What do you want next?

Thinking more on Dick Cheney's speech mentioning gay rights evoked a memory for me. Not the part about "state's rights", which of course is just code for, "If the federal government won't discriminate, then they best let the states." No, I thought about his comment that freedom means freedom for everyone.

Last time I was in San Antonio we were sitting in a cheap cash bar downtown. I was there with a good friend and one of his hometown friends somehow zeroed in on my politics across the table. Deciding to bug me, he moved closer to me and asked what I thought about gay marriage. I told him straight up that I support it. And he said something to the effect of, "People keep pushing and pushing for more and more rights. When will it stop?"

Though he would deny it, I could hear a historical litany of conservatism in that comment. It's like first they wanted freedom, and then equality for black people, then equality for women, then equality for immigrants, and now they want equality for gays and lesbians. When will it stop? When there's equality for everyone? When everyone is free? Is that what you people want?

And I have to say, yes, that's what we want. And I said it then, but I wish I'd said it more eloquently.