The Poor, Little, Harassed Anti-Gay Movement

by Maia Spotts · 2010-01-25 10:15:00 UTC
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Harassed for taking a stand. Unprotected by the federal government. Scared that by being who they are and standing up for what they think is right will subject them to hateful threats. Sound familiar? Except this time, it's not the gays.

These are the fears of Protect Marriage Washington (PMW), the group that failed to overturn that state's Domestic Partnership laws with Referendum 71 last year. PMW wants the petitions they used in their campaign, listing the names of everyone who signed their traditional marriage statement, to be sealed, kept from public review. They want Washington State to ignore years upon years of tradition -- the electoral tradition of transparency -- by naming them a protected class of people, singled out for their unpopular opinions, and granted special government protection from the evil majority of gay-loving pacifists.

Try not to choke on the hypocrisy.

They are worried about death threats (have they heard of Matthew Shepard?) and name-calling (like when Sally Kern called gays worse than terrorists?), boycotts (like the one being called against Pepsi for supporting the homosexual agenda?) and being "terribly persecuted by an angry mob" (um ... like the "moral" majority that voted down gay marriage in 33 states?). The First Amendment protects your religious-based hate speech, and it also protects everyone's right to peacefully assemble and to not shop at Wal-Mart.

The truth is, we've heard from the other side of the anti-gay movement's mouth before. This time, it's caught the attention of the Supreme Court, which has decided to intervene in the state proceedings. While the Court's decision to bar cameras in the Prop 8 courtroom could be dismissed as a procedural matter, separate from the legal context of the case, the Supreme Court's decision to intervene in Protect Marriage Washington's claim is, according to Lambda Legal's Jennifer Pfizer, "alarming." It could easily establish a pattern of protecting one class of citizen (the anti-gay) from the other (the gay), but never vice versa.

So which is it, folks, saviors of the universe, or harassed minority? You can't have your cake and throw it in our face, too.

Photo credit: ProComKelly

Maia Spotts is one part of a two mom, two kid household and hopes to change the way in which this country defines the strong American family.
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