Remember a few years ago when the GOP nominated a Mormon and a Bible-thumping compulsive liar for president and lots of so-called sane Republicans started hinting that things had gone too far with catering to the glossolaling yahoos, and the GOP lost the election, and then youtube videos of conservative politicians tearfully professing their support of same-sex marriage began to appear in a trickle and then a stream and it was all so heartwarming, and then, oh my god, the attorneys fighting Prop 8 in California turned out to be Republicans big-as-life telling us that marriage is the civil rights issue of our time, and we were all like, "Yay!" and we were certain it was only a matter of time until we'd see a huge political realignment in which the GOP shed their lunatic Evangelicals, splitting the party in two, and then liberals win every election!
Well.
It looks like we'll get our realignment. But it won't be the realignment we dreamed of -- in fact, it looks more like our worst nightmare.
No longer will it be a liability for Republicans to pander to Evangelicals. They can drop their homophobic dog-whistling. "Family values" will no longer mean "We hate fags." And all the conservative white middle- and upper-class gays and lesbians will no longer feel compelled to vote for Democrats whose agenda, besides the gay stuff, they probably never really supported anyway.
When queer people can safely return to the churches that rejected them, there's no reason -- well, except maybe a conscience -- they can't safely return to all the other causes dear to that crowd: guns, wars, subjugation of women and the poor, union-busting, EPA-bashing, slut-shaming, what have you.
Or, to put it more simply: more queer Republicans = more Republicans. Doh!
Progressive struggles are all connected. Unfortunately, gay rights is soon to be no longer a progressive struggle. We might want to be a little more careful next time we're considering turning our whole movement over to an agenda articulated by Andrew Sullivan.
I'm not one to say I told you so, but ...
1 comment:
Agree. The move towards marriage has always been a move towards the norm. Gay people have not changed marriage (if that was the idea)but, rather, are being changed by it.
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