Civil Rights by popularity contest

This from the New York Post:

August 19, 2003 - More than half of Americans favor a law that bars gay marriage and specifies that wedlock is between a man and a woman, an Associated Press poll found. The survey also found presidential candidates could face a backlash if they support gay marriage or civil unions, which provide gay couples the legal rights and benefits of marriage.

The poll, conducted for the AP by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa., found 52 percent favor a law banning gay marriages, while 41 percent oppose it.

Closing eyes and taking three deep breaths... I don't know where all of this is going to wind up. I don't personally believe that the Constitution will end up being changed to define marriage as one man, one woman. I could be wrong, but I don't think that will happen. I'm more concerned with the environment that we are now living in. Tensions are high and suddenly we have shifted from being acceptable to being a group who wants to destroy marriage. We aren't out to destroy marriage. We just want to be part of our society. We want equal rights, and we have every right to ask for and expect that.

I went to lunch today at one of my usual sandwich places. I got out of my car and noticed that this guy was glaring at me. He was a middle-aged white man. I could tell he was pissed off at something. I looked away from him thinking that I had done something to offend him. Then he yells at me, "You fucking faggots aren't going to destroy marriage in my lifetime. You'll be taken out first!" I don't really enjoy using language like that in my journal, but I think it's important to show the level of hate that is out there. It's certainly not the first time something like this has happened to me, but it's very unnerving when I'm going there with my work on my mind to be confronted with that. I assume that he concluded that I am gay from my bumper sticker (I have a rainbow bumper sticker), or perhaps from the way I was carrying myself (I'm never sure if I look gay or not, although some people say I have gay mannerisms). Whether I do or not is not the issue. I shouldn't have to put out energy to not be me. That's ridiculous. I for one will have a greater sense of my own personal security. I usually eat there, and I usually go inside, get a table, and take a few minutes to just unwind a bit. Today, I got my food and took off. I just wanted to get away from there, and I don't honestly know if I'll go back. I suppose it could happen anywhere. If the police had been there, I would have told them, but I'm not sure if I'd actually get any support from them. They are part of the same system. What if their feelings are the same as this man who apparently had such hatred for me? I'm thinking of perhaps carrying pepper spray with me now. We still live in a free country right? Because today, it's feeling a little bit Iraqish to me.

Just be careful out there. Keep your wits about you and always know who is around you at all times. And remember, it's not all the population who feels this way. We have friends and allies out there as well. We need to remember that despite what these polls are saying, the granting of civil rights is not done by a popularity contest. In the end, I believe honor and good will triumph in our fight for equal rights.

It's important to keep our cool when everyone else seems to be losing sight of what is really important here. I'm going to pull a thought from a well known poem that I think is appropriate to what the gay population in America is going through right now. Some find the poem trite, but I think it does have a message for us. Read the poem, and really try to follow it. I think it will help us. The highlighting is my own.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

IF by Rudyard Kipling