Forever Walking

Here it is:

Now, as much as I obviously don't agree with what she believes (and am embarrassed that she represents my home state, once again displaying how simultaneously progressive and ass-backwards Cali can be), I also have to defend her right to say what she believes. It took a lot of guts to be that honest and give an answer that's so politically incorrect. I personally hope she wasn't denied the crown purely because of her answer to the gay marriage question. In my opinion, there were plenty of other things to go by in that pig trough of an answer ("opposite marriage" really? I think she should be clearer on what heterosexual marriage is before she disses gay marriage.)

No, she shouldn't have been penalized for her answer (if she was).

But I also understand that, for a lot of gays upset by this chick, therein lies the problem.

This event, and the resulting debate it has caused, has been like a slap in the face of the gay community in this country and, honestly, our faces are a still a little bruised from Proposition 8 passing in tandem with the election of one of our country's most liberal presidents. It serves as a reminder of how much further we have to go, and while its so easy to sit back in our little bubbles and believe that in 2009 gays are near-universally accepted (unless you're in the South), we have to stay vigilant because there still is a very real threat to our civil liberties.

So many of us gays (and allies) got so comfortable in our educated, liberal worlds that we began to believe that things like this couldn't happen anymore. That, in this new age, the only public opposition of gay rights would be from the mouths of hypocritical politicians and religious leaders. Because we've demonized corrupt politicians and religious leaders, and relegated them to symbols of a steadily passing and archaic world, we're prepared for bigotry when it comes from them. We're not totally prepared when it comes from beauty queens.

Damnit, we thought we had beauty queens in the bag!

So I can see why so many of us gays (and our supporters) are so enraged by this chick. She reminded us of how fragile what we have is, and how much more work we have to do to strengthen it.

Seriously, lets say for a second that Miss California were secretly racist. No -- let's say that she's not racist. She doesn't have a problem with black people per se...she just believes that everyone should stick to their own kind, and thus doesn't believe in interracial marriage. Now, in this day in age, does anyone honestly think that if she were asked about interracial marriage by a judge that she would have "listened to [her] faith" and given an honest answer? Hell no. She would have lied through her teeth and said something along the lines of "I think interracial marriage is a legitimate, beautiful thing and I wholeheartedly support it."

And why? Because in this day and age, interracial marriage is such an accepted facet of our society, and nonacceptance of it such a widely deplorable thing that even people that personally don't accept it wouldn't dare be so public about it (unless they were in the KKK or something like that, of course). If Miss California had said she were against interracial marriage not only would she have been denied the crown for that very reason, but she most likely would have been disqualified from the pageant. And there wouldn't be such wide debate about her right to be honest. She'd be near-universally panned.

For some of us gays, it's still a bit upsetting that when someone comes out so publicly against us and our right to live our lives openly and equally, it is still considered an openly debatable subject.