watch it: “Prop 8 The Musical”

So apparently Hairspray composer Marc Shaiman, who cheerfully describes himself as having “been born really, really gay,” got really, really pissed about the passage of Prop 8 -- or as some have been rightly calling it, Prop Hate -- and decided that the best way to fight back was to render his opponents down into their base component, laughingstockium, which was, I believe, discovered by Professor Groucho Marx in 1923. And hence we have the wonderful and witty and bitter and raging and funny and call-to-action-y “Prop 8 The Musical.”

You probably would have guessed this anyway, but Shaiman was also the composer on South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

I think, perhaps, that John C. Reilly and Allison Janney as the self-righteous, stick-up-their-butt prigs may have, with their performances here -- not to mention Shaiman’s lyrics -- forever precluded us from ever describing people like those civil-rights-rejecting, love-denying bigots as having sticks up their butts. Unless we want to imply that they might like that. (Not that’s anything wrong with enjoying a stick up your butt once in a while... except that those people would consider it an insult for us to suggest that they might.) Cuz that’s pretty much the call to action here: point a derisive finger at these people and laugh. Because they are on their way to the dustbin of history. Our grandchildren are going to read about their ignorance and wonder how people could be so mean. Or so stupid. Because -- and here I don’t want to spoil it for you “Prop 8 The Musical” virgins if you’re reading this before you watch the video, but once Neil Patrick Harris enters stage right, his little tune pretty much gets to the heart of the issue, and what’s really at stake here.

Oh, and Jack Black as Jesus? Heavenly.