New York needs Growing Pains

When I tell people that I grew up in Atlanta, the first thing people ask me is where is my accent? So I explain to them that I was born in Minnesota and moved there at a certain age, so I never got one. And that's true, but I never talk about that I made a conscious effort to never get one.
I had good reason. Most people hear a southern accent and there is a certain presumption made about who you are. A few extra vowel sounds and people assume that I might be a bit less intelligent, or slow, or bigoted. People seem to have two ideas about the South, that it's either like Gone with the Wind or it's like Deliverance. Not two of the most flattering portraits. And I never wanted people to think I was some kind of southern good old boy or that I wanted Ned Beatty to squeal for me.
The worst part is that so many of the people I grew up with did have that narrow minded bigoted attitude. I remember friends and people I hung out with held those racist attitudes. I remember guys using the n-word whenever one of "them" wasn't around. I remember that the worst thing you could be was a "fag." And even then I knew I thought differently then they did, that I wanted to distance myself from them. I knew I wanted to get far far away from them.
I wasn't always like that. I remember using the word, I remember being afraid of the idea. Of thinking that being gay was icky and something that was rotten or bad. Maybe even sinful, although I was never a religious person. But maybe around 15 or 16 I began to question my viewpoints. I began to open my mind to the fact that someone who was gay was no different than someone straight. That if a man loved another man, what business was it of mine? That love was love, in whatever form someone felt it. I stopped fearing them and just began accepting them. Wow that sounds patronizing. I guess it would be better to say that I just grew up.
Years later, I moved to New York and found a place that I finally felt comfortable in. A place that truly felt like home. I have always believed that New Yorkers aren't made, they are born. They just don't have to be born in New York. Here was a place where all types, all people were accepted. Where anyone could find a home.
All of this is just a way of getting to a point of saying that it was so disheartening to hear that New York State voted down a gay marriage bill. Was I surprised? Not really, I gave up believing that New York was a truly liberal stronghold about the time Giuliani got re-elected. Plus having travelled all over upstate New York, I have found it is no less rural and conservative as so many places in the South.
But I had a hope that maybe we would be the next state to pass one. Freaking Iowa has gay marriage, was it so much to hope for? And in a week where the media was obsessed with the crumbling marriage of superstar golfer? Yes, marriage is truly a sacred institution. Sigh
The politics surrounding the vote have been discussed and dissected in much better places than here. But none of that is really the point of this. I guess ultimately I am just sad that there are still so many people in this world who would deny a group of people a basic right. That they would live in fear or in judgment.
I guess I am just sad that some people just won't grow up.