April 9, 2009
Gay Marriage: Four Down, 46 to Go
Last Friday it was Iowa. This week it’s
Vermont. Tomorrow it could be your state,
and who knows what it could lead to.
A shocking and virulent pandemic of justice
seems to be sweeping across America as all
of a sudden state legislatures and supreme
courts waken from centuries-long comas and
begin actually applying the principle of
equality under law for all citizens,
including the scary gay ones who so
intimidate the political and religious
right. Yes, the right to legal recognition
of one’s marriage has finally been extended
to all the citizens of Iowa and Vermont,
bringing to four the number of U.S. states
not under the thrall of Levitical piffle.
Hard to believe, but true: There are now
actually four U.S. states that have moved
past the Pleistocene era and may now be
considered civilized.
Who would have believed it? It was only
eight short, dark years ago that the
American electorate placed a protofascist
baboon in its highest elective office in a
seeming effort to yank the entire nation
back into the dark ages. An unholy alliance
between televangelical scaremongers, cynical
Republican legislators and a compliant and
supplicating national media seemed perfectly
positioned to poison the national intellect
for decades to come with a torrent of
faith-based divide-and-conquer drivel
designed to neatly insert wedges between
virtually every American demographic:
African-Americans vs. Latinos vs. Asians vs.
Anglos vs. gays vs. straights vs. poor vs.
middle class – a seemingly unstoppable
strategy designed to permanently assert the
primacy of the Rich White Corporatist
Christian.
From the vantage point of 2001, it might
have seemed reasonable to expect to have
seen a return to public stonings and witch
burnings by the time we reached 2009, set to
a soundtrack legions of Pat Boone clones
droning “Nearer My God To Thee” as visions
of the rapture danced in their fat little
heads.
Well, this is what might be called a
reversal of fortune. Somewhere between
“Mission Accomplished” and global economic
collapse, putrescent bigotry and
pig-ignorant superstition lost some of their
curb appeal as Americans figured out that
they really had bigger things to worry about
than who Johnny or Janie was attracted to or
in love with. By all appearances, the world
was going straight to hell under the aegis
of those who professed to lead it toward
paradise.
War, famine, plague and pestilence started
to take root here in the Good Ol’ USA, right
under the less-than-watchful eye of its
Stepford president and the legions of
megachurch-bred flying monkeys serving as
his support staff. Thanks in part to all of
their finger-pointing, screeching,
inveighing and bemoaning, the country’s gay
minority was placed under the popular
microscope, prodded and examined as never
before – and when America looked closely at
these reviled outsiders, it actually learned
something new.
Gay Americans weren’t, as it turned out, the
Evil Scary Other that they had been painted
as. They were the next door neighbor, the
housepainter, the schoolteacher and the
policeman. They were Aunt Barbara and Cousin
Bill, Doctor Alice and Professor Joe. They
looked, walked, talked, laughed, worked,
lived and died just like us – because they
were us.
The generations-long campaign of
orchestrated fear and loathing waged by
organized religion against this
misunderstood minority depended upon an aura
of mystery surrounding gay people and gay
life in order for its virulence to fester.
And fester it did: Brandon Teena, Matthew
Shepard and countless others were destroyed
at the hands of the Falwellian freaks who
served as the movement’s foot soldiers. As
the mystery evaporates, so do the structural
underpinnings of organized anti-gay bigotry,
leaving the Pat Robertsons, Rick Warrens and
– snicker – Ted Haggards of the world
holding nothing but tired slogans and
transparent lies.
Freedom, as George W. Bush might have said,
is on the march. This time, it is marching
in lockstep with an emergent gay America,
whether the right likes it or not. Order the
cake and flowers, and strike up the band.
State numbers five, six, seven and eight are
about to join the 21st Century,
and there’s not a damn thing the
reactionaries can do about it but cry.
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2009 North Star Writers Group. May not
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