Taking back our (local) government

Turns out Kansas doesn’t have to be so thoroughly embarrassed as the most “backward” state in the nation. Arizona has managed to take their LGBT discrimination bill one step farther than we did – theirs has passed the state house and senate and is now awaiting approval or death by governor Jan Brewer. Kansas’ steaming turd of legislation squeaked through the house and was squashed when my fellow Kansans raised holy hell, much to the surprise of our out-of-touch, so-called leaders who blinked like a possum caught in tunnel at night with a train bearing down on it. (Sorry. Sometimes I loves me some Kansas vernacular.) Even people who aren't thrilled with the idea of gay marriage recognized this law for what it was, realizing that it stunk too much of the days of Jim Crow.

For a couple of days, our legislators had the nerve to dig their heels in. So Kansans continued to show them what-for. We made phone calls. We emailed. We protested. We wrote letters-to-the-editor of our local papers. Many papers wrote stunningly sharp editorials. We screamed. Our boneheaded legislators finally got the message, if only begrudgingly. Personally, I think they owe everyone a huge apology, but since I don’t enjoy asphyxiation –  autoerotic or otherwise –  I won’t be holding my breath.

We’re seeing similar bills popping up all over the country as some states legalize gay marriage and the people against gay marriage anticipate it being proclaimed legal at the federal level. They realize it’s only a matter of time, so they’re trying to head the homos off at the pass, as it were.

I’ve seen several religious extremists online writing that people of their ilk need “protection” from lawsuits that might be brought by same-gender couples seeking their services, and that gay people should just stay away from businesses that don’t want to serve them because those darn gays are just “causing trouble” and “being difficult.”

I have two questions in regard to that concern:

A) Exactly what country do you think you’re living in? This is America. Land of the litigious. Any business can be sued at any time, by any customer or employee, for reasons legitimate and frivolous. That’s the way it is. Period. Grow up.

Secondly, should the four African-American college students who staged a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 have stayed away because the business didn’t want to serve black people? Because it sounds like you’re saying that.

And it’s not just anti-gay legislation that extremists are trying to push at local levels of government. It’s anti-women legislation, anti-poor legislation … because a certain extremist faction of the country has figured out that they’re probably not going to win the presidency any time soon. Their freak flag is just a leeetle too freaky (and not in a good way) for the rest of us to stomach.

So they’re going after the elections we Americans don’t pay much attention to: Governorships. State legislators. City Commissions. Sheriffs. School boards, even.

Now you can shake your finger at Americans for being “lazy” for not paying attention to local politics, but c’mon. Between our jobs that don’t give us much time off, our kids, the PTO, our aging parents and all that stuff – y’know, life—that we have to take care of, there aren’t too many of us who have time to keep track of what’s going on.

Except for the zealots. The zealots always make time because they’re intent on rolling back the progress of this country. That’s what makes them so effective. And dangerous. For the average American, battling this shit is exhausting. It’s like turning on the light at night and trying to step on all the cockroaches that skitter away, knowing that as soon as you turn the light off, the roaches will be back. In the meantime, they’re breeding behind the walls.

What’s so scream-at-the-walls aggravating about the extremists is they don’t seem to realize how good they have it. They already have all the rights they could ever want. They are perfectly welcome to worship how they choose. They’re perfectly welcome to remain bigots in their hearts. They even have the right to be bigots in their businesses. (We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time.) It’s just that they don’t want to have to face up to the consequences of their actions. They want government to be just large enough to protect them, and just small enough to exclude everyone else.

Must be nice.

So we have to stay vigilant, my fellow Americans. At least for a time, we have to pay attention.  We have to take our country back.