You've witnessed only a taste of what is to come. Our threat to attack Austin, Texas resulted in a paroxysm of confusion and dismay as Rick Perry dominated your news cycle as planned. The spectacle of this ridiculous man jabbering nonsense about foreign policy surely chilled your spirit and made you doubt your strength.

Know this: Unless our demands are met, more Rick Perry will follow. We can issue spurious threats against Texan cities and inflict wave after wave of Rick Perry on you at will. He will appear on your major cable networks and on your Sunday talk shows. His awkward, idiot laughter and almost content-free posturing will fill your waking thoughts and haunt your dreams. If we wish, we will make Rick Perry relevant again. And if you do not cease your aggression, he will resurrect his presidential ambitions.

This is just the beginning. The glorious and unwavering people of the DPRK will systematically make ridiculous noises about launching attacks against the home districts of your most obnoxious and ignorant politicians. You will see your Congress grind to a halt so that Michele Bachmann can engage in a two-hour carnival of factual errors, conspiracy theories, and white lady crazy-eye. You will witness Sarah Palin's return to power. And then soon your celebrities will get involved. follow. Do you really want to see the press conference that follows a tossed-off assassination threat against Taylor Swift? Or Lindsay Lohan? Do you want to finally hear the horrifying things I told Dennis Rodman, when he writes a policy paper in Foreign Affairs?

The US lacks the ability to separate real threats from fake threats. American politicians and news people are incapable of keeping any kind of danger, no matter how small, in its proper perspective. Yours is a people addicted to crisis and hysteria. We know this, because everyone knows this. And until you change, we will weaponize your ridiculous public figures and turn them against you.

How bad can this get? I will bring Tucker Carlson back from the dead, and I will put him on every screen in America.

You have been warned.

We're in the middle of a stunning upsurge of support for gay people and an equally stunning collapse of support for conservatives. And I believe the reasons are the same: More and more people actually know them.

When the Supreme Court holds hearings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act this week, Chief Justice Roberts' gay cousin will be in attendance. This is symbolic of the place we've reached as a country. While Roberts wrestles with his decision, he will have the benefit of understanding that people in the LGBT community are responsible members of society who just want the same rights as the rest of us. And we, the public, also know, through personal experience, that Roberts himself was recommended to the bench by a halfwit who thought Jesus Christ actually told him to launch a preemptive war on Iraq.

The effect is undeniable. Back in 2009, Andrew Sullivan cited Gallup research that showed how being acquainted with a gay person made one more likely to favor same-sex marriage rights. And watching a parade of scary old men openly air their opinions on rape and abortion caused much of the electorate to decide they didn't want them to be in politics ever again.

With increased openness, you can encounter gay people or conservatives anywhere. You might meet a coworker's partner at a company lunch, say, or have a longtime an old friend post a picture of an aborted fetus on your Facebook page. Maybe an older relative finally has the courage to express himself - and he either tells you he's going to start dating, or he sends you a racist email about the president.

However these things happen, millions of people across the country are getting more accurate images of both groups. They understand a gay person is a well-adjusted man or woman who happens to be attracted to people of the same gender. And they understand a conservative is someone who doesn't believe in climate change, and maybe not even evolution, and enjoys hoarding weapons and highlighting the scariest parts of Atlas Shrugged.

The way forward, in both cases, is clear. Gay people should be proud of who they are. They should feel free to talk honestly, even bluntly. Conservatives should really, really do the opposite. They need to pull the plug on CPAC and encourage Michele Bachmann to build that compound she's probably sketched out. They need to fight those feelings they have about contraceptives and the gold standard. They're not right. They're not natural.

They need to find a deep, dark closet and somewhere just cram themselves in there. For good.

Rep. Bob Barr was on his third marriage when he first sponsored the bill. As CNN reports, his second wife repeatedly accused him of having an affair during divorce proceedings, and Barr did not deny it. The bill went to the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Henry Hyde, who would later publicly admit he had cheated on his wife, calling the matter a "youthful indiscretion," even though the affair happened in his forties. It passed the House under the leadership of Newt Gingrich, who was cheating on his second wife at the time. Around the same period, according to this woman, Gingrich told her about the infidelity and tried to get her to agree to an open marriage. The bill passed the Senate, whose president pro tem, Strom Thurmond, had an illegitimate daughter he didn't acknowledge because she was African American, and he was, of course, a racist. The bill was eventually signed by - wait for it, it's delicious - President Clinton. Yes, the people arguably most responsible for this bill have themselves treated marriage vows and family loyalties as optional.

It gets worse. One of the early supporters on the judiciary committee was entertainer turned politician Sonny Bono. He was on his fourth marriage at the time, and according to a Parade Magazine interview with his ex-wife Cher, he was repeatedly unfaithful:

• Dan Burton, who had an affair and fathered a child out of wedlock.
• Helen Chenoweth, who acknowledged an affair with a married man.
• Ken Calvert, who'd been arrested with a prostitute.
• Gary Condit, who admitted to police he'd had an affair with former intern Chandra Levy as part of an investigation into her disappearance and death. (Condit was the subject of speculation, but authorities convicted someone else of Levy's murder.)
• Steve LaTourette, who cheated on his wife with a staffer.

These were bad people. If they came to your house, you'd count the silverware afterwards. The only reason they found themselves in the position to legislate the private lives of millions is that there have always been a sizeable chunk of Americans out there who are bigoted and narrow-minded enough to put them up to it. Those Americans, let's never forget, continue to cry out for public humiliation.

Yesterday at the conservative blog Red State, Erik Erikson wrote that "'gay marriage' and religious freedom are not compatible." That was a day after he announced that he still supports cheating social conservative Mark Sanford.

Sounds like some knuckleheads out there need to lose a few more elections. On behalf of everyone decent and honorable in this country, I say:

Bring it, bitches.