elsewhere/grim amusements: "maine says nay"

[iainpj]

Grim Amusements / November 4, 2009: maine says nay

...Given Maine's history, the result should have surprised no-one. The plain fact is, majorities will not choose to recognize civil rights of any minoritiy of their own free will. It simply will not happen. Whenever this sort of thing comes up for a vote, it allows the majority to say, "We don't like you, we don't want you, and we think you are not human enough to share our rights." And they do, and they will. DC has one thing right; it refuses to allow people to vote on rights enumerated in its Human Rights Act, because they will use that opportunity to express prejudices and reject minorities, as Maine has done here.

Am I saying that we should give up, give out, give in? No, of course not. I am saying that we're going to have to go back and do this again and again and again, in all the same places and in different ways, before this is finally going to stick. And if history is any guide, we've only seen the leading edge of resistance at this point.

Some people like to refer to the Civil Rights era, likening this struggle to that one. But historically, looking at that struggle, the way this eventually works is for the laws either to come out of the courts -- or, more rarely, from legislatures that are ahead of the people they represent -- and then for the states to essentially get battered into resentful submission by lawsuits from affected minorities, with support from the court system which says to the state, "This will happen." That level of support from the courts and the legislatures does not yet exist for gay rights. It is, surprisingly enough, coming; it's just not there yet....