I want to yell. I want to scream "fuck you!" at the top of my lungs directly at George W. Bush's face, but I won't, because that will just get me labeled as the angry, queeny black boi. I am an angry, queeny black boi, but nobody wants to listen to hym, so I will be the calm, collected, African-American, homosexual student and state for you (and for Mr. Bush, if he reads this) why Bush's non-address of the issue of same-sex marriage is unacceptable.
Mr. Bush stated in an interview with ABC News' chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl that he refuses to discuss same-sex marriage; in reference to an earlier interview, Bush stated, "I meant that I wasn't going to answer the question then, and I'm not going to answer it now ... I just don't want to wade back into the debate; I'm out of politics."
This excuse is only acceptable if we -- gays, queers, trans people, and allies -- allow Bush to be protected by his privilege.
It is privilege to do wrong and then, years after you do wrong and are told in various different ways, from different sources, how wrong you were, not only continue to ignore your wrong actions but refuse to even address those actions.
No, Mr. Bush, your evasion of the issue is not good enough.
You do not get to use my life, my friends' lives, the lives of millions whom I don't even know, as a political wedge to help secure your reelection under the vague, and oddly named (and anti-gay and anti-woman), banner of "moral values" and then turn around and claim that you "do not want to wade back into the debate" because you are "out of politics." You exploited our lives and helped further politicize them.
You do not get to start conversations about proposing to make me, my friends, and my people second-class citizens (and in the cases of me and my friends, third- and fourth-class citizens) and then walk away lily-white clean, claiming that you are simply "out of politics."
This is not just a question about a blip on the radar during your presidency; this act, your proposal to make a whole class of Americans constitutionally inferior to their brothers and sisters, all to win an election, is part of your "legacy."
You do not get to dodge your legacy, Mr. Bush.
And to be clear, a part of your legacy is bigotry. This is not a judgement of you without an examination of myself; rather, this is the appropriate use and application of a term to describe your past actions, which form your current legacy.
For the record, Mr. Bush, gays are getting married left and right, and despite your 2004 assertions, the "good influence of society" has not suffered or weakened.
To my knowledge, the only way to exorcise a ghost, or any unwanted, haunting memory that stains the present (and one's legacy), is to confront it, not dodge it.