cigarette lighter when he popped the question. I knew I had to snatch this Macguyver-of-Love up immediately! We hopped on the very next train to Vegas and got married by the same chapel staff who joined Britney Spears and Jason Allen Alexander.

Mister Thirteen: I liked them. The staff, I mean. They weren't too nosy--real task-oriented. Kind of like a marrying S.W.A.T. team.

Mrs. Thirteen: "Wed first; ask questions later." Ah-hee.

Mister Thirteen: Now that's sanctity! When the swishes get married, they're hocking a cosmic loogie in the puss of God. I mean, marriage is a gift from the Big Guy, and when lesbos tie the knot, they presume they know His divine will!

Mrs. Thirteen: The gays don't know God's will—we do! We've got the paperwork to prove it...

Mister Thirteen: Damn straight! Damn straight we do! I mean, these gay people, they can get married! They just can't marry the people they want to marry. Well, like, hel-LO? Welcome to the human race! I-I mean, no offense, Turtle Dove, but Julia Roberts hasn't exactly returned my phone calls. Okay? All right? S-So the hell what, you fruit loops? Just be miserable like the rest of us and marry a member of the opposite sex!

Mrs. Thirteen: Or make other arrangements.

Mister Thirteen: Right, right—or muhhh ... make other ...uh, wh-what's that supposed to mean, Turtle Dove?

Mrs. Thirteen: Oh. Well. Remember how I said I was supposed to appear on a different program ... instead of "Who Wants To Marry a Hundredaire?"

Mister Thirteen [hesitantly; very softly]: Y...Yeahhh...

Mrs. Thirteen: Well, it was "America's Funniest Cross Dressers." [The sound of a blue dress falling to the floor.]

Mister Thirteen: Oh. You're ... this is ... just like The Crying Game. You ... this ... this is ... we ...

Mrs. Thirteen: It's not all bad news, Den-Den. I mean, it's not like I'm a pervert or anything: I like girls ... just like Ed Wood did! There's no going back now, Mister Thirteen—the ink is dry on our paperwork, remember? If we tear our sanctified union asunder at this point, everything in our marriage that's come before, all thirty-seven hours and four minutes, will become ... will become ...

Mister Thirteen: ...b.s...

Mrs. Thirteen: Exactly!


Terrance Griep is a Minneapolis-based professional writer, actor, and—yeah, really—wrestler. He can be reached at qpn2d@aol.com.