In case anyone was wondering why people acted surprised that Doug Phillips’ affair was with a woman, it’s because he posts photos on his blog like the one above.

I was poking around on his blog yesterday because, to be quite honest, I’d never much paid attention to Vision Forum other than to be creeped out by their catalog. When I came across the photo above, I had to do a double take because it looks so much like the sort of candid (but not really) wedding photos that everybody has, where the one spouse is gazing thoughtfully while the other spouse looks on, beaming. So nope, that’s not a tastefully understated portrait from a same-sex wedding, it’s just Doug Phillips with his “bosom friend” Peter Bradrick (and yes, he used that term to refer to Bradrick in another post, dude reads too many Victorian novels or something). 

And I thought everybody was just going for the easy joke when I saw all of the “WITH A WOMAN?!” tweets.

Oh well, I guess it’s kind of sweet in a way that Mr. Patriarchal Masculinity himself, Doug Phillips, has that kind of close, platonic male friends. It’s not the kind of thing you’re used to seeing though.