Rolling fresh off the election of Georgia's most anti-gay Governor-elect in history, my wife and I wonder what these election results mean to our family. Will the climate of acceptance we currently enjoy change for the worse? We know Georgia is far away from treating its citizens equally, but at least we live in area of the state where our family is accepted and treated with the respect it deserves.
It's scary being at the other end of anti-gay politics. I often wonder if our opponents have any idea of the harm they inflict on us as people. For instance, when past Gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel decided to change her position from "moderate" on gay issues, to anti-gay, did she know what she was doing to us as people? Yes, she knew she was throwing us under the bus, but did she know the fear she put into each and every one of us every time we saw an anti-gay political ad or interview? Did she know what it would mean for our children to see Nathan Deal and her spewing hatred toward us?
I think if they have a conscience, they probably don't know. Unfortunately, I believe so many of these nasty elected officials have no conscience, and are probably socio-paths. Yeah, I know many people see that as extreme and don't agree, but this is my experience as someone who has been involved in politics since I was in the 9th grade, which is why I bailed on a career in politics.
Georgia has become an even more conservative state as a result of this last election. What that will mean for us I do not know. As I was watching some of the election coverage in the gym, I found myself jealous of the majority of the people working out who didn't seem to care about the election results. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to not have to care. To just ignore all the unpleasantness that goes with politics. But, sigh, I have no such luxury. I have to wonder, are they coming for us this time? Will they go after my family? What will this mean for my daughter?
And then I start having my usual post-election fantasies of moving to somewhere more accepting. Where that is, I am not certain. I always say we should just start a movement where we can all move to California, and take it over as OUR state. I am down with that. Don't know that the rest of the country would be open to it.
2 comments:
i thoroughly doubt that anybody gives a crap enough to "come after" the glbt community. no one is going to attack you or limit your american given rights that you have right now, you just wont be granted any special rights that non-glbt people would not get. dont expect special treatment for being different. if being different was easy everyone would be different in some respect. be the bigger person and come out on top of all the adversity, that will have a bigger effect on your children then any anti-glbt slander they will see
Dear Anonymous,
I sure hope no one gives a crap enough to come after our families, but if you turned on the tv during the election, you might have noticed that Nathan Deal ran a campaign that often focused on attacking gay people.
I would love it if no one attacked our rights.
And by-the-way, I can't think of a special right I am asking for. I just want the same rights as heterosexual families. If that is a special right to you, then I guess there is no sense in discussing this further.
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