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As the Washington State senate passed a  bill legalizing Gay Marriage, the bills democratic sponsor Senator Ed Murray said in remarks to the press that those who support gay marriage are not attacking traditional Mairage and that those who appose gay marriage are not bigots. He was half right.

I don’t know when it began, but somehow in this country we’ve reached a point where there are two things, in a political context, we are unwilling to do. The first is to admit that there are good idea’s and bad idea’s. While republicans and democrats are locked in something resembling a messy divorce, for the most part the idea in this country holds that everyone has a right to his or her opinion. But this idea has morphed to mean that a persons opinion is somehow valuable just because he holds it. This is wrong and incidentally this is why no one has been blamed for the Hous’s troubles.

A direct result of this is that we no longer characterize people as idiots, especially once they’ve stepped into politics.

Somehow even if someone has a crazy idea or an idea most people think is dumb we give it a tacid respect.  This is political correctness gone terribly wrong.

Related to no one being stupid is that in this country no one in national politics unless they self confess is racist or bigoted.

Here’s something depressing. In order to be branded a bigot today a politician has to say something that everyone knows means something almost exactly like, “I really hate black people or gay people or women.” But if they try and legislate something that says the same thing only groups that are so liberal they make the average American uncomfortable will lambaste them for it.

There have always been elements in this country that needed someone to hate. When we were at our most racist, this was almost everybody “other.”  Today “white” encompass everyone who looks a certain way, but for the century and a half after our country was founded, white meant of western European stock. . Immigrants from eastern Europe and Ireland were initially treated with as much racism as free blacks experienced. The difference was that because of pigmentation they could assimilate. Jews who today are thought of as a segment of the white population used to be seen as dangerous and corrupt with all the anti-cemetic stereotyping that one would assume. Colleges had quotas limiting the number of Jewish men they allowed into there freshman class every year, and the schools with the quota’s were the liberal ones. The others had refused entrance to Jews as though they were non-whites.

Races which were thought of as colored today are a majority of the country. They were barred from meaningful positions in society by white people through all instruments available, legal, social, and when those two were inadequate, physical force.

Up until the early twentieth century, with a very few exceptions, the idea of either a woman or someone who was not white running and then winning any sort of public office was outside the bounds of possibility.

If all of that depresses you you can take comfort in knowing that  although we aren’t a utopia by any means, we really have gotten much less racist and bigoted. And whoever tells you different has absolutely no idea what the hell they’re talking about.

Women and men are approaching equality in the workplace, and the type of discrimination that was commonplace in the first half of the twentieth century has been virtually eradicated. Especially among younger people, racism is in no way as strong of a force as it was. It would be wrong and presumptuous to say its gone entirely, but it is true that there are parts of the country where making racist or homophobic comments will have you isolated by your peers. I should point out that if you think this obvious, fifty years ago it would have been hard to find a place in America where anyone would have minded.

The gains for minorities are both material and legal in the form of increased economic status, legal protection and the highest levels of integration on record, and social, keep in mind that women used to be thought unqualified for everything but breeding, grocery shopping and housework and that in early film, blacks when they showed up at all were either comic buffoons, villains intent on raping white women, or servants. We had a gentlemen’s agreement with Japan which said that we’d stop harassing the Japanese immigrants who were already here if they would discourage any more from emigrating because we really didn’t want any more Asians. I’m not going to list all the evidence of racism in our history, I’d have to rename the blog if I wanted to do that.

My point in listing what I have is to remind you that things were worse than living memory indicates and so even though things are not as great as they could be it is important not to discount how good they are by comparison to even forty years ago.

It is a sad truth that as we have widened our definition of the majority to include women and all races, the social conservatives have resisted every widening. This is what it means to be socially conservative.

You don’t think that when we gave women the vote no one resisted? Of course they did. And when we amended the constitution to give blacks the vote, the south resisted, coming up with pole taxes and tests of political comprehension.

When I was in a political science class which was made up of only political science majors our professor gave us the test that Alabama used to make blacks take. To pass you needed a 95. He said whoever passed was excused from the final exam. We all took the final. We were college juniors who knew more about politics than most people on campus and as a class we failed. The tests were not written with altruistic motives. They were not intended to weed out the stupid or even the average.  They were written as an obstacle to keep black people from being able to express political will.

The south apposed school integration for minority races and the civil rights act because its population was rabidly racist. Its hard to imagine today because such displays have become impermissible. In 1968 George Wallace in multiple campaign speeches got much success with the line “the next nigger who lies down in the street I’ll run over.”

Along with the civil rights act our public schools began to teach from a young age that it was wrong to hate people who were a different race or religion.

This is the opposite of what had been taut in southern schools after reconstruction had collapsed. Textbooks of that time, from about 1880 to 1930  claimed the reason blacks and other minorities were poor was because they were lazy and inferior to whites. Asians, who would perform dangerous and extremely arduous jobs for little money and high risk were characterized as otherworldly and got shit on for working too hard which was related to how we thought of the Jews. These contradictions were allowed because bigots are not rational.

Along with the civil rights act and changing educational strategies came a wider positive media portrayal of non whites and working women.

Fifty years ago in the unlikely event that a movie showed the positive portrayal of anyone black southern theaters wouldn’t show it because by acknowledging, however slightly, that blacks and whites were equal was an attack on a pillar of southern society. A mistake is sometimes made in believing that racism in America was a contrast between an entirely racist south and a benevolent totally excepting north. This is false. The contrast existed, but in less absolute terms.

When you study our history you can watch our inclusiveness as a society trend positive as the decades have gone by so that now the only group that can make a credible claim of societal marginalization are gays.

I believe this is the point at which everyone who has objections will make them.

Mainly there argument is that gays living in this country don’t have to fear for there lives like blacks in earlier era’s did. And this is pretty much true. While gay people are still murdered for being gay the incidence do not point to the same kind of atmosphere of unprosicuted lynching that characterized the post reconstruction period in the south or the institutionalized violence which was ascencial to maintaining the slave trade before the civil war.

In many parts of the nation gays have achieved social acceptance. They show up on TV and in movies and media portrayal are generally positive. The reason I keep mentioning how different groups are depicted in the media is that its one of those things that has a large effect on how society thinks of those groups.

Today if you’re African American you can go see movies where someone of your own race has star billing and perhaps you think nothing of it, but before cidny potia there was a total lack of meaningful parts for minorities, re the south.

We have actors and musicians and working professionals that are out and as late as the seventies this would have ruined careers that now are mostly unaffected. In the 1950’s the stigma attached to being homosexual was so strong it was grounds for dismissal from any government job because the assumption was  you were closeted and thus a blackmail risk. Which was true.

And here is where we get to soft bigotry.

What has come to pass in this country over a long period of time is that the average person is not racist or bigoted. This has taken a long time, but today, if one of the republican candidates went on a Mel Gibson like rant against any minority group he would drop quickly in the polls. Nonetheless social conservatives  must always have a minority group to badmouth because what they form there political identity around is separating themselves from what they see as the undesirable members of society which over the last two centuries has been a moving target  And the only group its acceptable to publicly hate these days is the lgbt community.

Because of political correctness this hatred is somewhat masked. It is usually not ok to say “I hate fags and want them marginalized.” There are two reasons why this is not ok to say in public. The first is the wider acceptance of gays and lesbians I have already mentioned.

The second reason is that political correctness has changed the language so that many opinions which used to be spoken bluntly are now described in euphemism so that even to people who are uncomfortable with homosexuality to the point of always voting against gay rights when the opportunity presents itself hearing there own opinions framed so baldly would make them feel self-conscious.

The third reason is related to the change in how we perceive racism. Obviously when this country was racist we did not say “we’re racist as apposed to people who are not,” racism itself was only coined as a term when there were enough people apposing it to give it a name. Today few people would except themselves being described as racist to the point that even those who are do not want it to be made public unless they are downright radical so that when someone breaks the taboo against extremely harsh language those who agree with that person put distance between themselves to maintain there own respectability within society at large.

But legislation is not held to the same standard our words are so that bills to limit gay rights through various means often pass more conservative legislative bodies and even referendum votes in socially conservative states. The reason always given by anyone who is voting for or sponsoring such legislation is traditional values which is intended to conjure up the past, where socially everything was perfect.

But when precisely was this perfect time? It couldn’t have been too long ago, because if it were we would be talking about a time when as a society we kept down all minorities as a matter of course. Remember as an example in 1960 JFK faced serious opposition not because of his political views but because he was catholic. It couldn’t have been in 1860 because at that point it could be argued slaveholding was as much of a tradition as anything else. But it couldn’t have been in the 1980’s because at that point gay people had begun to come out of the closet and were starting to attain societies blessing.

It would be political suicide today to denigrate any of the following opinions in a public forum.  “blacks are equal to whites, Men without property voting, women outside of the home, white people living alongside Native Americans, allowing women the vote, allowing blacks the vote, allowing  racial minorities to attend public and private colleges,blacks in the army, allowing blacks in the army as combat troops, allowing blacks and whites to serve in integrated units, allowing Native Americans the vote, allowing gays to serve in the military, allowing gays to serve openly in the military, allowing gays to be employed by the government,  allowing two people to perform whatever sex acts they feel like performing in private, allowing a married woman to work, allowing a married woman to have her own line of credit,” but all of these things were declared as traditional values when they went from a bill into law or from taboo into socially acceptable territory.

We have short memories. The gay Marriage issue is  only the most recent battle for tolerance and inclusion. Before this it was whatever the hell social conservatives were pissed about in the eighties.

There are some who are going to accuse me of being overly semantic. They’ll tell me its unfair to compare today’s social conservative with yesterdays social conservative. See, today’s social conservative is upholding family values and the American way, while yesterdays social conservative was wrong and a racist or bigot, depending on how far you go back.

My response is that social conservatism, as a movement is wrong. The difference between being socially liberal and socially conservative is that social liberals see other peoples actions as none of there business while social conservatives think that because two gays get married there own marages will be undermined and threatened.

I’ve been alive for twenty-four years and for about seventeen or eighteen of those years  I’ve been aware of gays. At no point has the knowledge that two men can have sex ever made me want to have sex with a dude. I’m proud to say Massachusetts was the first state to allow gay marriage, but when the bill passed it I felt no urge to turn gay and marry a guy.

Bigotry is a twisted cancer within the conservative movement. All other conservative positions have marrot. Not all of them are the ideal solutions to our problems, but neither are liberal positions all correct.

Conservatives desire little government interference. Republicans will tell you they want to be left alone, that they don’t need the government telling them how to live, but social conservatives entire platform is based on telling other people how to live.

School prayer doesn’t stop anyone from praying there balls off after school. laws legalizing abortion don’t force women to have abortions. Interracial Marriage laws don’t mandate that you must marry someone not of your race. Back when woman’s suffrage was debated there were women who thought they shouldn’t have the vote. When the  amendment passed, it didn’t force anyone to start voting, it simply widened peoples options.

When we look back on how our  country used to be there are aspects of our history we despise. Slavery was an awful thing. So was the south after reconstruction had petered out. Jim crow laws were in retrospect barbaric. Most of us wouldn’t want to ask women to stop voting or to stop working. Once even the idea of educating women was a radically liberal position.

Every generation or so our country allows more liberty and every time the social conservatives come up with the same list of shoddily constructed arguments for why whatever it is shall to destroy the nation in something like the next eight months. But within a generation, the people who had to go on the record as voting “no” for whatever bill that brought the issue to its natural decision point become histories villains. We wonder how they could have voted to maintain whatever repressive law was on the books, or why they didn’t vote the clearly moral side.

And as we’re wondering this the next issue which will be obvious in hindsight is being debated and socially conservatives are once again on the wrong side of history.

What baffles me is that this trend isn’t hidden I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed. What I wonder is how people keep track of who they were allowed to hate yesterday but can no longer hate publicly and when gays have finally achieved equal rights, who social conservatives will hate tomorrow.