Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage and self-styled “American Papist”, recently whined a bit about the latest victories for marriage equality:
And that’s all we’re looking for is an even fight, and every place where it’s been an even fight, where we’ve had as many resources, as much chance to get our message out, people have protected marriage every time. I don’t think we could say that any of these four fights were a fair one.
Well, let’s talk a little bit about what’s fair. Does it sound fair for a nation full of devout, conservative Christians to use their homophobic faith as grounds to strip secular, civil equal rights from a 3% minority? Does it seem fair for that anti-gay movement to do this, repeatedly and successfully over the course of decades, while almost no one else is willing to fight back for this minority’s rights? Does that track record look like one of a movement that was lacking in resources, or opportunities to get their message out? Is this a movement that’s been deprived of a fair shot at achieving their political goals? Please.
And do you really think it’s at all likely that NOM would find this an acceptable and plausible excuse by the proponents of equality for the last 32 times we lost at the ballot box? That the fight was not “fair”, true as that may be? No. They would not accept that at all. They’ve spent the past decade telling us that the people’s vote is the final word on our rights. It didn’t matter how unfair the fight was. It didn’t matter how just our cause was. Without that popular support, we lost. Period. This was something they harped on endlessly – that we could never get the public on the side of marriage equality, and we just had to accept our losses and get over it.
Yet they would now claim that the formerly all-important people’s vote no longer matters. Now, they aren’t quite so willing to uphold referenda as the last word on gay rights. Where we were supposed to take our hits, getting over it is just about the last thing on their minds. Coincidentally, their stance just happened to change when they lost four times in one night. Why? The difference is that while we knew we would have to get the public on our side for this to happen, they seem to have become comfortable with the assumption that they’re simply entitled to public support for their legal homophobia. And when that ceased to be reflected in the popular vote, they suddenly cry that the game they’ve been playing without complaint for years must now be rigged – because, as they see it, they’re never supposed to lose.
But who on earth could look at results that now stand at 32 to 4, and seriously argue that this fight was unfair to the ones who had their way 32 times? Only the blindly self-righteous egotists of the religious right.