It's Worse Than We Thought

Scrolling through the news articles on Yahoo, I saw this headline: "The Mike Pence (Donald Trump) Assault On LGBTQ Equality Is Already Underway." It linked to an article by Michelangelo Signorile, Queer Voices Editor-at-Large at Huffington Post. I may have read the entire article without blinking. OMG. Who knew? They're speculating that Mike Pence "could be the most powerful Vice President ever." More powerful than Chaney? Is that physically possible? Signorile writes "Mike Pence is perhaps one of the most anti-LGBTQ political crusaders to serve in Congress and as governor of a state. Long before he signed the draconian anti-LGBTQ 'religious liberty' law in Indiana last year, he supported 'conversion therapy' as a member of Congress, and later, as a columnist and radio host, he gave a speech in which he said that marriage equality would lead to 'societal collapse,' and called homosexuality 'a choice.'" The article is especially unsettling because we believe we've been making halting progress through the years since the turn of the century, that the population has been gradually, grudgingly accepting new ways of thinking about certain segments of the population. But all along there have been influential people plotting ways to roll time back and undo that progress because they feel this progress has been an ooze downward toward depravity rather than a march upward toward enlightenment. Signorile advocates moving through the grieving process quickly and beginning the fight to retain the progress we've made.

I shouldn't scroll down to look at the comments at the end of articles. I know better. I'll have to break that habit if I'm going to get anything else done besides blogging, tweeting and facebooking. But one reply to a comment after this article was just so... dumb that I had to respond:

Kiran Suresh · Los Angeles, California
I'm not afraid of Trump because I know he will do nothing. I'm worried about a republican dominated house and conservative SC which could roll back years of progress. And everyone knows Pence is the scariest wolf in the White House.

Tim Daugherty · Jamison, Pennsylvania
Kiran Suresh: Yes, we need to roll back soooo many things liberals have put into place! This is should not be viewed as a fear but rather the consequences for losing an election to conservative issues. The DOW is up huge... but I guess you do not look at those things.

John Evan Garvey · Burbank, California
Tim Daugherty: I imagine Jamison is in central Pennsylvania? Do you own cows yourself? I imagine you're married; nope, looking at your profile you appear to be single. You don't know what your girlfriend or your mom is really thinking about the reduction of women's rights that appears to be coming. She hasn't told you what she's really thinking because she knows better. You have an LGBT brother or sister or niece or nephew or cousin who hasn't told you because they know how you'd react. So much going on around you that you don't know about. And you're thinking "It's a man's world again!," meaning straight white Christian man's world. There are people whom you love, who are close to you, whom you are hurting with your support of a narrow conservative agenda. The soooo many things liberals have put into place have benefited people you love. When those rights are taken away, it will hurt them, but they won't let you know that, because they know better.