That hatred-palooza that is the Values Voters Summit loves Mike Huckabee and the abortion issue. They’ve voted both those as #1 on their lists.
When it comes to same-sex marriage, however, well, it ranks just one point higher than Sarah Palin: #3. (I know. Can you believe it? In their presidential straw poll, Palin was #4!) “Protection of religious liberty” – whatever the heck that is -Â took the #2 slot.
FiveThirtyEight gives us some shallow hope,
“Public opinion is moving toward acceptance of gay marriage. But it is doing so very slowly, at a rate of perhaps a point or two per year, and has at least a few years to go before it is the majority opinion. In the near term, the more relevant dimension may be ‘passion’, or depth of feeling. It used to be that the conservatives were ahead on passion — they were strongly opposed to gay marriage, whereas liberals were, at best, lukewarmly in favor of it. Increasingly, that dynamic seems to be reversing.”
But I’m not so sure the folks at FiveThirtyEight have it right on this one. Because we know what moves the needle on public opinion when it comes to gay rights and gay marriage: You.
We know that the more you come out, be out, live out, the more visibility you have, the more the polls move in our direction. And the polls are moving in our direction, just not as fast as we would like.
Our greatest secret weapon IS you. But only if you give a damn. So, when you see bloggers write that the Value Voters Summit doesn’t hate us quite as much as they did a few years ago, well, don’t get complacent. They still hate us enough to try to derail our rights, and our lives.
Stand up. Be proud. Fight back.