I’ve been trying to think of what to say about what appears to be the enormous success the Republicans had in using gay couples’ rights to gain critical votes in key states. In eight more states now, gay couples have no relationship rights at all. Their legal ability to visit a spouse in hospital, to pass on property, to have legal protections for their children has been gutted. If you are a gay couple living in Alabama, you know one thing: your family has no standing under the law; and it can and will be violated by strangers. I’m not surprised by this. When you put a tiny and despised minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses. But it is deeply, deeply dispiriting nonetheless. A lot of gay people are devastated this morning, and terrified. We have seen, and not for the first time, how using fear of a minority can be so effective a tool in building a political movement. The single most important issue for Republican voters, according to exit polls, was not the war on terror or Iraq or the economy. It was “moral values.” Karl Rove understood the American psyche better than I did. By demonizing gay couples, the Republicans were able to bring in whole swathes of new anti-gay believers into their party. With new senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, two of the most anti-gay politicians in America, we can only brace ourselves for what is now coming.
FEDERALISM WORKS: At the same time, gays can still appeal to the fair-minded center. After fanning the flames of fear for much of the year, the president himself recently came out in favor of civil unions. That puts him at odds with the initiatives passed so easily across the country. I do not believe a majority exists for denying gay couples legally protected relationships. The national exit polls showed that 27 percent support marriage rights, 37 percent support civil unions and only 35 percent want to keep gay couples from having any rights at all. There are still many states where it is safe to be a gay couple or an openly gay person. We have the right to marry in one state, and in that state, pro-equality legislators were all re-elected handily. In California, we are on the brink of having almost-equality under the law. Around the civilized world, gay relationships are increasingly accepted as worthy of dignity and respect. The passage of so many anti-gay amendments in so many states reduces the need, by any rational measure, for a federal amendment that would scar the Constitution with discrimination. We need therefore to be even more emphatic about the need for a federalist response to an issue best left to the states. If we can avoid the FMA, we can live to fight another day.
STAND TALL: But one more thing is important. The dignity of our lives and our relationships as gay people is not dependent on heterosexual approval or tolerance. Our dignity exists regardless of their fear. We have something invaluable in this struggle: the knowledge that we are in the right, that our loves are as deep and as powerful and as God-given as their loves, that our relationships truly are bonds of faith and hope that are worthy, in God’s eyes and our own, of equal respect. Being gay is a blessing. The minute we let their fear and ignorance enter into our own souls, we lose. We have gained too much and come through too much to let ourselves be defined by others. We must turn hurt back into pride. Cheap, easy victories based on untruth and fear and cynicism are pyrrhic ones. In time, they will fall. So hold your heads up high. Do not give in to despair. Do not let the Republican party rob you of your hopes. This is America. Equality will win in the end.
The Dish 