03 June 2015

Laughing On His Way To The Dustbin Of History

In 1975, Minneapolis became the first US jurisdiction to ban discrimination "based on having or projecting a self-image not associated with one's biological maleness or one's biological femaleness."

In other words, four decades have passed since that language was added to the city's human-rights laws.  In the meantime, hundreds of other municipalities and thirty-two states (as well as the District of Columbia) have passed similar legislation.  Moreover, same-sex marriage is now legal in three dozen states; in 2003, none allowed it.

I like to think that these facts indicate a sea-change in attitudes about LGBT people.  I also would like to believe that they show--as the reversal of Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial discrimination, and the appearance of black faces on prime-time television, courtrooms, executive offices and operating rooms showed us--the homophobes and transpohobes, as well as racists and other haters, are losing the battle.  

Their time is running out and they know it. I read somewhere that within twenty years from now, non-white Hispanics will no longer be the majority in this country.  By that time, we will also have a generation of children raised by same-sex parents and, I hope, LGBT people in places in roles where they've never been before.  And most people will find same-sex couples and trans people no more noteworthy than a white American marrying an Hispanic, or a black to an Asian.

The prospect of such things, of course, infuriates the haters.  But, as I said, they know, deep down, they're losing the battle.  So they're becoming desperate--which makes them say ever-more ridiculous, stupid, disgusting and mean things.

Case in point: Mike Huckabee.  This Neanderthal Faux, I mean, Fox News commentator wants to be President.  So, not long ago, he said something very, very Presidential: If there were more transgender acceptance when he was in high school, he joked, "I'm pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, "Coach, I think I'd rather shower with girls today".  

Ha, ha, ha.  One day the joke will be on him--and such luminaries as Ann Coulter and Matt Walsh--when they are relegated to the dustbin of history.