Let’s go with Amendment One. Let’s go with that, because it’s fresh in my mind, and I just feel like, THE FUCK, NORTH CAROLINA? I’m shocked. Like, I know that my friends in other states have this vision of North Carolina as some backwoods Bible-thumping hickville– and I’m sure there are parts of the state where that’s true– but we live in a wonderful, open, progressive and fairly liberal area. In fact, one of the things I love about this town is how diverse the population is. I go out running in the afternoon; I’ll pass maybe two people like me, and twenty people from different cultures or walks of life. It isn’t unusual for me to see a gay couple, or a lesbian couple, or them guiding a small family on bikes or pushing them on strollers. And it always makes me happy. It makes me happy the same way some people must feel when they read a Nicholas Sparks novel: this is love, this is a connection, this is two people who found a home in each other. There is too little of that in the world, and it always needs to be celebrated.

Love is love is love. And hate is hate is hate. And this is a clear act of hate. This isn’t even an act of religion– not a single one of my church-going friends, not a single one of the pastors I know, not a ONE of them voted for this amendment. My Facebook feed was flooded by NC Christians, Catholics, and Mormons who were all deeply upset and ashamed at the bigotry that was passed yesterday.

I’m shocked. I’m appalled. I genuinely believed the outcome would be different. I based my assumptions on the thinking friends and loving neighbors I encountered. I’m just– heartbroken. Furious. Injustice of any sort makes me angry, and this is one of paramount importance. My father and I talked about gay rights in New Orleans; walking along the waterfront. We were actually behind a group of gay men, who were out having lunch and laughing. I was watching the men. Just men: just people, at the core, people who are no less in any way, who deserved to be loved, who are being judged and punished for how they love others. Who are being told they are not worthy of basic rights. Who are told they are not worthy of a recognized family.

I told my father I believe things will change. I believe Addie and Elias, or Addie and Elias’ children, will be told one day that homosexuals weren’t allowed to marry, and they will react the same way I did when I learned about racial segregation: it won’t seem possible. It will seem so monumentally unfair, so needlessly cruel, and so mind-blowingly stupid– it will be impossible for them to fathom. They will always exist in a world that counts the worth of a person by what he contributes to society, and not by his genetic makeup.

I still want to believe that. I will still fight for that. Yesterday was a deterrent. This isn’t over.

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