Woman Marries Dolphin

Today's news brings the weirdest wedding announcement since the one telling all that the Roman emperor, Caligula, had made an honest horse of the animal he'd been sleeping with for awhile and by joining it in matrimony.

A British woman has "married" a dolphin to which she's taken a shine. The animal is resident in an Israeli sea park.

Now, of course, this is all quite ridiculous. People will say that it signifies nothing. It's just a filler story for the end of news broadcasts.

But I can't help but wonder if, in one way or another, the tale doesn't reflect the world's prevailing "anything goes" mentality.

This wasn't the act of an individual woman, after all. The dolphin's trainer and owner had to go along with this fruity idea. Whether they acquiesced out of a love for the almighty buck--the "bride" is a millionaire rock show promoter--or out of a genuine commitment to trans-specie intermarriage, granting the dolphin's fin in marriage, as one of the news accounts cleverly describes it, is still irresponsible.

I also have no doubt that there will be anthropomorphizing animal-lovers who applaud the ceremony.

Caligula, whose antics have traditionally been pointed to by historians as symptomatic of the moral deterioration and spiritual ennui that led to Rome's fall, probably would have sent a wedding gift.

(I first saw this item mentioned on Rick Moore's blog.)