More good news again!

More good news on the gay marriage/gay equality front. Today the governor of Rhode Island signed an executive order directing the state's agencies to recognize the marriages of gay people living in the state. Rhode Island itself does not allow gay marriage, so the order requires that the state recognize marriages performed elsewhere. About a year ago the governor and his allies in the legislature tried to enact gay marriage but could not win sufficient support and had to settle for civil unions instead. So today, the governor gets revenge for his loss by enacting gay marriage by edict. Gay Rhode Islanders can drive to Massachusetts, get married, drive home, present their license to the state, and voila they're married as far as Rhode Island is concerned. Clever!

Of course we'll hear grumbling and moaning by opponents and certainly shrieks of "tyranny!" (as if the rabid anti-gay haters aren't supporting raw tyranny against gay people). Too bad, folks. There's more than one way to skin a bigot. Kudos to Governor Lincoln Chaffee for having the guts and tenacity to stand up to the bigots and to the Catholic clergy who tried to thwart civil rights for gay people.

The cause of gay marriage is on a roll. That vile vote in North Carolina was sadly inevitable. North Carolina is after all the state that sent the mad dog racist and gay-hater Jesse Helms to the US senate for term after term. It is part of the old Confederacy. Who has been out of step with the march of history more or longer than white southerners? But with Barack Obama's long overdue discovery that he has a spine and therefore can stand for gay rights instead of just yacking about it and today's victory in Rhode Island, nobody should doubt that the cause of equality for gay people is now rolling forward. The bigots are in retreat. This November there will be game-changing votes in Washington state, Maine, Minnesota, and Maryland. This year's election is the watershed. Everything will be different after the first Tuesday in November, 2012. The retreat will become a rout and our enemies, who are enemies of human freedom in general, will be crushed and thrown onto the garbage dump of history.