Another day, another reason to be ashamed to be an American. The legislature of North Carolina held a rushed special session today in which it hurriedly passed a bill—which the governor already has signed—to prevent LGBT citizens of the state from being protected against discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, or even where they can go to the bathroom. This heinous and immoral law also rolls back such protections from discrimination that a number of North Carolina cities already had passed. This session, which cost the taxpayers of the state $42,000, had no other purpose than to make sure that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender North Carolinians remain second-class citizens. It is to ensure that we know that every time we take a step forward, they will be there to pull the rug out from beneath us.
And this ugly hateful law does not exist in a vacuum; North Carolina is not alone is considering such legislation. Since the Supreme Court declared that the U.S. Constitution requires that same-sex couples be afforded the same constitutional right to marriage as their neighbors, friends, and siblings in opposite-sex relationships, legislators in state after state have been falling over themselves to make sure that we queers know that a sufficiently powerful group of our fellow citizens, if not actually a majority, will do whatever they can to enforce their scriptures–the only parts of which they still follow being those verses that assure them that god hates fags as much as they do—with all the force of the government and the power of the state they can still muster, to damn us to an eternal hell after our deaths while enduring a hell on earth at their hands while we yet live, to deny us our equality and our liberty to whatever degree they still can. If they could, they would deny us our very humanity and our dignity, too, but those things, at least, they cannot take. Nor can they stop us from continuing to fight—and we, and our families, and our friends, and our allies, will fight—for our right to the same protections, guarantees, and liberties they enjoy.