The moment many LGBTQ+ people have warned about seems to be dawning as Kim Davis, the infamous Kentucky clerk who went to jail over refusing to process same-sex marriages, has resurfaced.
Now out of jail, Davis is asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v Hodges, the case that granted the right to same-sex marriage in 2015 and the violation of which landed Davis in jail.
It's unknown whether the Court will take up her petition (many experts say it's unlikely), but many conservatives have seized on the news as an opportunity to trot out the same old tired bigotry.
Enter far-right pipsqueak—er, sorry, influencer—Victor Nieves, who went viral for his hot take on why the Court should take up the case, which was so boneheaded even his own followers dragged him for it.
@goodtrouble_ @Victor Nieves hall monitor.
Nieves' take was straight out of 1982: We should overturn same-sex marriage, he says, because it's a slippery slope toward all kinds of absurd marital pairings that have never—and will never—happen, not that they're anyone's business anyway.
According to Nieves:
"[Supporters of same-sex marriage] open Pandora's box. Marriage has to have boundaries. It has to have a definition which was set by God."
Why? Because of things that have never and will never happen, such as:
"There's nothing stopping two brothers from getting married because they're consenting adults. Or how about a mother who's gone through menopause marrying her 18 year old son?
If anyone knows what menopause has to do with this, please let us know.
Nieves went on to warn that allowing same-sex marriage will result in "15 people entering into some weird, freakish corporate marriage," a phrase that doesn't even make any sense.
It's worth noting that same-sex marriage has been legal for 10 years and none of this has happened yet, in part because things like incest are illegal.
But Nieves is hoppin' mad about what HAS happened.
"We've seen the fruits of legalizing gay marriage. We gave it like eight years and all of a sudden we had drag queen story hour in elementary school."
No, we didn't, but okay Victor!
Now obviously, this is flat-out dumb, and even Nieves' own followers thought so.
This is likely because a fun fact conservative "influencers" love to ignore is that repealing same-sex marriage is very unpopular, even with conservatives.
There's no doubt the propaganda has worked: Support for same-sex marriage has fallen substantially in recent years, especially among Republicans.
Nevertheless, the latest polling from March shows that 68% of the country supports same-sex marriage rights, including 44% of Republicans.
Naturally, Nieves doubled-down anyway, scolding his followers for not liking the "unpopular" truth about "gay marriage," and got dragged all over again, most notably by liberal influencers @goodtrouble.
@goodtrouble_ @Victor Nieves a double down? In this economy?
GoodTrouble pointed out that aside from the fact that Nieves' arguments are the same ones used to target interracial marriage decades ago (which is likely no accident), the Trump Administration Nieves voted for is riddled with people who clearly have no regard for "the sanctity of marriage."
Most notable among them is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who impregnated his current and third wife while he was still married to his second.
Then, of course, there's the president himself, a notorious womanizer and adjudicated rapist of women he carried on relations with during three marriages.
Given the outright hypocrisy and incriminatingly bizarre examples Nieves used to make his very dumb point, the backlash has been intense.
Whoever is bankrolling Nieves (and Davis, for that matter) to say this stuff, you might want to consider spending your money elsewhere, because not even conservative weirdos are buying this nonsense.
In the words of the great lesbian pop princess Chappell Roan, good luck babe.