This painting is Dante and Virgil in hell by one of my favorite artists, William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It came to mind when I read that the DC City Council has voted to legalize gay marriage. This is a cause that means diddly squat to the lives of most of the inhabitants of my childhood home. DC has high crime, high poverty, schools so bad that no-one under the age of 45 can remember when they weren't rotten, and the highest rate of AIDS in America.
You could visit hell bringing a ladder, a rope and wings and no-one there would notice. The inhabitants are too busy wallowing in their own anguish and hate of themselves and everything else that the light of hope couldn't penetrate their minds. Of course, being in hell they have no other option but to torment themselves. I don't know what the DC Council's excuse is.
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