Just like after the American Girl line started sponsering some organization that had some vague link to abortion, expect a bunch of losers with no jobs or lives who listen to James Dobson all day to start protesting outside Hallmark HQ.

"What is scary is to produce a marriage line and then November comes and it's recalled and we have thousands of dollars of inventory waiting,"

Yes, becuase that would be the WORST that would come of it! Acutally, as much as it may offend some of my liberal bretheren, perhaps the market really is the best way towards gay equality! If Hallmark can see the money tree growing, this could be a good sign for the future!

But I don't know a lot of gay guys who'd be into Hallmarks particular maudling, sappy sense of sentimentality. I'm sure there are some people who would be open to this, but it also seems that there would be a bigger market for cards that are more in line with a hipper, wittier type of mind set.

...making way for the new way.

I applaud that.

Now, so that the trolls won't have to soil this thread with their shitty sentiments, I'll just post what they typically post, thus obviating their need to poop-post: "I'd like to take a flamerthrower to the faces of those queers!"

You always crack me up. Flamethrower to the face, indeed. Given the fact that a significant number of the anti-gay trolls are unquestionably repressed closet cases themselves, the fact that you used "flame" and "to the face" in the same brief, elegant clause is priceless.

Let's see if anyone really starts protesting. I think not. I think most people won't even notice it, and anti-same-sex-marriage activists will be too busy lobying or protesting legislation to really take notice of that. They'll only turn against such cards if same-sex marriages become legal in too many states.

@ bigguns: I agree with d.c.eric, that was a fantastic line. Do you write poetry? I can see why you chose the name "bigguns" :-)

Thanks.

I once was a poet. I realized that I would live the short, tragic life of many poets, via starvation, so I switched, but not before a New Yorker editor observed, "that (I'm) a disturbing writer, all the more to (my) credit." I love that descriptor: "disturbing"

Yep, it's apt.

And I love that you two think I'm funny, for I'm cyberfond of both of you and I do write humor, among other things, but no more poems: it's all paying prose nowadays.

However, if one of my books sell well, I might return to poetry. I sure miss it.

Like a lot of writers, I come here to avoid my work. I wonder where Salon writers go to avoid their work.

Speaking of disturbing, I disturbed one of the trolls yesterday with "cuddling with Jesus," but there are C & W songs and a "footsteps in the sand" poem that recall puppy love. Who walks on a beach, side by side? Lovers. So, of all the possible settings, why would an alleged believer pick the beach and limit it to a twosome in their fantasy of meeting Jesus? You see, I'm not disturbing. It's the world that's disturbing. Like Harry, I don't give 'em Hell. I just observe the truth and folks think it's Hell.

"Dear Roomate"

(and then you open the card and inside it said)

"I room you very much"

this was maybe 25 years ago.

Until they start coming out with "I gave you herpes" cards, I refuse to consider Hallmark in any way edgy.

Smart or Dumb? Hallmark releases gay marriage cards - two tuxedos [VOTE] - http://www.thriveorfail.com/c211a

I agree with Eric and Asehpe :) always a pleasure to read ya!

I just got invited to a gay wedding, and this will make finding the perfect card that much easier.

Seriously, why not make wedding cards for gay couples?

Mwaaah!

I think it worked.

Maybe it did! [insert half a minute of laughter here].

I think it would be a good idea to go back to writing poetry, even if only for yourself. I also wrote poetry earlier in life, and I also got published (though poorly-known Brazilian poetry reviews pale in comparison with the New Yorker). I never really stopped writing poetry for my own amusement (though sometimes I went a couple of years without doing any); it's still fun. I just stopped showing it to others.

I wrote this for Karen when I woke up this morning:

her warm body is beautiful to me

to crawl under the covers after study or play

to reach out and have her weight be an existence in the world

the soft smell of her skin and hair surrounding me like a net of safety

the darkness of the room, the quiet of the house

peace is so easy to find here

Laugh, now you all have to share your last one or I will whine and wheedle at you every time I see you online. Mine was bad and I posted it >:) (that's an evil grin) come on, let's see what'cha got! poke, poke, poke

But I didn't write poety like yours. I'm twisted. I wrote poetry about unraveling mothers and such things. See:

At Christmas, my sister passed them to me.

They came like contraband slapped into my tourist hand at Tunis,

an unclean misdelivery before

the Godlike sunglasses of the soldiers.

One clings, in Tunis and at Christmas—reflexively,

but I knew no way by words to make mother’s pearls mine.

My constriction bore me a barenecked holiday.

Other than the pearls,

mother’s jewelry was junk.

My sister and I could use her swollen jewels

and Bakelite bracelets to play princesses with permission,

but the pearls took a second permission.

“Be careful,” mother would caution, “they’re your grandmother’s pearls.”

We liked the warning.

It promoted our disconnected play to rehearsal, serious and scripted,

for the days when we would wear important things ‘round our necks.

And we, as common children, desired the firm edge that was near to ready.

Near to real.

The pearls were real, are real.

Mother’s cold, unraveling body is not.

It cannot speak to her fierce, mercurial desires.

My sister and I talk and talk,

spinning syllables like mad spiders,

a tacky tangle of words

that muffle mortality’s buzz

and I wrapped my cobalt, silk scarf ‘round Mother’s pearls

and wonder when my daughter will realize them

in their blue night.