I want to address two groups this morning.
First, to the good people of Daily Kos:
Come on, folks. This was not California or New York we're talking about here. And despite the appeals to understand and help the people of NC, really... it's not going to happen.
The bigots are too entrenched. This is a war of attrition. The only way we're going to eventually win this is by waiting them out and winning in the courts (and in the sane states, by voting them out). We're not going to win this battle with votes in any state with a bigot majority.
It's just not going to happen.
But I also want to address the good bigot population of the state of North Carolina this morning.
Dear bigot population of the state of North Carolina,
Hi. Let me introduce myself. My name is Killer of Sacred Cows, and I'm your worst nightmare.
I'm an out, proud gay man who was married to another man in California, my home state. I have two children, one of whom is also gay. I am living with my current partner and, once amendments like yours get overturned in my state and yours, we plan to get married.
It may not have occurred to you in your bigoted, probably religiously-driven voting frenzy yesterday to make me an unperson, that I'm an American citizen, just like you. It may not have even occurred to you that people who aren't just like you can be citizens. In fact, I'm sure it hasn't. To you, the only real people are people who are just like you - straight, churchgoing, fill-in-your-flavor-of-fundamentalist-christian here.
No, it may not have occurred to you that I'm a real person or even a human being, since me and people like me have been made the boogeyman of choice in your churches and your kitchens and across your backyard fences and at the water cooler in the office and the factory for at least the last generation. I guess you didn't have enough people to beat up on since the blacks got their freedom and women got the vote, so you needed a new scapegoat.
And believe it or not, I even understand why you did it. I'm a sociologist. Among many other social issues, sociologists study deviance and its dynamics and effects. In fact, in graduate school, deviance was one of my specialization areas.
So let me explain to you why you did it. It wasn't your church. It wasn't your disgust. It wasn't even your religion.
It was just your basic, primitive social need to find someone to scapegoat. Someone to blame for how the world is changing and how you can't stop it. Someone to blame for the slow disintegration of the influence your churches are having, your bigotry is having, your outdated belief systems are having on American culture. You know, on some deep level, that your time is ending, so you need someone to blame for that, and right now, my community is convenient and preferred. You see, scapegoats and their deviance (even if it's completely fictional deviance that's made up by the larger group in a witch hunt) serve an important social function. They create cohesion and social bonding within the group that ousts and condemns the scapegoat. It allows the larger group to feel good about themselves and to feel connected to others who are similar to themselves.
It's not like we haven't seen this before, after all. Hitler did it in Germany; China did it in their Glorious Revolution; hell, a bunch of guys got together and did it to a dude named Jesus (and to his followers) about 2,000 years ago, if your book is actually historically valid and not just a bunch of made-up fairytales. It's just simple social dynamics. Your social position felt shaky, so you firmed it up by going after the people that scared you.
It's nothing new. We've seen this before.
But you know what? I also study social movements. I study tipping points. I study that point at which the tide turns. And one of the things that bring about those tipping points is when what used to be considered deviant becomes common and commonplace. One of the things that causes social change is when the deviant becomes the normal.
And like it or not, that's already happened. Being gay is no longer an automatic death sentence (even if you and your buddies in, say, Wyoming keep trying to impose it on us). Being gay is no longer an automatic entry into jail or a mental institution. Being gay is even accepted in many mainstream churches these days. It's no longer a social stigma, even in the big cities in your neck of the woods. Greensboro, Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, Memphis - all of these places have thriving gay communities every bit as real as those in the Castro, West Hollywood and the Village. We are out, proud, and in your face. And nowadays, when you attack us, you tend to get a backlash instead of applause.
And you hate it. The tipping point's already happened. The avalanche has already started. The tidal wave is building and it's going to wash you away. And you know it.
So like it or not, you can scapegoat us as many times as you like and we will still be here. You can target us for beatings and we will still be here. You can try to take away our rights but you can't erase us. We will still be here.
Because the tide is turning. In the last six to ten months, polls reveal that the majority of the country no longer agrees with you, the bigots of North Carolina, about who's supposed to be the scapegoat. 53% in favor of marriage equality nationwide means that very soon, we will be starting repeal efforts in those states that seem viable - including my own home state of California. And those efforts will be successful. Proposition 8 (and, eventually, Amendment 1) will go the way of the Dred Scott decision. You will see your hard-won scapegoating laws fall like houses built on the beach when the tidal wave hits them.
You may not know it yet, but your grandchildren are going to be embarrassed of you and ashamed of you, the same way I'm ashamed to admit that I have slave-owner ancestry. They're going to reject your beliefs and your bigotry.
Because the tide is turning, so you'd better learn to swim.