Why We Call You Bigots

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard you social conservatives against LGBT equality say “…but we aren’t bigots,” “we can have a civil discussion without calling folks bigots,” or “we can disagree without being bigots.” If we were having a simple policy disagreement, perhaps those claims would be correct. However, this is no simple policy disagreement. This is not about infrastructure funding, this is not about renewable energy versus fossil fuels, this is not about how to address the national debt. This is about what rights people will or will not have. Given how “George Wallace” you have decided you will be, how are we not to think you are bigots? While not every person against LGBT equality has done all of the below, you as a community have given no shortage of reasons to be justifiably called bigots.

We call you bigots because whenever something bad happens, you blame gay people. Hurricane Katrina? Blame the gays. A bunch of birds falling from the sky? Blame the gays. 9/11? Blame the gays. Seriously, we were blamed for all of that and more. And now, with North Korea ratcheting up threats against the United States, Fred Luter of the Southern Baptist Convention, you guessed it, blaming the gays. It would be great if being gay allowed me to control weather so I would never have to suffer through Winter weather again. Alas, we are not so powerful as you make us out to be.

We call you bigots because many of you have voluntarily dedicated your lives and/or careers to subjugating and demonizing gay people, and that is quite a time commitment. There are multitudes of people that work for organizations whose mission is to deny gay people legal equality; organizations including the Family Research Council, the National Organization for Marriage, Focus on the Family, and more. Despite many of these people citing some spiritual calling as an excuse for their personal views, the net affect is still that they have singled out a minority group against whom to systematically discriminate based on characteristics over which there is no control. History will not look kindly on people who spend their lives away in such a manner. 

We call you bigots because every year, you spend tens of millions of dollars in an effort to deny gay people equal rights. This is particularly disgusting given all of the good you could be done with that money; the naked you would cloth, the homeless you would shelter, the sick you would heal, the hungry you would nourish. Instead of all of the undeniable good that you would accomplish, all of that money is aimed at a concerted campaign to misinform people into believing that equal rights for gay people will destroy humanity. I would suggest you do an about-face on your priorities.

We call you bigots because whenever the subject of marriage equality comes up, you equate our relationships to screwing farm animals. Do you really think that same-sex couples in a loving and committed relationship will lead to farmer Joe marrying Bessie the Cow? Eleven countries (with France and Uruguay poised to join their ranks) have marriage equality and none of them have given rise to legalized man-horse marriage. Gay people are not the ones with bestiality on the minds, it is always you, the social conservatives, who bring that up. The fact that you constantly bring it up says something of you that you may not realize.

We call you bigots because you think we are all pedophiles. The ironic thing is that there are far more straight pedophiles than gay pedophiles but that is beside the point. Equating homosexuality and pedophilia is as offensive is it is factually incorrect. When you attempt to compare same-sex couples in a consenting relationship on the one hand with an adult taking advantage of an innocent child on the other hand,  you are showing how little you know about both scenarios. Just like with bestiality, constantly having pedophilia on the brain is more a social conservative tendency than a gay tendency. Seriously, we are not NAMBLA and it is utterly foolish to think otherwise.

We call you bigots because many of you take a very American concept - equal protections under the law - and call it radical. How is it radical to want to be treated as a first class citizen? How is it radical to want the 14th Amendment to actually mean something? Do you know who else has been considered radical? People who had the crazy idea that women should be able to vote were considered radical. A black woman who decided she would not be told where on a bus to sit was considered a radical. The founders of this very country who decided that taxation without representation was wrong, broke the American colonies away from the most powerful empire in the world, and plunged the fledgling nation into a war with the most powerful military of its day were also considered radicals. All of these radicals fought, all of these radicals won, and all of their radical causes are today seen as no-brainers. These causes had a common thread: the “radicals” had no intention of settling for Citizenship-Light. Gay people have no intention of settling either.

And lastly, we call you bigots because you have thrown a barrage of excuses against us in an attempt to justify your anti-gay animus and those excuses have been summarily thrown down, proven false, or been debunked. We have empirical studies on our side. We have common sense on our side. We have the Constitution on our side. Despite all of the evidence supporting equal rights and the facts that stand in opposition to your views, you still hold onto those views. While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to deny the rights of your fellow citizens. And we are just that: YOUR FELLOW CITIZENS!!! It is high time you treated us as such.