There's Something About Marrying

"There's Something About Marrying" is an episode from the sixteenth season of The Simpsons. It concerns the issue of gay marriage and is the first episode of The Simpsons to have a "parental discretion advised" warning air before the episode. This episode is one of two that carries a "TV-14 rating".

Episode details

Production Number: GABF04
Original Air Date: February 20, 2005
Writer: J. Stewart Burns
Director: Nancy Kruse
Couch Gag: The family skates around the living room dressed as hockey players, complete with missing teeth

Synopsis

Bart and Milhouse find a man called Howell Huser, whose been roaming America. They torment him so much that he breaks his 47 year long smiling streak. Huser leaves and appears on TV, saying just how terrible Springfield is. Within a month, the Springfield tourism business closes. As a solution, Lisa suggests they legalize same-sex marriage.

Soon, hundreds of gay and lesbian couples come to Springfield. However, Rev. Lovejoy still holds the view that marriage is only between a man and a woman and refuses to join any same-sex couple. Homer, when he overhears the fact that ministers get paid $200 per couple, decides to become a minister himself. Shortly afterwards, he marries every gay couple in town.

Patty tells Marge that she herself is a lesbian and is in love with a pro-golfer named Veronica. Marge is extremely uncomfortable with this new fact, even though the evidence was always there. She also makes a shocking discovery: Veronica is actually a man. At the ceremony, Marge states "Veronica's" secret and when he asks Patty to still marry him, she declines. Selma and Patty then go to leave a bag at the airport unattended, as a way to meet security personnel.

Quotes

• Disco Stu: Disco Stu just got an annullment from John Paul Two. Boogie down!
• Marge: As long as two people love each other, I don't think God cares whether they both have the same "hoo-hoo" or "ha-ha".
  Nelson: Ha-ha!
• Mayor Quimby: (in gay-pride video) Springfield, a place where anyone can marry, even dudes. We're just off Route 202. Do not take the Jefferson Avenue exit. For God's sake, do not take that exit!
• Homer: Who's next? Adam and Steve? Or Madame and Eve?
  Marge: Homer, you married every gay couple in town.
  Bart: I guess now you have to wait for some other guys to turn.
  Homer: Hmmmm. Where's Lenny and Carl?
  Marge: Homer, don't you push them! They have to work it out for themselves.
• Rev. Lovejoy: The Bible forbids same-sex relations.
  Marge: Which book?
  Rev. Lovejoy: Which book?! The Bible!
  Marge: But Reverend... (Lovejoy begins cranking the church bells so loud that it drowns out what Marge is saying. You can make out that she is saying something about scholars disagreeing on how people view the Bible and how Jesus' teachings were about love and compassion)
  Mayor Quimby: Lovejoy's an idiot! His church is turning away hot dogs of gay green. He could get 200 bucks a couple.
  Homer: Two hundred bucks a couple, eh? (He then sees three gay couples and sees them as $100 bills) Hey, I gotta get in on this. These people have rights! The right to buy me a 62-inch TV! (Homer then throws his picket sign "Death before Gay Marriage" into a trash bin)