Language. People get upset when you use it. Like when you call a voting bloc bigoted just because they didn’t vote your way. Well, let’s look at the meaning first. According to Merriam-Webster, to be bigoted is “to be obstinately convinced of the superiority or correctness of one's own opinions and prejudiced against those who hold different opinions: a bigoted group of reactionaries."

So, by that definition most people are bigots. Yes, most believe that their opinion is the right one and often refuse to bend on many issues. Maine's repeal of its same-sex marriage law is proof of that. But it's not the fault of bigots in Maine, in California, or in any other state where they have voted, may vote, or will vote to uphold or repeal same-sex marriage laws and the equal rights of gays. It's the cowardly Congress, Senate, president, and Supreme Court. The very people who know that civil rights should never be left up to the electorate. Ever.

People often don't do the right thing in the privacy of the anonymous voting booth. Hidden fears, hidden bigotries -- deep-seeded ones many didn't even know they had -- come out. That's why equality for blacks would never be up for a vote. Imagine if we began voting on interracial marriage again. Given the recent justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple, I'm not sure that interracial couples would be able to marry when all the ballots were counted.

The fact is, no civil right should be left up to the masses. Our founders were very clear about equality in the Constitution, and as the T-shirt on my website reads, "Equal = Equal." No, it's not the fault of homophobes or those religious zealots frightened by their churches. It's the churches themselves and the cowardly government that fails to tell all religious institutions to get out of politics or be taxed. And until religion's death grip on our society is loosened, the Constitution must continue to be interpreted by the (hopefully) educated legislators and presidents, and the (hopefully) learned Supreme Court justices whose charge it is to enforce and maintain the equality promised for all Americans, including couples who are of the same gender and wish to marry.

Until President Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and nine Supremes do their jobs, do what they know must be done, and once and for all grant federal same-sex marriage to all, until a law is passed that no state can deny anyone the right to enter into a legal contract based solely on gender -- in other words, until someone decides to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution -- then this battle will continue to be won and lost state by bigoted state.