In Just Spring
(if you just said to yourself: when the world is mud-luscious, or thought, queer old balloonman, go write your middle school English teacher a thank you note)
The brainiac Nate Silver, whose science-based and very accurate predictions for the presidential election drove Republicans batty, made some science-based and presumably very accurate predictions this week about How Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage is Changing, and What it Means. The bottom line of Silver’s many polls and graphs is this: the momentum towards approval of gay marriage is so strong that by 2020, all but 6 states in the nation will be ready to approve same-sex marriage by a majority vote.
The six outliers? Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, and…yes, Georgia.
Whatever critiques we might have about the impact of tying basic rights to an inherently exclusionary institution, it’s not a nice feeling to know that 70% of the people in your state dislike gay people so much they want to keep gays out of something as cruddy as marriage. Compare Massachusetts, where Silver predicts will be supportive of same-sex marriage to the tune of >75% by 2020. Or Rhode Island, which Silver predicts to be the first state to give tax credits and free puppies to anyone who gets gay married.
So why do we stay here? Georgia has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country. The GA Legislature just voted to turn the screw on anti-immigrant laws another quarter turn to the right. Access to health care for the uninsured – and uninsured trans* people especially – is awful, with no prospects for improvement so long as Governor Deal continues to defy Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion provisions. We could go on, but let’s not.
Really now, why do we stay here? Well, for one, because it’s spring, Read more…