A Punch in the Gut

In the midst of great joy, the awful, stomach-churning news from California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas fell like a blow: a fist in the teeth, a kick in the head. I went to sleep last night elated and happy; I awoke sad and angry.

As usual, Andrew Sullivan has put our collective thoughts into lucid prose:

It cannot be denied that this feels like a punch in the gut. It is. I'm not going to pretend that the wound isn't deep and personal, like an attack on my own family. It was meant to be. Many Obama supporters voted against our rights, and Obama himself opposes our full civil equality. The religious folk who believe that Jesus stood for the marginalization of minorities, and who believe that my equality somehow threatens their children, will, I pray, see how misguided they have become. And make no mistake: they won this by playing on very deep fears of gay people around kids. They knew the levers to pull. . . .

In the long arc of inclusion, we will miss our goals along the way from time to time. Today, we have full marriage rights in two states, we have many civil marriages in California that will remain in place as examples of who gay people really are, we have civil unions in many more places, and marriage rights in other parts of the world, as beacons to America. And this is a civil rights movement. It goes forward and it is forced back. The battle to end miscegenation took centuries. These are the rhythms of progress. Sometimes losing, and being shown to lose, shifts something in the minds of those watching as a small group is punished for daring to dream of full civil equality. In this battle we have already had far more defeats than victories. But each time, we have come closer to our goal. And in the hearts and minds and souls of so many, we have changed consciousness for ever.

What the Christianists want is to destroy your self-esteem and self-worth. It's over the wounded souls of gay people that they construct their politics of fear and division. But we endured centuries of cruelty, and after our first taste of liberation, we faced a plague of devastating proportions. But we came back stronger than ever. For the sake of those who never dreamed we would ever see civil unions, for those who died of the plague, for those whose marriages through the ages were never recognized but were as real as any backed by law: fight on. Do not lose faith. Law never trumps love. And one day it will echo it.