Maggie Gallagher, Just Admit It: You’re Just a Bigot

To the conservative mind, such as it is, being called a racist is worse than actual racism; being called a sexist is worse than actual sexism; being called a homophobe is worse than actual homophobia; being called a hater is far, far worse than actual hate. Exhibit nine billion and seven of this phenomenon: professional anti-gay rights activist and tedious scold Maggie Gallagher writing in the LA Times on California’s egregiously discriminatory Proposition 8:

If Californians vote no on Proposition 8, the great historical cross-cultural meaning of marriage will be replaced by the new government dogma on which gay marriage is based: There is no difference between same-sex unions and opposite-sex unions; anyone who thinks otherwise is just a bigot.

See what I mean?

Sure, this is an absurd argument, for several reasons. It’s rather a mystery how a defeat for 8 would be any more "government" imposed than a win for 8. It is also kind of entertaining how religiously informed opposition to gay marriage is not "dogma," yet support for equal rights is somehow some sort of quasi-mystical, sorta-socialist Holy Writ.

But what I’m fascinated by here is Gallagher’s victim-playing. If Prop 8 is voted down, as it should be, what’s the harm?… Why, people like Maggie Gallagher will face the terrifying prospect of maybe getting called a name!

As I travel across California and the country making the case for Proposition 8, I’m often asked, "Why do you care about restoring marriage?"

It’s a good question, and not just for me. Why are so many Californians rushing to street corners to hold up "Yes on 8" signs, enduring petty vandalism, and even pettier insults, to make the case for voting yes on Proposition 8?

Oh, my stars! Petty vandalism! Petty insults! Gays and those who support gay rights just cannot possibly understand such… such suffering… the BRUTES! Sob… sniffle… HONK. (Excuse me while I blow my nose).

This sort of weepy, wholly imaginary martyrdom is central to conservative identity politics — the relentless insistence that the American Conservative is Horribly Oppressed. It’s narcissism on a monumental scale. After all, the reason that Gallagher wants to Save Marriage, she says, is because she has to Save Civilization, which from time immemorial has depended on the notion that gay couples should not be able to jointly file income taxes. And also, of course, it’s all about The Children, for reasons that are, frankly, obnoxious to straight men, in Gallagher’s formulation:

if we want fathers to be there for children, and the mothers of their children, biology alone will not take us very far. We need a cultural mechanism to connect fathers to the mother-child bond. We also need an institution that communicates to the next generation — in the throes of its own erotic and romantic dramas — how seriously society takes the need to discipline those dramas so that children do not get hurt.

Geez, maybe if Prop 8 fails women will be forced to keep their hubbies in line with bribes of nachos and football, or on the other hand, kept from abandoning the wee ones by threatening us with, I dunno, tasers. If even such inducements can prevent the awful compulsions "biology" places upon us! We are so feeble, us straight men, alas. Meh.

But that’s a tangent. The real question is, who the hell died and made Maggie Gallagher the savior of humanity, the "One" whose mission it is to go out there and tell strangers what legal arrangements they must be forbidden from making for themselves for fear that they might offend against some amorphous World-Spirit and indeed Biology Itself? Well exactly that sort of celestial ascension into the cultural heavens is the flip side of the relentless self-crucifixion in which "conservatives" so ubiquitously engage. They’re always up there on their cardboard crosses, desperately pretending that the nails they themselves have clumsily glued to their palms were hammered into them by the Wicked Godless Liberals.

It’s a hell of a racket. But I for one am tired of seeing justice, fairness, and liberty denied because bigots like Gallagher want to act out their absurd psychodramas on a public stage. NO ON 8, dammit.

Related posts:

1. BREAKING: California Court Upholds Prop 8, Allows Existing Marriages to Stand
2. Prop 8 Decision: What to Expect from the California Supreme Court
3. FDL Book Salon Welcomes Maggie Mahar, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much
4. BREAKING: State Number Six — NH’s Governor Will Sign Marriage Equality Bill Today
5. Late Night: Prop H8