Tipping Points

"I felt a great disturbance in the force....as if millions of conservatives suddenly cried out in terror and then their heads exploded. Obama must have won...."
-Obi-wan Kenobi

(Just kidding! Please don't sue me Lucasfilm/Disney!)

It may sound silly, but that is exactly what is playing out all over the internet this week. This election not only saw the reelection of Barack Obama but it also saw a historic win for gay rights at the ballot box. For the first time ever, same-sex marriage won at the voting booth in not just one, but four states. In addition, we saw Tammy Baldwin become our first elected LGBT senator as well as picking up two more out legislators in the Congress. All in all,  the wins for the gay community this election cycle have far reaching implications for the gay community, not the least of which being that it is no longer a liability for lawmakers to publicly support gay rights, nor is it a scarlet letter to be both gay and run for office. Additionally, the fact that gay marriage won the majority vote in...not one, but four states..could put some additional pressure on the Supreme Court to find DOMA unconstitutional. It is because of these big wins and their possible repercussions that some have dubbed this election the "tipping point" for gay rights....the point at which it becomes progressively easier to build further support for the equal civil rights of the LGBT community.

However, it is also because of these big wins that some people are losing their minds. For instance...Aware that the world is changing in ways they don't like, NOM and The Family Research council are having meltdowns of epic proportions, realizing that they are now going to have a much harder time building support for their cause. They have nonetheless circled the wagons and are vowing to continue the fight. To do that they are dropping the mask of civility and upping the ante on the amount of hurt they are willing to cause to their fellow humans. For example....

The Arizona Shooting and The Politics of Revolution

The victim of attempted assassination, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords clings to life in an Arizona Hospital. Nine other people are dead including a nine year old girl, Christina Taylor Greene...

And we are all looking for meaning...

What drives another human being to commit a crime like this? The assailant, Jared Loughner's mental illness has been given as the likely cause and anyone who has seen his YouTube channel would be hard pressed to disagree. Jared seemed to have the idea that all politicians where part of a giant scheme to control the populace through certain concepts that he obsessed over...like, the meaninglessness of words and currency. While I am still unsure what he thought of as "currency" it was clear that he had gone down the rabbit whole to the point of paranoia.

Yet, all that was on anybodies lips the day after was Sarah Palin's political action map...you know, the one covered in cross hairs?...the same map in which one of those cross hairs includes Gabrielle Giffords name and district, prompting speculation that her map may have provided Loughner...and any one else with an itchy trigger finger...a handy hit list. Viewing Loughners video is chilling but one thing it doesn't include are specific names or political parties. He seemed to have a problem with the entire system.

Whether the map and Loughners actions are connected have become almost irrelevant at this point as one of the effects of this horrible event is that we are talking about the negatives of engaging in "culture war". Sometimes its not just a way of words...sometimes it's real bullets....and who owns the blame?