Andrew Sullivan almost gets it from time to time…

Althouse makes marriage equality opponent Dean Broyles’s argument clearer:

Let me see if I can make Broyles’s point. I think he means to say that if same-sex marriage remains a legal right, enshrined in state constitutional law, then homosexual relationships will come to be regarded normal and good, and, consequently, anyone who objects to them will start to look like a bigot who should not be permitted to have his way. Thus, in order to preserve the right to discriminate against gay people and to keep schools from teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth — all things Broyles wants — it’s important to outlaw gay marriage, because it will be a powerful force in changing perceptions about gay people and those who think gay people are doing something terribly wrong.

Yes! That’s it. One reason I favor marriage equality is that the simple public fact of gay married couples will in itself teach something about the reality of gay people and our lives – without any school or parent having to say a thing. It gives us a way to talk about gay couples for the first time in human history without talking about sex acts.

There is something else that the haters don’t want happening in schools, beyond teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth as Althouse puts it.  Look more closely.  Kids don’t usually socialize with adult couples other then those of their own immediate family.  Yes, we can hope the next generation grows up without hate in their hearts.  But if they are immersed in anti-gay hate at that age, it’s their peers, those who are gay and those who are only thought to be gay, who will feel the impact of that.

And that’s what Broyles and his kind are adamant must never happen.  Gay kids must be hated.  And that is because gay kids must hate themselves.  What the example of same sex couples living normal, decent, whole lives will do is this: show the gay kids a future where love is possible to them too.  That cannot be.  Gay kids must never feel loved.  Because they are vermin.  More despicable even then the gay adults they will eventually become.  Because their hearts are sincere.  Ever wonder why right wingers seem to hate children so much? 

Or to put it in a way that might appeal to social conservatives: grant marriage equality and we can stop talking about homosexuality. We can start talking about love and friendship and commitment and family – for gays and straights. We can leave this horrible identity politics division behind.

Why would social conservatives want to do that?  Identity politics is their creation.  It’s a belly laugh listening to you blame liberals for it.  When people are discriminated against based on things like race, religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation, when doors are closed to them again and again and again, when they are driven from neighborhoods, job opportunities, when a decent education is denied them, simply for being different, do you really think they’ll continue to see themselves as a part of the whole, or as one of the outcast?  They are supposed to see themselves in terms of their assigned identity.  You can’t marry…you’re a homosexual.  Your very presence in the house of marriage defiles it.  We don’t want no faggots in our community.  I’m just telling you Bruce that there is no place in this company for homosexuals…  That’s the whole point of prejudice.  Not to elevate the bigot, but to make hated other feel hated, cast out, separate.

I would love to see my sexual orientation as just another random, and not particularly important aspect of my being.   But I can’t.  Bigots like the ones pushing anti same-sex marriage amendments keep telling me that it’s the only part of me that matters.  You need to stop blaming the victims of identity politics, for being imprisoned in it.

That said, I’m really heartened to see you acknowledging that the breaking down of real barriers in this election cycle will go a long way towards the day when we see and end to identity politics.  I agree.  Liberals have been trying hard to break down these barriers for decades now, so that we can all be Americans one day…free and equal.