Chill out, bigots. Its not like theyre replacing the stars and bars with the rainbow.
  • Shutterstock
  • Chill out, bigots. It's not like they're replacing the stars and bars with the rainbow.

Dear Bigots,

I know, I know, I know, you've had a bad week. Your flag's coming down. You can't even buy one at Walmart anymore. Yesterday you found out that millions of people won't be denied access to health care on the basis of a technicality, and that you have to treat people of color the same as white people when they try to buy a house. And now, for the love of God, gay people can get married in your barnyard. You thought this was America, not some hot den of marriage equality and fair housing.

And, I know. You blame yourself. People are celebrating today, in part, because you banned gay marriage, denied gay people their dignity, and now suddenly they're equals under the law. A decade ago you made a lot of people feel as if this day would never come, and now it has. It's tough to fall like that, so hard and so relatively fast, and then find the gumption to pick yourself right back up again.

But don't worry. Just remember, you're still on top. Trans people are getting shut down at the White House. Queer teens are still getting kicked to the curb in alarming numbers. The mainstream Republican presidential candidates are still behind you, still advancing your right to religious freedom. And if you don't like the mainstream, rest easy in the notion that at some point your fluffy saviors will drop almost a billion dollars on someone who probably shares your views.

Buck up, bigots! Black people are still disproportionally arrested and jailed, still being gunned down in houses of worship on Wednesday evenings, and still being choked in the street on Thursday afternoons. Still so much land is afforded you. Still your cults of death stand strong.

So when you see the solidarity in the street today, when you see people kissing and hugging and hollering and crying and relishing in the thought that today America just became a little bit less embarrassing of a place to call home, remember the pain from which some—some—of that joy springs. Remember it's you who puts that pain there, you who sets up and perpetuates the systems that keep it there, and it's you who'll get to tell your grandchildren where you stood on this beautiful day.