Thursday, April 28, 2005

It's Getting Hot in Here

Alabama Bill Targets Gay Authors

About 451 degrees, I think. Not satisfied with taking over every aspect of the real world, one Republican lawmaker in Alabama wants to ban books by gay authors and books that include gay characters.

A year ago, when people like me and Andrew Sullivan were saying that the upcoming election was about whether we would go down the road of the Christian Right seeking to control every bit of American life, people thought we were crazy. And they went and voted for Bush because they thought his issues (the war? taxes? I don't know what they were thinking) were more important and this fear of a bunch of religious wingnuts trying to use the government to push their agenda was unfounded. Well, take a look around. As Sullivan says:
This isn't just about gays, although we've felt the sting of the movement more acutely than most. It's about science, stem cell research, the teaching of evolution, free access to medical prescriptions, the legality of living wills, abortion rights, censorship of cable and network television, and so on. The Schiavo case woke a lot of people up.
This stuff is exactly what we were afraid of. And if more people don't wake up and take notice--and drive these people out of power in 2006--headlines like today's will seem commonplace rather than crazy. And this will no longer be the same country many of us know and love.

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