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with greater ease. Of course, this makes the phobia associated with gayness more severe, as minorities can be more easily identifed in many cases.
I was talking to a Democratic neighbor and labor official a while back, and he said-- I wish we Dems could just get rid of the gay marriage issue. Not because I am against gays, or even gays marrying, but because it is such a blunt club we get beaten with (or something very close to that).
I said that I thought Equal Marriage, Habeus Corpus, Equal Education, Progressive Taxation, and Collective Bargaining all represented the same concept in society-- justice. I told him that we should be happy that we are fighting for Equal Marriage, because when we smack that baby into place, the religious right will have no argument that isn't a reductio, ad absurdum left(you can already see the first consequenses of this in the 'war on Christmas'). This represents the core fear on which other fears of the unidentifiable other are based. (It is like pot laws as a system of social control, make a person believe an absurdity and you can make them commit an attrocity, and all that).
I then told him my shameful secret, that as a Wiccan priest, I had performed Handfasting ceremonies for numerous gay and lesbian couples, and fully intend to perform legal marriages when America catches up to reality. I mentioned how I watched someone I had handfasted support his spouse thoughout a long illness and death with a lot more love and compassion than say, Newt Gingrich, and that I would gladly go to the wall to protect the sanctity of a love that strong. There is nothing more powerful, gentle, and sacrosanct than love.
This fellow is not a freeper, but a well educated, progressive man in his 50s. He and I are in complete agreement on such issues as corruption, universal healthcare education, etc-- but for him, a staunch pro choice Catholic, the image of drag queens and the altar was initially just too much. I told him that regardless of dress, I would refuse to perform a ceremony that mocked the sanctity of marriage. I think he accepted my point by the time we were done, though I think he had to re-asess me a bit. It's ok, we have been through a lot in this little neighborhood in the past 10 years or so. We are both fighting our own fight to make Kansas blue. I am not sure he's a strong Equal Marriage supporter yet, but I believe he sees the issue with a better perspective now.
But this is one important reason to fight for Equal Marriage. It forces Americans to adress that primal fear in our culture. And once those men and women address their fear of gays and perhaps more importantly, *gayness*-- suddenly the fear of all sorts of undetectable perils and hobgoblins burns away, like fog in strong sunlight.
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