I remember back in the nineties there was a bit of talk about the “gay agenda.”  The conservatives who used this phrasing (or something similar) made it sound like everyone who was homosexual wanted everybody who wasn’t to become gay, that they wanted special rights.  They deliberately twisted what gay rights supporters were actually after, which was equal rights.  This has been the “gay agenda” all along, except that many non-gay people are pushing for it, too.

The big issue for anti-gay activists, the one that bothers them most as near as I can tell, is the acceptance of homosexual relationships as not being abnormal.  Yes, I turned around the usual phrasing–it is usually stated by anti-gays they don’t want gays to be seen as normal, which is to say they want homosexuality to be viewed as aberrant, unnatural, abnormal behavior.  It is none of these things, and nature has backed it up by providing examples of animals who exhibit homosexual behavior.

Conservatives such as those who reject homosexuality as being normal, however, do not have a strong history of accepting facts which come scientific studies.  My own personal observation is that Many of those who strongly reject homosexuality are also creationists, rejecting the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting evolution.  Many in that crowd seem to also be the sort calling President Obama a Muslim with no American birth certificate, again despite evidence to the contrary.

In spite of the hateful efforts of anti-gay activists, the (r)evolution is at hand.  I say it like this because it is an evolution of society, a change in general attitudes, and with it an overthrowing of anti-gay laws and practices.  Recently, an assistant Attorney General in Michigan was fired because of his harassment of an openly gay college student.  Openly gay George Takei, also known as Sulu in Star Trek, called Clint McCance, a member of a school board in Arkansas who stated his wish that gays would die, a douchebag.  Mr. McCance has resigned his position as a result of the firestorm over his comments and given an apology of sorts.  That doesn’t change the amusement factor of Sulu calling him a douchebag.  I find it interesting that Mr. Takei, who is no longer a young actor, would use the term “douchebag,” a relatively modern pejorative.

Elsewhere, a group which filed a lawsuit to repeal the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is now asking the Supreme Court to review their case.  A judge agreed the policy was unconstitutional and went so far as to institute a ban on the policy, but the Ninth District Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on the judge’s order.  The group is asking the Supreme Court to decide the circuit court overstepped their bounds in issuing the stay, skirting (for the moment) the larger issue.  President Obama has promised to push the senate to get the policy repealed as soon as possible, as the house of representatives has already approved of the repealing.

The simple fact is that the country’s attitude is changing.  Just as attitudes regarding racial issues started to significantly change forty or fifty years ago, they are now changing towards gays.  Kids of a few decades ago were raised with civil rights all over the news, and non-whites slowly became more accepted as people in this country.  Yes, racism is still around and stronger than many of us want to admit or think about, but it is a far cry from where it was in the fifties or sixties.  Anti-gay sentiment will be around for quite some time to come, but progress is being made against such attitudes.  Young people today are watching the older folks bicker about it, and they are seeing the negativity of the hateful attitudes being strewn about.  In forty years, gays will just be another part of society, much like non-whites are.  With luck, race issues will be gone and we’ll be fighting against the last of the anti-gay advocates.

The (r)evolution is at hand, and it gives me hope.