Sorry to bug you on our off day, but I couldn’t wait. I’m just so thrilled about this news! There is good news–no, spectacular news!–on the marriage equality front! Seems like SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the United States) had a bunch of cases about that lined up in front of them and simply refused to hear them, which means that their previous decisions (in favor of equality) stand. That means that couples in Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Utah can pretty much get married whenevs. And it means that unless one of the other lower courts decides against equal marriage (which might happen, but still), it’s pretty much over now for the bigotry-and-homophobia crowd.
And that also means that the anti-LGBTQ bigots and homophobes are, right now, frothing at the mouth and stamping their widdle fetties at the idea that two consenting adults who are madly in love with each other can now legally marry each other in a bunch more states and get equal protection under the law, in full defiance of what Christianist zealots want or feel comfy with.
Think about that for a second.
About six months ago, I ran across a person online who said that a friend of hers, a Constitutional lawyer and a big name in the biz, had given the whole shebang about fourteen months tops before it was legal everywhere. That sounded at the time like an oddly specific timeframe, but we’re now coming up on over half the country joining the love-and-commitment party only six months later. I’m just boggling over here at how fast it’s going–not fast enough, never, but damn, it’s going all right.
Naturally, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM, and yes, I think that’s hilarious too) is completely losing its mind and quickly running out of synonyms for “horrified.” I just don’t have words for how funny I think their reaction is; they’re “surprised”–which considering their obsession with gay people and equal marriage is surprising in and of itself; I don’t think anybody who could read was surprised at all that equal marriage won, only at how quickly it is winning.
And Ted Cruz, one of the Values Voter Summit darlings, is losing his shit as well, calling the SCOTUS move “tragic and indefensible,” showing he doesn’t know much about the legal process. So much for individual freedoms and liberties and the government not interfering with people, hmm? He’s been busy lately introducing legislation that gratuitously spites and mistreats LGBTQ people, so I can understand why he’s feeling so petulant right now. But then he went on to whine about something else, something that reveals an even more glaring lack in his education.
Remember what we talked about last time, where I charged that Christians now covet the right to interfere with (and sometimes even deny or override) the decisions total strangers make? That, seriously, is the response to this SCOTUS news in a nutshell. Ted Cruz is seriously upset here that “the people” did not get to vote on whether or not LGBTQ people get full American rights or not.
And yes, I totally bet he would like “the people” to decide whether or not LGBTQ people get full American rights or not. There is a big reason why the Teapublicans are all making this same petulant poutyface about “the people” lately.
I’m not sure Ted Cruz knows–or would care if he did know–that the whole idea about rights is that they are not up for a fucking vote. We vote on how to spend our federal dollars. We vote on what we want that big patch of land to be used for. But I’m not so sure that people’s human rights are something we should be letting a tyrannical majority decide. Most people in privileged groups are slow to recognize the validity of a marginalized group’s grievances; that’s why often these situations get resolved via the courts rather than at the voting booth. Courts’ judges are in a better position to see if a proposal is Constitutional than are voters. I wonder if Ted Cruz would be so quick to whine for “the people” to vote on rights if it were his human rights up on the chopping block, because one of these days it may well come down to that, as fast as Christianity is dissolving. And he’ll be very grateful indeed on that fine day that we have a government that doesn’t just let “the people” overrule the Constitution and human decency. And yes, that is what he really wants to see happen. For all his fetishizing of the Constitution and all his claims to piety and all his sanctimonious posturing and super-duper-extra-sincere Jesus-y eyebrow-waggling, neither he nor his mob of sympathizers seem to know much about the Constitution, and they seem to know even less about human decency. I cannot imagine a less-capable group of people to dominate our country than right-wing Republican fundagelicals are.
But Poopypants McEyebrows is in the minority here. Most of “the people” he’s talking about are actually totally on board with equal marriage anyway. And most of the Republican obstructionists are showing throat, having finally seen the inevitable end to their doomed fight. Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, says that he’s done fighting against equal marriage:
“For us, it’s over in Wisconsin,” Walker said, according to the Associated Press. “The federal courts have ruled that this decision by this court of appeals decision is the law of the land and we will be upholding it.”
And you should see his photo in the news, too; the guy looks like someone pissed in his Wheaties.
Poor puddy. Look carefully at that face. That’s what a total bigot looks like when he figures out that no, actually, he will never, ever, ever get to dehumanize and marginalize entire swathes of people just because he thinks his magical invisible wizard friend (by wildest of all wild coincidences) has the exact same opinion of those people that he has. The miracle is that it only took him what, five years to figure out it was a losing battle and to quit being fussy about his loss.
Let him pout. Let the whole stinking lot of them whine. Let them fester and rot. The rest of us are all looking forward to all the wedding photos that are sure to come. We’re too busy being happy to care, or to do more than point and laugh at those joyless bigots stewing in their own rage.
I know that I’m on the right side when I’m on the side that produces pictures of joyous, loving couples just like every other couple who has gotten married since we redefined marriage to make it about love rather than a property exchange.
(And may all of them enjoy many, many years together! Mazel tov! Seriously, how can something be bad if it’s about love? Are these Christian zealots sure they’re worshiping the right god?)
Speaking of which: I just want to say, that many years from now, we will see an older gay couple whose anniversary is in early October, and we will know the likely reason why, the same way we’re pretty sure we know what a mid-November child’s parents were doing on Valentine’s Day. I find that idea heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
Congratulations go tonight to those couples who can now get married. It won’t be much longer, for the rest of the country’s LGBTQ people who are still waiting for the day when they are equal in the eyes of their states’ laws. That day is coming, and soon.
In a few years fundagelicals will try to lie to us and tell us they were right at the vanguard of LGBTQ rights, and we won’t let them get away with that any more than we let them get away with ripping rights away from American citizens. But that’s in the future.
Tonight, let hypocritical, hate-filled, dominance-minded bigots cry and froth and rage and panic and pound their fists into the ground and stomp their feet. Let them bluster and shriek and whine. Let them threaten us with meteors sent by their “loving” god. Let them. These are the blusterings of bullies denied their victims at long last. The cacophony of their impotent mewlings and hollow bellowing only form a background symphony for human progress. When they’re ready to calm down, maybe we’ll have them in for wedding-cake. Make no mistake: they will calm down–and quickly at that. If there is anything I can say for sure, it’s that even the most rabid of bigots will soon realize that nothing’s really going to change for them if other people see the right to marry recognized by this nation. Indeed, that’s been the most damning aspect of the whole culture war from the get-go: how very, very little things will change for uninvolved parties once this culture war Christians started ends.
But tonight, dear friends, tonight, tonight, tonight…. Tonight we feast on the tears of bigots, and raise our glasses to toast the many new beginnings now starting across the country. Congratulations, and many best wishes, and may the rest of the country quickly follow along.