Things You Can't Legislate

I will not be sad about this
Because this is the closest thing to an invisible law
I've ever seen
How can you legislate
The opposite of a dream?

You can't legislate
Who I wake up next to each morning
Or who I fall asleep with each night
You can disapprove
I'll note your frown
Say I can't have your paper
I'd have turned it down
I don't need your signature
To make what I have legit
Too many people worked too hard
For me to just quit
So go ahead, you can be irrate
But I'm happy to say, you can't legislate

You can't legislate prevention methods
That will somehow stop people from being gay
Or make the gays already here stray
You can threaten your children with disowning them
They'll just move away
Sneer at your gay neighbors
They'll just shut their gates
You can hate all you want
But you can't legislate

If you legislated that the sky was green
It wouldn't make it green
In a law book somewhere
They'd have to print
That the sky was now a lovely shade of neon
But we'd all know it wasn't true
Because it's blue
The color of the sky
Or the changing winds of fate
They're both things you can't legislate

You can't legislate all the straight friends I have
Into hating their children should they grow up to be gay
When in fact a whole generation is coming up
Who are much more compassionate than a minor majority
In a west coast state
My friends love me and they'll love their kids too
Regardless of the laws of their state
That's something you can't legislate

You can't legislate the mindsets
Of all the people who turned out to say 'No'
I won't discount all those people
Because they couldn't win over
Those amongst them who wouldn't tolerate
They may have lost but they don't evaporate
Getting rid of the good guys when the bad guy wins
Wasn't an option on that ballot
And it won't be on it the next election date
Because it isn't something you can legislate

You can't legislate what gay influences appear in culture
The fact that exposure really is working
Even when stereotypes are all that are exposed
You can't rid the theaters, the television, and the movies
Of newly gay actors, writers, and characters
You can't control a culture that gay people richly saturate
That's something you can't legislate

You can't legislate the minds that have already changed
Fathers and sons who are no longer estranged
Wedding albums won't be burned
Despite the marriage having turned
Your right-wing ancestors are turning too
In their graves at the thought of a President who
They would have stopped from getting his due
I'm sure you'd love it if I were an object of my family's hate
But that's something you can't legislate

You can't stop extreme religious thinking
From becoming antique
Or right-wing nutjobs from becoming obsolete
You can't stop the progress, advancement or change
Rearrange your laws, see what good it does
You can't stop me from getting what I know is mine
I lost it today, but I'll get it back down the line
I didn't lose wrong and right, I just lost a few states
And that's not enough to make me not wanna celebrate
What will happen in the future
That you can't legislate