not guilty, your honor, by reason of t-shirt declaration

This via boingboing.net:

Man in "I [Heart] My Marriage" t-shirt arrested for domestic battery

Posted by David Pescovitz, March 20, 2009 8:59 PM | permalink

This gentleman was arrested on Monday for attempting to strangle his wife. Bradley Gellert, of Apollo Beach, Florida, was indeed wearing the "I [heart] My Marriage" t-shirt at the time of the arrest. From WTSP:

The arrest report says that the couple were arguing over drugs, and during the fight at their home, Gellert screamed in his wife's face, threw things, grabbed her neck and strangled her, and knocked her to the ground.


What's not to love about the irony of this story? Those I [heart] My Wife/Husband or I [heart] My Marriage or I [heart] My Filipino Mail Order Bride are already disturbing. If we are married and feel we have to assure the world in general that we love our spouse...well, it's just creepy public grandstanding.

Let's say I saw someone sporting a I [heart] My Newborn t-shirt. I would be tempted to run up to the parent and ask, "as opposed to...what? I am lukewarm about my infant? I loathe my baby?" Seriously, if you don't love your newborn then your t-shirt is not going to make it better. If you do love your newborn then plastering it across your tits seems to assume that the t-shirt reading public is extremely dull-witted and needs it spelled out that you do have warm parental feelings. Be that as it may, I don't think these t-shirt wearers have ironic sociological commentary in mind when they don their warm-fuzzy shirts.

Finally, I feel not a little umbrage at the opening line:

"This gentleman was arrested on Monday for attempting to strangle his wife."

I reject most notions of "ladies" and "gentlemen" in any culture but I'm pretty sure that attempting to strangle your wife puts you just outside the definition of being a gentleman.