You have to fight for your right to gay marry. Whether you feel that’s an indisputable truth or a harsh and unfair reality is up to you, but our struggle for global equality is a shifting one—albeit a slow shift, but a shift nonetheless (speaking regionally, of course, as there is much work to be done in Uganda and Russia).
Within the last 10 years, Robert P. Jones reports that support of gay marriage in southern states has doubled from 24 to 48 per cent. That’s an incredible leap for a sector of the United States that’s been labeled as the bible belt, and a source of homophobia, racism and backward Republican under-thinking and over-speaking.
When you see a poll number below 50, your instinct might be to think that it should be 100 percent and that there’s nothing particularly demonstrative about the number 48. But when you stop to think that the opposition to gay marriage only makes up 49 percent of southerners, it seems like a greater triumph than we could have expected from a group of states that are home to Virginia’s Rick Santorum, Texas’ Rick Perry, South Carolina’s Jim DeMint and human garbage Pat Robertson. (However, Robertson doesn’t have a problem with you marrying your cousin, as long as you don’t have a “Mongoloid child.”)
Jones argues that there are three big reasons for this Southern shift in gay marriage acceptance. He cites the generation gap as the most obvious—he accounts for the maturation of Millennials, whose voting power and inclusion in voter polls can finally be seen and heard post-10-year-old constitutional bans on gay marriage.
Secondly, a higher rate of coming out has propelled the debate into the personal sphere, as most southerners can now account for having gay friends and therefore have a vested interest in their survival. (Call it Southern hospitality, call it whatever you like.)
And lastly, a return to a value system that separates church and state has drawn a glaring distinction: of the 48 per cent supporting the public policy of gay marriage, only 37 per cent say that gay sex is morally acceptable.
There is now a cultural distinction made between the right to marry and the right to fuck. It’s essentially a strategy that removes hetero anxieties about same-gender sex by giving support to public policy that supports the pursuit of institutional marriage (something more Southern and agreeable).
I’m not saying this is Stonewall. I’m not saying this is the change that shook the gay world. But I am saying that the South is changing. And the South needed to change, even if slowly.
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Lol. Love that pic of Perry. Looks like it’s not the first wiener he’s had in his mouth. It all adds up.
I’ve lived in the south most or my life and often wonder if it’s MORE racist and homophobic than other areas or if it is just MORE OPENLY racist and homophobic.
I think you’re totally right!
Sadly this country is full of bigots.
DW: Santorum represented PA, not VA. Just because he lives here doesn’t make him Virginian, just like the majority of the 435 scumbags who constitute Congress, lol.
This makes me think of this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JibZ2U3o-M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Thank you so much for posting that video. It overwhelmed me with emotion. Thank you
Thanks James this video really make U think !
LOL Hunter I think U R on 2 something Rick does look quite comfortable SUCKING on that big weiner !
You’re both welcome. I was deeply moved when I first watched it, and as I actually live in Texas I’ve seen this kind side before. I know that not everyone is like the hateful bigots, and I see it changing more & more each year. Texas is slowly becoming a more accepting place with each generation. Plus their is hate & bigotry every where you go. I learned a long time ago is to fight hatred with kindness. One man at a community center once told me he was going to pray for me because I was gay. I came back with. Well, I’ll be praying for you as well. He asked what I would need to pray for him for. I said. Your words are the same as throwing stones. You do the math. The look on his face was total shock & he didn’t say a word. A few years later he apologized, after his Granddaughter came out of the closet. It takes one brick at a time to build something. Sometimes it takes one person at a time to change the mind of a nation.
He needs more practice though, because he’s clearly using teeth in that picture. Lol!
Okay, SOMEONE needs to say it. I was encouraged by this article until I saw the percent of Southerners who still view gay sex as immoral. The fact that they still think it sinful and wrong to be gay is absurd.
Exactly! I am a native Southerner, but I’ve lived in California, the mid-west, and the north-east. I found gay bashing and bigotry just as bad in those places as I do in the South. Shame on ManHunt for making such a bigoted comment about the South!