The debate over gay marriage began with local conversations. Each of the 50 states would decide the issue on their own. After we discussed the matter amongst ourselves and everyone had a say, we would have ourselves a vote.

During this debate, we were assured and reassured that gay marriage would not affect us. All we want are our rights! All we want is equality! All we want is to be like you! It’s no skin off your nose! Over and over, we were promised this.

Pop culture also weighed in. TV, movies, documentaries, and various news magazines, promised us that gay marriage would bring everyone together. Carefully manufactured depictions portrayed gay nuptials as a means for families and communities to heal old wounds while a sense of Happily Ever After descended over the land.

Then came the phony media polls that showed a majority in favor of gay marriage. But, as actual voting proved, those polls were rigged. In referendums all around the country, even California, gay marriage failed.

This is when the left’s mask came off.

After voting proved Americans were understandably uneasy about gay marriage, the left and their media allies showed their true selves. The era of discussion and democracy abruptly ended. Suddenly we were the targets of venomous hate campaigns, of boycotts. Even though we held the same view of gay marriage Barack Obama did just a few months earlier, the media sought to turn us into something socially unacceptable — we were ostracized, slapped with a scarlet letter as bigots, homophobes, and Nazis who hid behind our evil Christianity.

Fast forward to 2018… And here we go again.

Americans do not want gun control. The media’s rigged polls might say different, but gun control was a major issue in 2016 and no doubt helped Hillary Clinton lose the pro-hunting states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Even after all the emotional blackmail and hysteria over Sandy Hook, the only politicians who lost their seats to gun control were those in favor of it.

When voters actually go out and vote, gun control is a loser. But if you take a look at the media landscape today, the same thing is happening that happened after it became apparent gay marriage would not succeed through the democratic process. The media is now manufacturing a reality that says those opposed to gun control are in the minority (false); therefore, anyone opposed to gun control is a socially unacceptable freak who want to see innocent children murdered.

This propaganda campaign, though, is the least of our concerns. What should worry us are the lies. The media continue to reassure us their gun control laws will not affect us, will not result in confiscation, will only keep guns away from evildoers. But like the gay marriage con, this is a lie.

After our robed masters on the Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on a populace that wanted no part of it (except in Maine and Maryland), immediately, all around the country, left-wing activists, backed by the media and fascist governments, started to persecute Christians — violating our First Amendment rights by making us choose between staying in business and betraying our religious conscience. Although same sex marriage is the sacrimentalization of a sin, the State is still forcing wedding cake artists, floral artists, and the like to participate in sin or face crippling sanctions.

The issue of gay marriage will also be the sword that eventually brings down the Christian church — which was always the left’s goal.

The same is true of gun control. If the likes of CNN’s Jake Tapper can effectively exploit traumatized children as puppets to reiterate the same tired arguments that have already failed coming from his mouth, just as it is with gay marriage, the goal is to strip us of our civil rights — in this case, the civil right to protect ourselves — a right that is even more urgent given the catastrophic law enforcement failures regarding this latest school shooter.

The media’s current goal is not to convince the public. That will never happen. As with gay marriage, we know when we are being hustled. The media’s goal is to artificially increase social pressure to a point where lawmakers and judges feel they must do something, must be on the right side of history, must not accept the scarlet letter.

This propaganda campaign worked with gay marriage. The Supreme Court overturned the will of the people and Christians are now being persecuted by their own government.

That was always the gay marriage endgame, and a helpless populace is gun control’s endgame.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.