They Will Call Us Bigots

The current struggles between liberals and conservatives are distinctly and irreversibly tied to racism and sexism. The modern manifestations of them seemingly are about taxation and government intervention, but that is just the evolved coding for the same racist and sexist ideology. Allow me to quote Lee Atwater, the man who, more than any other individual crafted the Republican Party's current ideology,

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger,'" (Branch, Taylor (1999). Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65. New York: Simon & Schuster.

The Republican ideology of low taxes and  ending government programs was conceived to appeal to racism, was designed to operate in a racist manner, and it accomplishes exactly that. It is immaterial if white people get hurt by the ideology, just as long as black people get hurt more. And that is exactly what it does, it preserves the white power structure and oppresses black people by making success endlessly more difficult to attain. It feeds on white resentment by propagandizing that white people are paying for black people to have these mythically fantastic benefits, and propagates the stereotype of lazy black people. As much as the distinct issues might change, the basic problems are always rooted in unchanged racism dating back to this country's founding.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to the subject of marriage equality. If you follow gays gettin' their marriage on closely, you will hear an endless stream of variations on the phrase "They will call us bigots." You will pretty much find some form of the phrase in any article, speech or video about marriage equality, but just to make a point of it, here's National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown...

If we do not stand up for marriage we will be treated under the law as bigots.

 Now, anyone with an understanding of United States law will be able to see that this makes no sense. The law doesn't treat bigots any differently than anyone else. The only meaning this could have is that Brian is arguing for the right to fire, or not hire people just because they are gay. But the reality is that this pervasive, extreme concern for the Religious Right originates from the fall out of segregation.

"Jim Crow enthusiasts took a terrible psychological thumping during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Men and women who had traditionally seen themselves as the conscience and moral heartbeat of America, suddenly found themselves denounced as bigots and haters, a loathsome cancer that should be excised from the body politic," (Alan Bean)

The overriding concern of the anti-gay lobby is to not be George Wallace while still advocating oppression.  They need, more than anything else to deligitimize the concept of bigotry. The Religious Right derives its justification and momentum from its own absolute and inerrant claim to morality. What it learned from being on the wrong side of integration was not a the cautious review oriented approach to morality that such a stupendous failure demands, but rather to ensure that none of its competition is able to claim the moral high ground on it.

Which means that racism, sexism, and homophobia can't be considered legitimate forces that shape our society, but must be rhetorical positions used to silence opposition. That's certainly a nice idea when you are advocating for those racist, sexist, and homophobic positions as it frees you from your moral culpability for supporting such objectively malignant social structures and makes the opposition sneaky rats usin' insults to shut up good folks.

And so this whole concern about being called "bigots" is directly tied to segregation. It's no small wonder that  an after-the-fact PR defense tied to segregation would show up all the way over in the marriage equality discussion. The anti-gay activists are the direct descendants (and in some cases not even descendants) of the pro-segregation movement. The talking points of the anti-gays are almost wholly lifted from the talking points of the pro-segregationists. Naturally they would respond like anyone who has been insulted and then thinks of a snappy comeback on the drive home. "Ha!" the segregationists say, "we should have said, 'they'll call us bigots!' that way we're the victims of those people mean smears!" And they waited until their first opportunity to use it...