It’s Monday Funday, and I took a little self-imposed breather at the end of last week, so I’m just catching up on some of the wingnut reactions to the marriage equality vote, and wouldn’t you know it? They are blubbering like crazy.
We start with a piece that’s actually pretty normal and nice, from Michael Potemra at The Corner, which basically can be summed up as, “All these people getting together and celebrating? They look pretty normal and happy and really, you know, not scary at all.” Indeed, this is the craziest thing he saw:
The most out-there people I’ve seen are a sweet young couple, being interviewed by a reporter with “Associated Press” on his accompanying camera: a handsome 26-year-old chap from Ireland in a laid-back T-shirt and a gorgeous platinum-blonde in a stunning 1950s Seven Year Itch-style dress. Wait a minute, you’re thinking, what’s so “out there” about great retro clothes? And you’re right, it’s actually not that “out there” at all. The only thing that makes it worth mentioning is that the hot blonde proves, on my closer inspection, to be a guy.
So basically Mike Potemra is one of those conservatives who’s not all hot and bothered by this. Oh, but his stable mates at The Corner? Losing it. Indeed, Kathryn Jean Lopez immediately replied to Potemra’s piece saying, essentially, “You don’t get it! New York is just like North Korea now! Waaaaaaaaah! Ahem, wah.” Lots of people made fun of her for comparing New York marriage equality to North Korean dictatorship, so she came back this morning to explain, using a reader e-mail, that it’s just the same because…
Wait for it.
Because they are now victims of the “tyranny of the majority.” Because a minority in New York State is now a bit closer to full equality, the wingnuts, dying breed that they are, are now being trampled by the whims of this capricious majority which seeks to deny them…
Well, seeks to deny them nothing. I mean, yes, please, let’s all take a moment of silence to imagine what it must feel to be a straight anti-gay wingnut in Schenectady right now. They woke up this morning with all their constitutional rights intact, their marriages as healthy as they were last week. But they are oh so butthurt. Unfortunately, their little pocket Constitutions don’t include “freedom from butthurtness.”
The most fun at The Corner came in Maggie Gallagher’s apoplectic post the night of the vote, which has been quoted and laughed at many places by now:
New York Republicans are responsible for passing gay marriage. The party will pay a grave price.
Oh, whatever. As I have said so many times and will continue to say, can it, Gallagher. Another New Yorker, Thers at Whiskey Fire, replied to Maggie Gallagher’s post like this:
No they won’t.
The NY GOP bowed, finally, to the will of their constituents — such as it is.
[…]
But the real reason gay marriage passed in NY this year — and I am, to be clear, whoopin’ hollerin’ glad it did — is that most New Yorkers are of the opinion that “f*ck this who marries who sh*t, I need a job, or need to keep a job, or my kids need a job, and by the way, job jobs jobitty job job job.”
Anyone attempting to make gay marriage repeal a cause in NY is invited to waste their time and resources. Which are basic qualifications for GOP statewide candidtates overall, who have been astonishingly wingnutty awful for quite a while now.
NY moved on before the vote, which is why, as any NY political observer will tell you, the vote even happened.
Ya see, Maggie? Nobody really cares about what you all think anymore. Oh sure, you’ve got a few holdout majorities in banana republic states like Alabama, but the mainstream of America has gone against you and in the direction of fairness and equality.
As for other wingnut reactions [and I’m sure I’ll post them as I run across them throughout the day, because I know there’s a hilariously stupid quote out there from Matt Barber about how “god” is going to “punish” New York, presumably by yet again misfiring at some poor Midwestern town in the flood plain], Roy Edroso devoted his Village Voice column to right-wing reactions to the vote, as I figured he would:
You can imagine how rightbloggers feel about this. A few say they don’t mind, but the majority fulsomely display one or more of the classic stages of grief — with “anger” being by far the most popular.
We really shouldn’t rub it in, but how often do we get the chance? Let’s listen to some of their growls, hisses, and spits.
Oh, this is so fun! Here’s an epic whine Roy found:
?The Last Tradition just let all the stops out. “Fag marriage legal in New York State,” he cried. “It’s a happy day for rump wranglers and cock suckers of every shape and color.” (Hear, hear!) “This is an extremely sad day in the history of New York which has become the new Sodom and Gomorrah.” (TLT seems a little late to that party. Don’t they have cable where he lives?)
Oh, pathetic! You can just smell the sad, dejected defeat as the lowly wingnut attempts to throw anti-gay slurs, desperately hoping that at least one of them might stick. Oh, but no. Here’s another one Roy found, a wingnut I’ve never heard of:
Perhaps our favorite headline is John Guardiano‘s at the American Spectator: “Why Gay ‘Marriage Equality’ Is Bad for America and Hurts Children.” As the title suggests, Guardiano went scare-quote-happy. In his lede, he referred to “last night’s ‘historic” vote for ‘gay marriage’ in New York.” (These so-called “married” gays and their so-called “history”!)
“Indeed!” Must suck to be “John Guardiano” today! Roy sums up Guardiano’s piece like this:
To recap: When people began marrying for love instead of by parental arrangement, that was the thin end of the wedge; now, as if that noxious innovation hadn’t done enough harm, the demons who visited it upon us invite same-sex couples to join the pandemonium. Soon, when America is filled with ruined “married” people, we will regret the day impoverished farmers stopped trading daughters for cows.
It’s funny because that really sort of is what’s behind Maggie Gallagher and all of the rest of the Religious Right, with their hatred for gays and reproductive rights and everything else: their pwecious patriarchy is crumbling.
Anywho, go read the rest of Roy’s piece and if you’ve seen a great wingnut blubberfest over New York’s historical vote, leave it in the comments.
To end this post, let’s hold our noses and go see how wrong the gay wingnuts over at Gay Patriot are about this:
And to note that it passed with Republican votes — and in a legislative chamber run by the GOP.
Yeah, the GOP just loves gays. Four whole Republicans got over it and voted for equality.
Later on, they gave their approval to the decision, with the usual hand-wringing motions which suggest that they’re really not that happy with it, after all:
The process was often messy, the rhetoric regularly exaggerated, the understanding of marriage generally at odds with the history of the institution, but at least those who made the final decision were elected by the people of the various jurisdictions of the Empire State and thus answerable to them at the ballot box.
Yeah, those mean gay activists just simply refused to bow down and wash the bigots’ feet as they fought for equality. But at least it didn’t come from an “activisssss judge.” God forbid the judicial branch do their actual job, which is interpreting the law based on the Constitution, which is where the clearest arguments for marriage equality happen to be written.
As always with that corner of the internet, I just shake my head.
