In response to Burr Deming's Gay Marriage Opponent from Missouri

Those of us of a certain age grew up in an anti-gay environment so pervasive it never occurred to anyone that it was anti-gay. Gay rights were not considered controversial then. They were not considered at all.

When the issue was eventually raised, the response of many was the equivalent of sputtering incoherence. Of course the rankest perversion should segregated from the rest of society. How could anyone challenge such a basic idea?

- Burr Deming, January 26, 2012

I have never heard an intelligent argument for restricting the rights of gays to marry. They are all fraught with named fallacies and other explanations that defy reason and common sense.

This issue, in a very few years, will become tantamount to the slavery discussion, the right of white males to suppress women’s rights discussion, to the rights to decide what color one’s skin must be in order to cast a vote in America discussion.

Those who stay with the far right and continue to embrace obvious discrimination for this reason or that, will leave documented records of shame behind.

Robert Bork opposed the Civil Rights Act denouncing it as "an unwanted intrusion on the right of individuals to choose with whom to associate." He openly declared that barbers should not lose their rights to put up “Whites Only” signs in the Aryan windows of their own establishments.

You can still make a weak argument defending Bork’s stance today, but notice, I did not say “defending Associate Supreme Court Justice Bork’s stance.”

Those who openly embrace prejudice of any kind should be careful of the footprints they leave. Some of those trails will still be there for all to see, long after the oppression of gays is no longer considered enlightened and has otherwise vanished. We will remember the horror of a backward generation. And to remind us we will have the written words of traditional conservatives, sources of pride when written, and opinions they will wish to keep in the closet, but it will be too late, once the matter is settled. The information age will carry their message forward and show it to the next the generation: the general public, potential employers, their children, and whatever on-looking God they happen to embrace.

If I am wrong, just remember this: no one was ever shamed for renouncing prejudice.

John Myste also writes for his own site, where no one is shamed for renouncing prejudice. Please visit John Myste Responds