Everyone is talking about this clip from The Broadcast (Dallas’s local version of The View):
Yes, you just saw that. A grown woman couldn’t avoid looking like a bigot for much longer and wasn’t making an objectively-good argument, so she had to skee-daddle outta there. Just because some dude kissed his boyfriend in celebration of getting drafted into America’s most over-hyped sport. Even that old lady (who I suspect of some N-word usage) didn’t care as much about the gay dudes; she was just mad that people can’t express their feelings if they’re not en vogue… which makes a good point: Say what you want at home, but come correct in the public sphere.
We’re intolerant of intolerance.
That’s why people get smashed for racism — just ask Paula Deen. The Supreme Court told us that we can’t discriminate against someone because of the color of their skin — race is a part of a person, just like age and ethnicity and gender.
But where does that leave sexual preference?
Being gay is less readily-apparent than race is, which (considering our country’s precarious history of racism) makes it seem like even less of a reason to be prejudiced against someone. But, there’s still… a feeling, a stigma, *something* there.
Unless and until sexual preference can be established as something central to a person, like those other protected characteristics, it will remain in this discriminatory Limbo where sexuality is not exactly protected, but seems just as much a part of a person as their skin color. And I attribute this uncertain territory, mostly, to religion — because they can point to a supernatural concept to fuel their intolerance, people deflect and diffuse the stench of bigotry.
As a native Texan, I’m not surprised by Amy Kushnir. My own mother had about the same reaction when I informed her I was in a relationship with another woman. It’s a typical reaction around here.