Quote of the day: on bigotry and division

Ed Kilgore:

So if your negative views about homosexuality (no longer supported by science, public opinion or even recent tradition) are not enshrined in state law, you are being smeared as “bigots,” and it’s those who just want to be treated equally under the law who are “dividing” the people. 

I understand an alarming number of Republican politicians are currently depending for their political support on encouraging older white traditionalist Catholics and conservative evangelicals—people who consider an older culture to be eternally normative, just like culturally threatened people in all times and in all places always have—to feel aggrieved and persecuted. But still, you have to wonder if they are really listening to themselves. The exact same arguments have been used in opposition to every significant move towards equality in American history. They make no more sense now than they did when advanced by those who were certain their country would be “lost” and God Almighty righteously offended when the slaves were freed, women obtained the vote, Jim Crow was torn down, and the oppressive forces of “political correctness” took all the fun out of casual bigotry. They’ll get over it, but tolerating their immense self-pity is quite a cross to bear.