Homobigots won’t throw in the towel

Having been, once again, roundly trounced in their efforts to pass a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage through the traditional methods, now “the religious right is considering appealing to state legislatures to call a Constitutional Convention under an obscure provision of Article 5 that would allow amendments to the Constitution without congressional approval.”

Meeting after the big failure at the offices of the social-conservative Family Research Council, the top leaders of the marriage movement — Catholic, Protestant and Mormon leaders among others — discussed the possibility of an unprecedented Constitutional Convention. Two-thirds (34) of the state legislatures would have to call for such a convention — which could be done only with great difficulty. Even then, no one knows what such a convention would look like or what sort of amendments could result from it.
Robert Nofacts Novak says the idea is “rather fanciful,” but thinks it might be possible. As per usual, he’s delusional. It’s highly improbable that 34 state legislatures—even some of those who have helped pass state amendments banning gay marriage—will go along with such a crackpot scheme.

Nonetheless, the discussion among leading homobigots casts into stark relief two big issues.

1. The people who support this shit are totally batshit bonkers and will stop at nothing to permanently relegate the LGBT community to second-class citizenship. After all their wailing about activist judges, here they are trying to find a way to circumvent the legislature after it didn’t deliver unto them the Constitutional amendment they so fervently desire, even after routinely asserting that the legislature was the only acceptable method for resolving the issue. They are vile, hatemongering hypocrites, and I don’t give a piddly shit how firmly they wrap themselves in the flag or how often they claim they’ve got God on their side. There’s not anything remotely moral about it, and I refuse to address it as though there is. This is nothing but an attempt to codify bigotry in law—a nasty, despicable, disingenuous maneuver no matter through which channel it’s pursued nor what motivation, earthly or heavenly, is claimed.

2. LGBT issues matter. Every time I read some allegedly progressive blogger suggesting that this is a secondary issue, I want to put my goddamn fist through the wall. It doesn't do the LGBT community a fat lot of good if Dems who don't give a flying fuck about them win—and unless we endeavor passionately and persistently to change minds about these issues, only Dems who don't can win. Bil Browning has got a post on Evan Bayh’s parsing of the gay marriage issue that’s informative of the game-playing on this issue, illustrating the difference between what Dems say to gay and gay-friendly constituents and the statements they issue via their spokespeople, and how ridiculously hollow the punting—“state’s rights issue”—is as Dems are faced with their own states pushing a gay marriage ban.

Look, the problem here is wrapped up in the phrase “I don’t care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom.” Great. Bully for you. But being gay isn’t just about fucking someone who’s the same sex you are. Do you care about two consenting adults being denied the same rights you are conferred simply by virtue of your (unchosen) sexuality? Do you care about two consenting adults being denied the opportunity to visit each other in the hospital? Do you care about two consenting adults being able to raise children together as equal co-parents, being allowed to give homes to unwanted children, being able to not worry about who’s designated the next of kin upon their deaths?

Do you care about the fact that millions of consenting adults are being denied lots and lots of rights that you take for granted every bloody day?

This is a civil rights issue.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. “In 1948, the Democratic Party found itself divided over the issue of racial integration. Democrats, primarily of a southern persuasion, who supported Jim Crow laws formed a short-lived splinter group known as the States’ Rights Democratic Party, the charming slogan of which was Segregation Forever! Its members were known as the Dixiecrats. …Democrats who refuse to support equal rights for gays, including gay marriage rights, are the modern equivalent of the Dixiecrats, although a more appropriate portmanteau for these socially conservative Dems is Phobocrats, since their bigotry isn’t contained by region. (Unfortunately, homophobia is to be found everywhere.)”

The religious extremists have staked out their position on the right of this issue, and I’m staking out my position on the left—the uncompromising support of the LGBT community in their fight for full equality. Now is not the time to relegate LGBT issues to the back burner, as the wingnuts’ campaign escalates. Anyone who argues that we should have patience or tolerance or perspective as defined by silence while the religious right continues their attacks on fellow Americans out of hatred and fear is a useless stinking Phobocrat—and for them I reserve the same disdain as their forebearers the Dixiecrats so richly deserved.

(Pam’s got more.)

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