The front page of the San Francisco Chronicle today is interesting. There are stories about the weddings in California today, the joyous unions of gay couples and lesbian couples. There are stories here, here and here (small profiles of lovely couples itching to wed). The paper is full of stories of gay and lesbian couples taking advantage of the opportunity to unite forever. That is appropriate. I wish all these loving couples the best, whether I read about them in the Chronicle or in the New York Times. This is a positive sign for America, that we recognize people who love one another and who wish to demonstrate their commitment.

Also on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle is this sad story. It is about a man who has killed his own child, a two year old. I’ll give you a taste from the Chronicle:

A 27-year-old grocery store worker who police say punched and kicked his 2-year-old son to death on a country road calmly told motorists who stopped at the scene that he had to “get the demons” out of the boy, two witnesses said Monday.

Sergio Casian Aguiar of Turlock told people who urged him to stop late Saturday that the boy was “trash,” the witnesses said. He asked for a knife at one point and, at another, said, “Look how they make toys now.”

And when a Modesto police officer jumped off a helicopter and ordered Aguiar to stop at gunpoint, he raised his middle finger and continued his attack.

Officer Jerry Ramar, standing in a cow pasture behind an electric fence, shot Aguiar once in the forehead, the witnesses and police said. Aguiar died at the scene.

“Good shot, thank God,” said Deborah McKain, a 51-year-old resident of nearby Crows Landing who pulled up to the beating scene on a cracked two-lane road while on her way home from dinner in Turlock, 10 miles to the northeast. “That guy needed to die.”

The reason a father with no criminal record would commit such a brutal killing was still a mystery on Monday. Authorities do not know whether Aguiar was drunk or on drugs, and toxicology reports on him and his son will not be available for three to four weeks, said sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Royjindar Singh.

The boy was beaten so savagely that DNA tests will be needed to confirm his identity, Singh said. His name has not been released.

I know this is a cheap shot. I’m going to go there anyway. How can those supposed Christians who oppose gay marriage whine and scream and collect petitions when the real danger in this society is from folks like Sergio Casian Aguiar, a man who is heterosexual, but who destroyed his own son in full view of the public, destroyed him so much that DNA will be the only way we can find out he is in fact Sergio Casian Aguiar’s son? Shouldn’t the Christian conservatives be focused on marriages that are so disfunctional as to lead to ugly crimes and rampant abuse such as this?

Wait, wait, don’t tell me. Yeah, this is a cheap shot. Not all heterosexual parents are abusive, and certainly not all gay marriages are found in storybooks. I know that. You know that. But I’m thinking those glorious weddings, with the smiles on everyone’s faces throughout California, trumps one deranged herterosexual man who decided, perhaps spoken to by his notion of “God,” smacking his boy to death at the side of the road. How can all those Christians filling out petitions against the gay weddings in California sleep at night in the face of all this beauty juxtaposed against this ugliness that are circulating zero petitions about.

Yeah, I’ll say it again. I know this is a cheap shot. Still, I think the sanctimonious Christian right needs to get its priorities in order. Gosh, that’s not all that difficult to see, is it?