The Relevance of Downton Abbey

(Fair warning: I'm going to do my best to remain spoiler-free in this post, but I will be making some allusions to things in the latest series of episodes.)

As so many of my friends have been doing, lately, I've been watching the PBS Masterpiece Theater showings of "Downton Abbey." Among other things, there is an awfully lot of romance involved - frequently across class lines and into other such forbidden territories.

In the episode I just watched, the cross-class romance - once people truly stopped and paid attention to the love and not the classes - actually won out over prejudices and all was (relatively) right with the world.

So far, so good.

Then there's the romance wherein one of the members just might have to go to jail due to some past mis-steps. And, as he's dealing with them, the woman he loves turns to him and says that she wants to marry him so that she can't be denied her rights if he is taken into court custody.

Still, not bad.

Now let's look at the current state of New Jersey, where the governor - a single solitary man - has vetoed a bill which passed both houses of the State legislature AND had the popular support of the residents of the state. That bill was for Marriage Equality.

This one man used his own bigotry and hate to push forward an agenda wherein I would be considered a second-class citizen. Where my love for another human being is called unworthy. And where, should anything happen to my partner, I would have no rights of any kind.

I fully realize that "Downton Abbey" is fictitious. That it's focusing on the rights of the classes in early 20th Century England. And that it's not meant to be an allegory of life in America in the 21st Century. But the world is strange and the parallels are definitely there.

In better news, this evening the Maryland State House of Delegates approved a same-sex marriage bill which puts their state on track to become the eighth state in the union to recognize same-sex marriages.

And, in the past week, the city of Minneapolis took a public stand against the proposed MN Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage.

If only we could have the "Downton Abbey" scriptwriters work out a positive ending for us all. Preferably to be wrapped up in six episodes or less.