One for all the brothers and sisters down in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi

Damned in Dixie Blues
(By Walter Beck)
North Carolina dug their tar heels in
And burned forty-two thousand dollars
Just to make sure we couldn’t use their bathrooms;
Putting up “Cis Only” signs
From the mountains to the Atlantic.

Georgia zeroed their sights in,
Getting ready to pull the trigger
And tell us all,
“You queers ain’t welcome here!”

Mississippi made it known
That we wouldn’t be served
In the Hospitality State;
As they put it plain and clear
That they don’t have to marry us.
They don’t have to serve us.
They don’t have to recognize we even exist.

South Carolina followed down
Hot the tar heels step;
Posting their own “Cis Only” signs
On all the schoolhouse johns.

Tennessee doubles down
On one long bloody night;
Closing their mental health facilities
In our faces
And locking the bathroom doors
Behind them.

Another state follows another state,
Follows another bill, another resolution,
Another ordinance, another amendment,
Another barricade, another brick,
Another steel barred door
Standing in the way of equal justice under the law.

Barring us all up
In this long burning Hell
Under the lock of religious liberty.

It’s a burning Hell in Dixie
From the Appalachian Mountains
To the Mississippi Delta.

Oh it feels like we’re all
Collapsing on the picket lines
Feeling the backlash
Of the damned in Dixie blues.

Our Bi Laureate at Rally Against HJR-6 Terre Haute, Indiana October 11, 2013