The end of the world is nigh

We seem to be beset by premature April Fool jokes. Yesterday, I noticed “village idiot” written in faux Arabic script on a Muslim mufti’s titfer (for those not in Blighty, that’s a bit of rhyming slang, but I’m sure you can figure out how it works), and later in the day I see that gay marriage will make the world end.

Oh, hang on a minute. That one’s serious.

Evangelical types – read suitable cases for treatment – in Minnesota have put forward an amendment to something or other that, they say, will stop the world from ending. I kid you not.

The clue is in the group’s name: Minnesota Family Council. You can bet that any group with Family in its name is likely to achieve the very opposite of family concord.

The group announced its amendment at a press conference flooded with religious leaders.

“If everyone is a gay, this world will cease to exist in ten years,” said Ikram ul-Huq, the imam and religious director of the Muslim Community Center of Bloomington. We think he means humankind. The world – i.e. Earth and its other fauna and flora – will continue, unless he’s talking of gay gophers and queer quinces, of poofter porcupines and faggot fennel, as well.

Well, Mr ul-Huq, we’ll pardon your anthropocentrism for the moment, and just say that, apart from the fact that gay men can still summon the wherewithal to service a willing lady (gay or straight), and apart from the fact that artificial insemination is a reality in this and the last centuries, if not in the one you would prefer to be living in, the incontrovertible fact is that not everyone is gay.

If everyone were infertile, the world would end (the human world, anyway). There are people who are infertile, but not everyone is infertile. Therefore the world will not end.

If everyone were to get killed in a road accident tomorrow, the world would similarly end. There are people walking around now who will die in road accidents tomorrow, but not everyone will. Therefore the world will not end.

It may end for other reasons (a rapidly approaching asteroid we can’t fly Bruce Willis to in time, for instance), but not for the reasons you posit.

I’m surprised any press bothered to turn up. Perhaps they wouldn’t have done so if they’d known what sort of inane crap was going to come out of it.