Just saw that some headlines like this are making the rounds this morning:
Was Mrs. O Too Touchy With Queen?
Media Sputter As First Lady Touches Queen
The fact that this is even news makes me sad. Here's the lead from The Guardian:
Whoever briefed Michelle Obama on the things one does and doesn't do with one's hands when one meets the Queen must be wondering what went wrong.
Within minutes of their first encounter at Buckingham Palace yesterday, America's first lady broke royal protocol by doing the unthinkable: she gave the Queen a hug. The monarch, for her part, responded with equally flagrant disregard for convention by returning the gesture.
I suppose the fact that I don't live in a country where clinging to ass-backwards notions of royalty and Queens and Kings and knights in shining fucking armor is all the rage makes this hard for me to understand, but please, let's get a grip.
This article in Time has the "rationale" behind it:
So where does this rule about not touching the Queen come from? The sovereigns of England and France at some point in their nations' long histories claimed a divine right to rule, a right often amplified by titles bestowed by the Pope in Rome. (The Queen, in fact, still has the title Defender of the Faith, an honor given to Henry VIII before he broke with the Catholic Church and established the Church of England.) That touch of holiness once gave the occupant of the throne the supposed ability to cure certain diseases — most famously, scrofula, a terrible skin ailment that was called "the king's evil." Thus, the miraculous contact had to be conserved. And so, whether a touch or a nod or a gaze, royal favor, like that of God, is not a subject's on demand; it is dispensed by kingly prerogative.
Yes, because this kind of thought process has a place in a highly-functioning democracy.
Sure.
JS
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