It’s really quite simple. Economically, there is not gay marriage and straight marriage, there is only marriage. Gay people make up approximately 10% of society. Any economic argument for or against gay marriage applies to straight marriage times nine. If the GOP wants to argue that gay marriage is just too expensive, then, by default, they are making the argument that straight marriage is just too expensive by a much wider margin. Steele can’t argue that he wishes to ban gay marriage for economic reasons without simultaneously arguing that he wants to ban straight marriage even more (9X more). If “nobody should be able to get married, period” is the message the GOP wants to sell, more power to them, but I doubt it’s a winning platform.

Who cares how she answered any question or otherwise performed in the contest? She was put under scrutiny for violating contractual agreements. When she joined the Miss USA pageant she signed her name that she had not had any nude or semi-nude photos taken of her. Yet she had. She signed her name that she would not speak on behalf of any political groups without pageant approval. Yet she has. She signed that she would attend various official events as Miss California. Yet she’s been missing them.

If I lied on my resume to get the job, then began skipping work so I could go work for some of my company’s competitors, I’d be fired almost right away. That’s what Miss CA has done, yet she gets to keep her job. If getting paid to ignore your (ill-gotten) job responsibilities and do whatever you want makes you a victim, where do I sign up? I couldn’t possibly care any less about some beauty queen’s views on marriage equality, but the pity party for the hurt feelings of a spoiled brat who has gotten away with more than anyone else would have been allowed is frankly a bit nauseating.

New Hampshire may well follow suit, and even should the CA Supreme Court uphold Prop 8, another ballot initiative overturning Prop 8 may well be on the ballot as soon as next year (in CA it’s no more difficult to get rid of discrimination in the Constitution than it is to write it in). As more states do it, the bigots lose their number one weapon; fear. They can no longer preach doom and gloom, now they’ll be expected to show how granting equal rights has caused damage, and they will fail, because frankly, it doesn’t. Further, they can’t even keep pushing the activist judge nonsense, because Maine (and perhaps soon New Hampshire) is the second state to legislatively legalize marriage for all it’s citizens.

Few would disagree that the GOP is in disarray right now. One faction will eventually rise and take control (or the whole party could go under, but I somehow doubt that). I think there’s good reason to think that more socially moderate voices such as the McCains and Schmidt will win out over the Rush Limbaughs and Sarah Palins. Don’t get me wrong, the GOP will remain socially conservative, but the more extreme examples of social conservatism stand a good chance of falling by the wayside.

Younger conservatives really just aren’t that concerned with social issues; even among the religious right. Abortion is still a biggie, but not so much as it was for the parents of this new generation. Opposition to gay rights is relatively small and dispassionate among the younger GOP. If the GOP wants to re-achieve a majority, it will court these younger conservatives by easing off on it’s focus on social issues. If it doesn’t, then it will continue to lose until such time as it DOES listen to the Meghan McCain’s and Steve Schmidts of the party.

That seems like a pretty clear admission to me that the bigot brigade knows good and well that they are on the wrong side of history. All the apocalyptic talk is hogwash and they know it. Their success is tied completely to a rapidly dying prejudice. They know only a generation from now they will be looked the same way we today looked at those who instituted the Jim Crow laws (indeed it was not much more than a generation ago when they were in effect), so if they want to have anything enacted, the absolutely must move now. Frankly, I think they’ve had their heyday and have accomplished pretty much all they are going to. If they wanted to get anything stronger implemented, they’ve missed their chance.

The legislation blew past 2/3s margin to override the governor’s veto in the state Senate (with a vote of 23-5), but just squeaked by in the House (with a vote of 100-49). Still, the anti-marriage bigots have argued that they only oppose same-sex marriage because it’s not the “will of the people” and the courts shouldn’t decide it. Well now marriage equality has been established undeniably through the legislative process (and in fact by veto-overriding margin). I wonder if those goalposts will now change; let me guess, not the measuring stick will be popular vote referendum alone? Sorta like when former-President Bush said the issue should be left to the states until the states started deciding the opposite way he would have, THEN he decided to push for a federal law (“it should be left to the states so long as they all agree with ME”).

But the biggest story here, in my opinion, isn’t the fact that there are now four states that offer marriage equality, and it isn’t the fact that one state has legislatively done so (though both of those are big deals). It’s the fact that CNN (among others I checked) didn’t even bother to put it on their home page and those that did, it wasn’t a leading story. That tells me that people are beginning to realize that in the years gay marriage has been legal in other states, the dire predictions of bigots haven’t come true. At worst, people are just deciding that, in this economy, there are bigger things for them to worry about than other people’s relationships. Fear is the only tool the bigots have. If that’s no longer working, then the war is already won.

Update: DC has voted to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
Update 2: Read the interview at the end of the link in the first update. Sure enough the bigot brigade is already declaring that the legislative victory wasn’t “the will of the people” because it wasn’t a direct vote. Hmmm… who could have predicted that? Oh yeah, I did..