The Agony of Denial

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

From Queerty:

If you need an example of just how unmoored the right wing is from reality, look no further than the decision of anti-marriage activists to petition the Supreme Court to stop marriage in California just two days after the Court gave it the go ahead. Yes, in what has to be a textbook case of denial, marriage opponents somehow thought that the same folks in robes who just lectured them on the dignity of gay and lesbian relationships would suddenly change their minds and agree with them. Of course, that was a short-lived belief. Justice Anthony Kennedy swatted the petition down without a second thought. 

If the right wing wants to throw good money after bad, that’s their choice. But by pursuing such a quixotic (which is a nice way of saying hair-brained) appeal, they underscore one key fact: they can’t admit that they’ve lost. It’s not that they are in denial. In their more lucid moments, they know marriage equality is inevitable. 

James Dobson, one of the patriarchs of the religious right, says that the Supreme Court ruling was devastating “even if eventually legally we are able to walk it back a bit.” That is hardly a trumpet call to battle victory. Instead it’s a monument to qualifiers. Any more hedging and the entire phrase would have to be in air quotes...

It is yet another example of conservative hypocrisy. They often talk about not spending money on programs that do not work. That is exactly what they are doing when it comes to marriage equality. Clearly, their continue expenditures on fighting marriage equality is not working given the fact that more and more people support marriage equality. Even a rising proportion of conservatives, Republicans, and people of faith are supporting full equality for the LGBT community and same-sex couples. Also, the GOP-led House of Representatives wasted at least $3,000,000 of taxpayer money defending the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" which was struck down (or at least the discriminatory Section 3 of that law) by the United States Supreme Court. Clearly the human capacity for denial is very strong and very sad.