Not So Fast Liberal America...Remember Gay Marriage?

While Tuesday was a huge win for Democratic America is was not so much for liberal America. While it may be great that he can't fall off again for a while, humpty did fall off the wall, and putting him back together again is going to be really difficult. The Democrats may have taken control of one of the three branches of government, we still have a lot of work to do in bringing this country into the 21st century, and the outlook for that is not too good.

Remember gay marriage/rights? I know, you too forgot about it when you were cheering for Pro-Life Bob Casey is his defeat Rick Santorum. The bad news is that one largest civil rights issues of our time just took another large step backward on Tuesday. According to the New York Times:

Just because progressives came up with a turnout-driving alternative on the left doesn't mean the gay marriage issue disappeared as an Election Day option on the right. In fact, voters in seven states approved constitutional amendments to bar same-sex marriage. Those states - Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin; bring to 23 the number of states that have written provisions limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman into their state constitutions, according to the Initiative and Referendum Institute.

This is a very telling sign and will be the start of something much larger, if we do not put a stop to homophobia and ignorance at the ground level, starting now. I'm going to assume that you don't tolerate racism and racial slurs in your everyday life? Then why do we let homophobia slide by? Why do we have to tolerate bigotry, if it comes out of someone's religion? If I were to say that interracial marriage was against my religion, you would call me a racist, and you would be right. Then why is it more tolerable to be against marriage on the basis of sex? Bigotry is bigotry no matter how you slice it and it should not be tolerated by anyone, let alone someone who claims to believe in democratic ideals.

I can’t stress enough that Democrats from left to right need to take this issue on as a civil rights issue before it’s too late. If these religious ideologues can tell us the sex of the person we can marry, why not the religion? Or the race. It really is time to stop pussy footing around people who are against this issue for any reason and call them out. Civil rights are not just a legal issues, but issues of consciousness, and changing belief and thought is much more difficult than changing law. We need to challenge these backward ideas and we need to start now, in our communities, our schools and our workplaces.

The good news is that you can start at today's Constitutional Convention at the Massachusetts State House. According to TakeMassAction:

Show up at the State House anytime you can but the earlier the better. We expect to be greatly out-numbered by our anti-gay opponents. They are busing people in from all over the state and even from other states. The outcome of today's vote is uncertain. We need everyone who cares about equality to be at the State House. Gay or straight - if you care, be there. We cannot expect to be granted our rights, we need to fight for them. No social justice movement in history has had their rights handed to them. It takes all of us together to make change. You have an opportunity to impact the future of LGBT rights in this country. Do something. Show up. I will see you there.

I don't even want to get into the fact that the people preaching for states' rights on the abortion issue are the same ones busing people to events in other states to protest...Anyway, here's your chance, I'll be down there on my lunch break, say hi if you see me.