No going back now

| 12:01 pm EST February 26, 2023
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In the film and novella Brokeback Mountain, the plot revolves around the complex romance between two American cowboys in times that were less tolerant of same-sex relationships. In the classic tale “Giovanni’s room,” the plot centers on an American man living in Paris and his inability to accept his feelings for a male bartender he meets. It was during a time that was less tolerant of same-sex relationships.

Times have indeed changed. And we cannot — we mustn’t ever go back. I’ve written countless articles on women and the fact that women making their own decisions about their bodies is under attack from republicans.

But so are other things — and same-sex relationships are at the top of the list. I believe that were it up to Republicans; we WOULD go back. In the last few years, the GOP has become more emboldened about going after the rights of everyone who do not choose for themselves the traditional roles of gender in relationships — that is, a man and a woman.

The democratic party believes in the freedom to love whom you love — to choose a partner based on who they are, not their gender. And Republicans do not like this and are trying to change it. A good example is what’s happening in Virginia.

On Friday, the Virginia House of Delegates blocked an attempt to repeal an ancient constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. This ban carries no legal weight, but that has not stopped some Virginian republicans from excitedly talking about stripping Virginians of the right to marry whom they want.

And the Family Foundation, a socially conservative republican group, has raised the possibility that the supreme court could overturn Obergefell v Hodges. This was the decision that in 2015 legalized same-sex marriage nationally. And in North Carolina, republicans want a bill passed that would prohibit the teachings of gender identity in certain school classrooms.

I could cite fifty more examples. The point is I fear that if republicans take power, they will go after the gay community as never before. And we simply can’t go back. We don’t WANT to go back to outdated, antiquated times.

We now live in a modern world, and one of our freedoms is choosing who we love without the fear — the terror — that people of the past once lived with. This is just another reason we must win. We must win because we will never return to the world republicans so bitterly long for.