Dear Bobby Jindal, David Vitter, Steve Scalise, Tony Perkins, and most of all, Martin Feldman:

As a rule, I don’t like gloating. Like many Southerners, I was taught to be a good loser and an even better winner. So, the last thing I’d want to do is to kick someone when he’s down.

And boy, are you down right now. Marriage equality is now legal in all 50 states, including Louisiana. And you know what that means? It means that all your railing about Evil Gays (and very, very rarely, Evil Lesbians) has been for nothing. Waste of time.

You could’ve been filling the world with love and awesomeness and light, using your powers for good. But no, you chose the dark side. And now, you’ve lost. And from this point forward, until the last byte of data on the last sever is corrupted, until the last book is burned, until the last human stops studying the history of her race, everyone will know: you had a choice, and you blew it.

That’s gotta hurt.

So, let me be among the first to say: fuck you.

Fuck you for not recognizing the value of LGBT relationships — the value of any relationship outside your convenient, exclusive, not-as-traditional-as-you-think definition of marriage.

Fuck you for not wanting to give us the same rights and protections that you and your wives have.

Fuck you for using religion — an especially effective tool among the poor, particularly in a poor state like Louisiana, a poor state that none of you have done anything to enrich or ennoble — to spread your toxic message.

Fuck you and your ancestors for having generations of us sent to shrinks, sanitariums, or worse.

Oh, dear. I’m babbling.

Let me summarize:

• Fuck you.
• We won.
• It’s over.

…Only, it’s not over.

Not because you, Jindal, and your reacharound buddy, Buddy, are now standing in the schoolhouse door, making yourselves look even worse in the eyes of history, as if any of us dreamed that were possible.

No, this isn’t over because we’re not satisfied. You could’ve made this so easy, you could’ve accommodated us years ago. Like your philosophical parent, George Wallace, you made fighting equality your Big Issue. And just as the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 didn’t quell racial tension, these rulings won’t settle things between us.

We could’ve worked together to make Louisiana the awesome place that many of us believe it to be — not a last stand for straight white men, but a place of opportunity for all. We could’ve brought equality to every corner of the state instead of limiting it to the colorful but cramped gay ghettos of New Orleans. LGBT Louisianans shouldn’t have had to beg for their rights, but we did. And you said no. And now, we’re going to have to do things the hard way.

We’ll be seeing you. On the streets and in the courts, we’ll be seeing you.

And by the way, fuck you. Fuck you all.

Love,

Richard