A while back, Britney Spears, Ms. Not-That-Innocent (or not that intelligent), stirred up a little “maybe I’m bi” controversy on the MTV Awards by enjoying a choreographed, tongue in cheek lip lock with Madonna. The media went nuts. The infamous kiss played over and over on every newscast and entertainment related show for weeks. Big deal. Madonna’s kissed lots of girls. Some even with brains. And a few are real lesbians, too. So why must Britney, no stranger to the paparazzi, swap spit with another woman to get attention? Can’t she think of any other way to get her skanky yet ubiquitous persona in the news?

Well apparently she can. That 20-something, air for brains, virgin turned vamp, pop icon dragged one of her hayseed homeboys to The Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas at 5:00 a.m. to get hitched. We learned from the many sources that covered this compelling story that she and down home hubby Jason have been friends since kindergarten. And now they’re reliving those days.

Nobody asked them what their intentions were. Nobody cared that this was just an immature prank conducted by someone with way too much money, someone who will do just about anything to get on the cover of People. All the happy couple needed was a marriage license which, apparently, is easily obtained at 4:00 a.m. in Las Vegas, and The Little White Wedding Chapel was more than accommodating, pronouncing them husband and wife in a hung over, pre-dawn ceremony that took low class to a fresh, new abyss.

I was particularly impressed with the spiritual aspects of the nuptials. A limo driver from the Palms Casino walked Bridal Brit down the aisle. And her wedding attire was to die for. Torn jeans and a ball cap. I’m sure that outfit will grace the cover of many bridal magazines this spring. Maybe they actually got married at The Little White Trash Wedding Chapel.

So, let me get this uh, straight, Britney can grab any guy, go to a cheesy wedding place, which incidentally offers drive-thru service, get hitched in a ceremony reminiscent of a drunken trip to 7-Eleven, and immediately gain over 1,000 legal rights as a married person, even if she’ll never use any of them. It’ll take more than a Big Gulp and a bag of Cheetos to digest that insult. And what makes the whole thing so incredibly ludicrous is that they got the marriage annulled a mere 55 hours later. Fifty-five hours of a prank marriage and we can’t marry legally for 55 seconds.

So, all you right wing, holier than thou, Bible thumping zealots, how’s that for preserving the sanctity of marriage? Why hasn’t the world, as we know it, come to an end when a heterosexual couple makes “a mockery of this scared institution”? God had absolutely nothing to do with these classy nuptials. Neither did Bridal Brit’s handlers or this never would have happened.

My partner and I have been together six years. We own our home and we are about as married as we can be. We cover each other with every shred of protection possible. But domestic partnership falls short of the rights we really need because, as we queers know all too well, only legally married couples are totally protected. For 55 hours, Britney Spears and her buddy/husband Jason were legally protected as a couple by state and federal laws, regardless of the circumstances under which they got married.

Las Vegas — “what happens here stays here.” Now I know why.