I hope you’re right that there are gay individuals/couples sprinkled throughout the greater metro area. It’d be a shame if the neighbor you lent sugar or gave a ride home to would also vote against your right to marry.

There are quite a number of gay couples living all over the metro area, some openly, some quietly, who live their lives in a way that shows just how normal and absolutely boring we can be. I can count couples in Douglasville, Kennesaw, Smyrna, Lawrenceville, Stockbridge, and yes, Jonesboro where everyone knows it but they’re not running around on rollerskates wearing tutus.

We don’t all bitch about rednecks. In fact, some of us ARE rednecks.

If you think we’re all insular, you’ve been around the wrong gays. I’m sorry you’ve had that experience.

The best PR campaign would be for those ordinary, boring, workaday gays to simply be who they are and to tell their story.

What you don’t get is that generalities matter. Generalities influence public opinion, and public opinion influences voters. You change public opinion, you change the voters for gay marriage.

Successful civil rights movements have recognized and utilized public opinion to their advantage. What made men like MLK so successful was his presentation of his movement as a sober, serious group, appealing to basic Christian sentiments.

In contrast, the contemporary “gay rights movement” has a serious public image problem. When your typical Georgian from Jonesboro thinks about homosexuals, he thinks of “sinful” acts like pride festival and what is projected in movies.

Is this fair? No. Does the GLBT community have the right to live how it wants? Absolutely. But they aren’t winning any votes by forming an extremely insular community in midtown, throwing a decadent festivals (repulsive to sensibilities of the rest of the state), and bitching about “rednecks.” That’s not the way to win GA’s hearts and minds.

That’s also why the judicial route to social change, as opposed to the legislative avenue, has been so attractive: The GLBT can let a court order win that battle for them.

well done, sir!

Handel is doing what she has to do to win, much like she did at the Fulton County office level: suck up to the constituency that will get her elected.

To that, I say… bring it on. The hate stuff, intolerance rhetoric is an awfully big target. Who could miss?! (Other than DPG.)

“Roar! I live in Grant Park, wear skinny jeans, and have 7 gay friends! Fuck georgians who don’t support gay marriage! No, I really know any of them personally, but why would I? They live in Marietta and Macon, and fuck the suburbs. I mean, I do want to tell them what cars they can drive (for the enviornment, you know?!?) and spend my saturdays blogging how much I hate them, but they should respect our rights! Because they fucking should! I’m going to the Local….”

That all might be true, but its a crappy way to run a civil rights movement. Good luck with all that.