IGF CultureWatch

An opponent writes, "What's YOUR definition of marriage? If you're going to use a word, you need a definition of the word."

I doubt that.

After all, most English speakers can competently use the word "yellow," but ask them to define the term (without merely pointing to examples) and watch them stammer.

And then try words like "law," "opinion," and "game" just for fun. It's quite possible to have functional knowledge of how to use a term without being able to articulate the boundaries of the relevant concept.

Alright, you say, but as someone deeply involved in the marriage debate, surely the Gay Moralist has a definition to offer?

Yes and no. I have definitions to offer, not a definition.

The word "marriage" can refer to many different things: a personal commitment, a religious sacrament, a social institution, a legal status.

And even if we focus on one of those-say, the social institution-there are other challenges. As David Blankenhorn puts it: "There is no single, universally accepted definition of marriage-partly because the institution is constantly evolving, and partly because many of its features vary across groups and cultures."

Blankenhorn makes this point in his book The Future of Marriage. It's an interesting concession, since he spends much of the rest of the chapter railing against marriage-equality advocates for offering "insubstantial" and "fluttery" definitions that emphasize personal commitment over marriage's social meaning.

Not surprisingly, his own definition emphasizes children:

"In all or nearly all human societies, marriage is socially approved sexual intercourse between a woman and a man, conceived as both a personal relationship and an institution, primarily such that any children resulting from the union are-and are understood by the society to be-emotionally, morally, practically, and legally affiliated with both of the parents."

Putting aside the odd claim that "marriage is…sexual intercourse" (rather than, say, a context for such intercourse), this is actually a pretty good description of what marriage typically is.

But the "typically" is key. On the very next page, Blankenhorn acknowledges a counterexample (raised by Christian theologians, no less): Marriage can't be essentially sexual, since if it were, the Virgin Mary's "marriage" to Joseph would not be a marriage. (And one could point to plenty of contemporary sexless marriages that are nevertheless marriages.)

Moreover, Blankenhorn's own definition includes the hedge-word "primarily," acknowledging that marriage has goals beyond providing for children's needs.

My fellow philosophers are often enamored of analyses that provide "necessary and sufficient conditions" for concepts: definitions that capture all, and only, the members of a class. But I have yet to see anyone on either side of this debate do that for marriage, and I doubt that it's possible.

The definition would have to be broad enough to include unions as disparate as King Solomon's polygamous household; Elizabeth Taylor's marriages to her various husbands; my maternal grandparents' arranged marriage; Bill's marriage to Hillary; Barack's marriage to Michelle. It would have to make sense of metaphors such as the claim that nuns are "married" to Christ (traditional profession ceremonies even involved wedding dresses). And yet it couldn't be so broad as to include just any committed relationship.

Are there necessary conditions for a union's being a marriage? Sure. For instance, there must be at least two persons. (I say "at least" because polygamous marriages are still marriages, whatever other objections we might have to them.)

Beyond the "at least two persons" requirement, we find a host of features that are typical: mutual care and concern, romantic and sexual involvement, a profession of lifelong commitment, the begetting and rearing of children.

But "typical" does not mean "strictly necessary," and for any one of these features, it takes very little imagination to think of a genuine marriage that lacks it. A "marriage of convenience" is still a marriage, legally speaking. A childless marriage is still a marriage. A marriage on the brink of divorce is still, for the time being, a marriage.

I am not suggesting that any of these scenarios is ideal. But our opponents' objection isn't that same-sex unions aren't "ideal" marriages. It's that they're not marriages AT ALL. And that objection is much harder to sustain when one surveys the various overlapping arrangements-some with children, some without; some intensely romantic; some not-that we call "marriage."

So what is marriage? For me, the standard vow captures it nicely, though of course not perfectly or completely. These are the words my parents used, and the same words I used with my partner, Mark:

Marriage is a commitment "to have and to hold; from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish; until death do us part."

"Fluttery?" Maybe. But real, and important, and good.

Since my recent column discussing the "definitional argument" against marriage equality, I've learned something unsurprising:

There is no single, standard "definitional argument." There are, rather, various definitional arguments, and part of the problem is pinning down which one our opponents intend.

In the hope of advancing the debate-or at least of showing that the moving target is indeed moving-I'd like to distinguish, and briefly respond to, four versions. I'll give them names for convenience:

1. The "Logical Impossibility" Version:

This, in some ways, is the purest definitional argument against same-sex marriage. It is also the silliest. Here's Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jeffery Ventrella:

"[T]o advocate same-sex 'marriage' is logically equivalent to seeking to draw a 'square circle': One may passionately and sincerely persist in pining about square circles, but the fact of the matter is, one will never be able to actually draw one."

And again,

"The public square has no room for square circles, because like the Tooth Fairy, they do not really exist."

Notice that people don't normally bother arguing against square circles or passing constitutional amendments banning them, precisely because they do not-and cannot-exist.

Are same-sex marriages similar? Surely SOMETHING exists that people refer to as "same-sex marriage," and the question at hand is whether they should persist in doing so. Ventrella's "square circles" argument doesn't answer that question: it begs it.

In other words, Ventrella is assuming what he's supposed to be proving.

2. The "Obscuring Differences" Version:

This version, which is related to the first, states that same-sex relationships and opposite-sex relationships are so different that using the word "marriage" to apply to both would obscure a fundamental distinction in nature. As Maggie Gallagher puts it, "Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters."

Note that the objection is not that using terms this way would have bad consequences-confusing the butcher, for example-but that it would fail to divide up the world correctly. Even if nobody noticed or cared, such usage would blur a real boundary in nature.

The problem (as I argued previously) is that marriage is a human institution, the boundaries of which are drawn and redrawn for human purposes.

3. The "Bad Consequences" Version:

But what if such redrawing had bad consequences? This, I think, is the real concern driving the definitional arguments. Gallagher, for example, thinks that defining "marriage" to include gays and lesbians would ultimately erode the institution.

David Blankenhorn has similar concerns. Indeed, his own version of the argument makes the consequentialist undercurrent apparent: instead of square circles or duck-chickens, Blankenhorn asks us to imagine what would happen if the word "ballet" were used to refer to all forms of dance.

Of course redefining "ballet" that way would be bad. But that's because doing so would frustrate human aims. If you go to the theater to see ballet and end up getting Riverdance instead, you'll likely be upset or disappointed.

Would extending marriage to gays and lesbians frustrate human aims in a similar way? Marriage-equality opponents like Blankenhorn and Gallagher certainly think so. Specifically, they think it would sever marriage from its core function of binding children to their mothers and fathers.

But now it seems that the definitional point is no longer doing any argumentative work. The real objection here is that same-sex marriage harms society. If that's the objection, let's focus on it directly.

4. The Constitutional-Law Version:

There is, however, a fourth version of the definitional argument, one specifically related to the constitutional debate.

Legal advocates for marriage equality-such as Ted Olson and David Boies, who are challenging California's Prop. 8-often argue that gays and lesbians deserve the freedom to marry because of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal-protection and due-process guarantees. But if same-sex marriage involves CHANGING the definition of marriage, opponents contend, the Fourteenth-Amendment argument falters.

According to this version of the definitional argument, gays and lesbians are not being denied equal access to an existing institution, they are asking for an existing institution to be redefined. There may well be good reasons for redefining it. But that is a matter for legislatures to decide, not courts.

This version is more subtle than the others, and addressing it fully requires more space than I have here. But my quick response would be that marriage case law over the last four decades suggests that male-female isn't a defining element in the way this argument requires.

Consider for example Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which affirmed the right of married couples to purchase contraceptives, and Turner v. Safley (1987), which affirmed the right of prisoners to marry. Marriage is defined by its core purposes, and those purposes do not necessarily require (actual or potential) procreation.

The fact is that same-sex couples fall in love and commit their lives to each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, until death do they part.

And if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then legally speaking it ought to be treated like a duck.

Brian Brown throws around the term "irrational" quite a bit.

Brown is the Executive Director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an anti-gay-marriage organization (Maggie Gallagher is its president). I first came across his name last summer when the Washington Post profiled him, describing him as "pleasantly, ruthlessly sane" and "rational."

From the profile, it appears that "irrational" is Brown's favorite term of abuse.

For example, he claims it's irrational when polls indicate that most young people support equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. Or when people argue that marriage equality is ultimately inevitable. Or when they describe his position as bigotry:

"I think it's irrational that up until 10 years ago, all of these societies agreed with my position [and yet now they're changing]" he tells the Post.

However, the term "irrational" was given new meaning in Brown's most recent fundraising letter, in which he uses a new Department of Health and Human Services study, the "Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4)," to argue against same-sex marriage.

Brown cites the HHS study as stating that

"Children living with two married biological parents had the lowest rate of overall Harm Standard maltreatment, at 6.8 per 1,000 children. This rate differs significantly from the rates for all other family structure and living arrangement circumstances."

Brown goes on to argue,

"All parents working hard to raise good kids…deserve our respect and help. But there is no call to wipe out the ideal itself, rooted in Nature and Nature's God, and replace it with a man-made fantasy that same-sex unions are just the same as the one kind of union that best protects children."

Got that? Children do best with a married biological mother and father. Therefore, we ought to oppose same-sex marriage.

I felt like I was missing some steps-maybe I was being "irrational"-so I went and read the study Brown cites. And I learned a few interesting things.

First, the 455-page study says not a word about gay and lesbian parents. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Which makes it essentially useless for anyone wanting to do a three-way comparison between children of married straight parents, married gay parents, and unmarried gay parents.

The study does indeed find that, on average, children living with married biological parents are at substantially lower risk of maltreatment than children in other family structures studied: namely, those with "other married parents" (not both biological but both having a legal relationship to the child), unmarried parents (biological or other), single parents with an unmarried partner, unpartnered single parents, and no parents.

What follows from this finding is quite simple. My fellow gays and lesbians should stop snatching children away from married biological parents who are raising them. As The Gay Moralist, I hereby call for an immediate cessation of this horrible practice. It's bad for the kids. Stop it. Thank you.

Back on Planet Earth, where gay and lesbian people are generally not kidnapping children from their married biological parents, the relevant conclusion is rather different.

To the extent that the study teaches us about gay and lesbian families at all, it is to suggest that children in them would do far better IF THEIR PARENTS COULD GET MARRIED.

Are you listening, Mr. Rational? The study actually shows the OPPOSITE of what you're using it for.

But wait-there's more. Everything I've said thus far (and indeed, everything in the HHS report) assumes an "all else being equal" clause. But of course, all else is often not equal.

Which is why the report looks at factors beyond family structure, and notes that, for example

• Children of the unemployed are at a 2-3 times higher risk for maltreatment.

• Children in large households (four or more children) had more than twice the incidence of maltreatment than those in two-child families.

• Children in families of low socio-economic status were 5 times more likely to be victims of maltreatment than other children.

Somehow, however, I don't expect Brown to oppose marriage for the poor, or for his fellow conservative Catholics (who tend to have large families).

Or maybe to ask wealthy lesbians (Ellen and Portia?) to revive that imaginary kidnapping trend.

The general problem here is familiar: making the best the enemy of the good. Brown's argument presupposes that the only people who should be allowed to marry are those whose marriages would create ideal scenarios for children.

By that logic, NOM's own president wouldn't have been allowed her current marriage, since that marriage created a stepfamily. Logician, heal thyself.

Meanwhile, there are several million American children being raised by gay parents. What (if anything) can the HHS study tell us about them?

According to the study, children living with "other married parents" (at least one non-biological) are at LESS THAN HALF the risk of maltreatment compared to children living with a single parent and an unmarried partner.

So if we really care about these children's welfare, we should let their parents marry. It's only rational.

Opponents of marriage equality have recently been shifting somewhat away from the "bad for children" argument in favor of what we might call the "definitional" argument: same-sex "marriage" is not really marriage, and thus legalizing it would amount to a kind of lie or counterfeit.

As National Organization for Marriage (NOM) president Maggie Gallagher puts it: "Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters."

The definitional argument isn't new, although its resurgence is telling. Unlike the "bad for children" argument, it's immune from empirical testing: it's a conceptual point, not an empirical one.

Suppose we grant for argument's sake that marriage has been male-female pretty much forever. (For now, I'm putting aside anthropological evidence of same-sex unions in history, as well as the great diversity of marriage forms even within the male-female paradigm.) All that would follow is that this is how marriage HAS BEEN. It would not follow that marriage cannot become something else.

At this point opponents are likely to retort that changing marriage in this way would be bad because [insert parade of horrible consequences here]. But if they do, they've in effect conceded the impotence of the definitional argument. The definitional argument is supposed to be IN ADDITION TO the consequentialist arguments, not a proxy for them. Otherwise, we could just stay focused on the consequentialist arguments.

What Gallagher and her cohorts are contending is that EVEN IF we were to take the consequentialist arguments off the table, there will still be the problem that same-sex marriage promotes a lie, much like calling a chicken a duck.

Let's pause to consider a seemingly silly question: apart from consequences, what's the problem with calling a chicken a duck-or more precisely, with using the word "chicken" to refer to both chickens and ducks?

If I go to the grocer and ask for a chicken and unwittingly come home with a (fattier and less healthful) duck, that's a problem. But (1) same-sex marriage poses no similar problem: no one worries about walking his bride down the aisle, lifting her veil, and discovering "Damn! You're a dude!" And (2) such problems are still in the realm of consequences.

If there's an inherent problem with using the word "chicken" to refer to both chickens and ducks, it's that doing so would obscure a real difference in nature. Whatever we call them-indeed, whether we name them at all-chickens and ducks are distinct creatures.

Something similar would occur if we used the word "silver" to refer to both silver and platinum. Even if no one noticed and no one cared, the underlying realities would be different.

That might begin to get at what marriage-equality opponents mean when they claim that same sex marriage involves "a lie about human nature" (Gallagher's words). But if it does, then their argument is weak on at least two counts.

First, one can acknowledge a difference between two things while still adopting a blanket term that covers them both. Both chickens and ducks are fowl; both silver and platinum are precious metals.

So even if same-sex and opposite-sex relationships differ in some fundamental way, there's nothing to prevent us from using the term "marriage" to cover relationships of both sorts-especially if we have compelling reasons for doing so (for example, that marriage equality would make life better for millions of gay people and wouldn't take anything away from straight people).

The second and deeper problem is that both the chicken/duck example and the silver/platinum example involve what philosophers call "natural kinds"-categories that "carve nature at the joints," as it were. By contrast, marriage is quintessentially a social, or artifactual, kind: it's something that humans create.

(One might retort that God created marriage. That rejoinder won't help marriage-equality opponents attempting to provide a constitutionally valid reason against secular marriage equality. But it might help explain why they sometimes treat marriage as if it were a fixed object in nature.)

Like "baseball," "art," "war," and "government"-to take a random list-and unlike "chicken" or "silver," the word "marriage" refers to something that humans arrange and can rearrange. Indeed, they HAVE rearranged it. Polygamy was once the norm; wives were the legal property of their husbands; mutual romantic interest was the exception rather than the rule.

Of course it doesn't follow that any and all rearrangements are advisable. We could change baseball so that it has four outs per inning. Doing so might or might not improve the game. But saying "that's not really baseball!" is hardly a compelling argument against the change (any more than it was against changing the designated-hitter rule).

So too with the claim "that's not really marriage." Maybe that's not what marriage WAS. But should it be now?

The column that follows is about anal sex.

Some friends have urged me against writing it, not because readers find frank discussions of anal sex "icky," but because the offending comments' source-Peter LaBarbera-is unworthy of serious attention.

In one sense these friends are quite right. But for reasons I hope to make clear, LaBarbera's most recent ugliness needs answering.

LaBarbera is the president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), one of the nastier anti-gay groups. In a recent letter at his website, he discusses how Matt Barber at Liberty Counsel (a right-wing legal group) is threatening to boycott the Conservative Political Action Conference unless CPAC drops the gay conservative group GOProud as a co-sponsor.

LaBarbera writes, "It boils down to this: there is nothing 'conservative' about - as Barber inimitably puts it - 'one man violently cramming his penis into another man's lower intestine and calling it love'."

Don't say I didn't warn you.

LaBarbera's post led Liberty Counsel to deny that Barber had ever said such a nasty thing, prompting a sharp rebuttal from LaBarbera, followed by Barber's admission that he had indeed made the comment privately years ago (and had given LaBarbera permission to quote it). This back-and-forth was interspersed with some barbs between LaBarbera and Randy Thomas, executive VP of the ex-gay group Exodus International, at Thomas's Exodus blog. (Thanks to Pam's House Blend for exposing the imbroglio.)

I'll focus here on LaBarbera, since he was the one who saw fit recently to post Barber's words and to defend them repeatedly, calling them "a brutally honest and necessarily accurate description of homosexual sodomy." He also challenged Thomas to "cite chapter and verse in the Bible" explaining why their use of these words is wrong.

Chapter and verse? Let me try.

Exodus 20:16: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." (Hint: it's one of the Ten Commandments, and it boils down simply to "Don't lie.")

Look, Peter-and I know you're reading this-NOBODY calls it love when a man "violently cram[s] his penis into another man's lower intestine." Nobody.

We sane people call that rape.

Indeed, the "violent cramming" of a penis into any bodily orifice, male or female, is rape. Not love. The description is not merely uncharitable (about which we could both cite many verses), it's a blatant falsehood.

Frankly, I'm not surprised you missed this simple, obvious point, because when it comes to homosexuality, you wouldn't know truth if it violently crammed itself into your-oh, never mind.

Now one might argue that we shouldn't bother with LaBarbera. Indeed, a Christian friend of mine told me just that, stating that LaBarbera's comments are "no more worth writing about than the graffiti on men's room walls."

And I wish I could ignore them. I really, really do. If only the sentiments underlying them weren't so pervasive and harmful.

I've been defending gays and lesbians against heterosexist distortions for two decades. And one of the things that has saddened and angered me most is our opponents' continued tendency to reduce our lives, our commitments, and our intimacy to bare mechanical descriptions-and false ones at that.

Why do they do this? Perhaps it's because of a fundamental lack of empathy (a trait that forms the core of The Golden Rule, another biblical principle).

Or perhaps it's because they know that dehumanizing us in this way is an extremely effective tactic. As LaBarbera himself writes at the Exodus blog, his and Barber's "colorful and dismissive" language are precisely geared to "re-stigmatize shameful homosexual behavior."

Stigmatize, it surely does.

By spreading their lies about "violent cramming" and such, LaBarbera, Barber and their ilk have visited needless suffering upon countless LGBT people, particularly LGBT youth.

Among the unspoken casualties of such stigmatization is that it makes it harder for us to have frank conversations about the relative risks of various sexual practices, for fear of feeding such nastiness. The upshot is more silence, and shame, and-paradoxically-risk.

All of which LaBarbera and Barber can answer to their Maker for, when and if Judgment Day should come. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40).

Allow me to share a favorite holiday story.

It was late November 1989, a year after I first came out. I had been dating a guy named Michael for over a month, which made him (in my mind, at least) my first "real" boyfriend. I was twenty and he was turning twenty-two, and we decided to drive into the city to celebrate his birthday.

"The city" was Manhattan. I was living with my parents on Long Island while going to college; Michael lived nearby. Together with his cousin and his cousin's boyfriend, we piled into my 1985 Camry and made the trek west along the Long Island Expressway, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge into the Big Apple.

Dinner, then drinks, then dancing-or more accurately, sitting in the corner flirting while other people danced. It was the kind of young love (lust?) that makes one largely oblivious to one's surroundings.

So perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised, upon exiting the club, to discover that it had been snowing for several hours-hard. No one had predicted a blizzard that night, and it wasn't as if we could check the weather on our iPhones. (Remember, it was 1989.)

We rushed back to the car and headed slowly home. About a third of the way across the Williamsburg Bridge, traffic stopped.

We waited a minute, then five, then ten-and still no movement. The snow around us was blinding. Meanwhile, the cousin and his boyfriend were soundly asleep in the back seat.

So Michael and I did what any two young lovebirds would do in such a situation: we started making out in the car.

We kissed; we caressed; we cuddled. It felt like we were there for an hour, though again, we were largely oblivious to time and space. It was joyous.

Eventually the traffic flow resumed and we made it home okay.

Michael dumped me a few weeks later (Merry Christmas, indeed) and what remained of our relationship was more disastrous than that night's weather. But two decades and numerous boyfriends later, I still count that bridge experience as one of the magical moments of my life.

It wasn't just because it was new and exciting, or because of the Frank Capra setting (Snow on a bridge? Seriously?).

It was because, at a time in my life when I still struggled to make sense of being "different," the experience sent a powerful, visceral message: Gay is good.

The message didn't arrive by means of a philosophical argument or someone else's testimony. It came through direct experience. Those once-scary feelings were suddenly a font of great beauty, and intimacy, and comfort. I had previously figured it out in my head. Finally, I knew it in my heart.

In this column I have often extolled the virtues of long-term relationships. I believe in those virtues-and am ever grateful for my eight-year partnership with Mark, the love of my life.

But I don't believe that homosexuality has moral value ONLY in the context of long-term relationships-any more than heterosexuality does. That quick flirtatious glance across a crowded room; that awkward kiss with the cute stranger at the party-such moments make life joyful, and there is great moral value in joy.

And so, this holiday, I wish my readers joy.

It has been an incredible, fast-paced year on the gay-rights front. We gained marriage equality in several states only to lose it again in Maine; we had ballot victories in Washington State and Kalamazoo, MI; we elected a lesbian mayor in Houston and a gay City-Council President in Detroit.

There are reasons to be hopeful, and there is much work left to be done. We will keep fighting the good fight.

Yet let us also step back and enjoy the simple yet profound joy that is part and parcel of why we're fighting. Kiss someone under the mistletoe, and remember that life is good.

Wishing you all the best in 2010.

"We all know what bigotry is," a friend said to me recently. But do we?

I mean, most of us have experienced it, and we can point to clear historical examples. But can we define it, articulating what those examples all have in common? Or is it more like Justice Potter Stewart's grasp of pornography: "I know it when I see it"?

As is often the case with controversial terms, the dictionary is of limited help here. The American Heritage Dictionary defines bigotry as "characteristic of a bigot," which it in turn defines as "one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ." Webster's definition of "bigot" is similar: "a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices."

Now there must be a difference between merely disagreeing with those who differ and being "intolerant" of them. By definition, everyone disagrees with "those who differ"-that's just what it means to "differ." And everyone is "devoted" to at least some of his opinions. That's the whole point of having convictions.

So it's not bigotry merely to disagree with someone: one must also exhibit "intolerance." But what does that mean? That one wishes to silence them? Surely it's possible to be a bigot even while respecting free-speech rights. Thus, for example, those who believe that the races should be separated are bigots even if they believe that those who disagree should be permitted publicly to say so. It seems, rather, that to call someone a bigot is in part to express a moral judgment. It is to suggest that the bigot's views are not merely wrong, but somehow beyond the pale. So the dictionary definition only gets half of the picture: it's not merely that the bigot doesn't tolerate those who differ, it is also that we ought not tolerate him. In a free society we shouldn't silence him, but we should certainly shun him.

In other words, to call someone a bigot is not just to say something about the bigot's views, it's to also to say something about our own. It is to distance our views from his in the strongest possible terms. It is also to suggest that the bigot suffers from a kind of systematic irrationality, a logical blind spot that feeds the moral one.

I have long advocated using the term "bigot" sparingly when referring to gay-rights opponents. It's not that I don't think bigotry is a serious problem. On the contrary, it's vital to identify bigotry for what it is and to expose its tragic effects.

It's also important to learn the lessons of history, including the ways in which bigotry can hide behind religion, concern for children's welfare, and other seemingly benign motives.

But there's a difference between identifying bigotry, on the one hand, and labeling any and all people who disagree with us as bigots, on the other. Such labeling tends to function as a conversation-stopper, cutting us off from the "moveable middle" and ultimately harming our progress.

It's also unfair to the many decent people who genuinely strive to understand us even where, for sincere and complex reasons, they cannot accept our position.

There's a familiar religious saying which teaches "Love the sinner; hate the sin." Applied to homosexuality, the sentiment is mostly nonsense. For one thing, there's nothing "sinful" or wrong about gay relationships per se. Moreover, the distinction draws a sharp line between who we are and what we do, whereas here these things are intimately connected.

But the "love the sinner/hate the sin" distinction still has its uses, and our approach to our opponents may be among them.

Many of our opponents are fundamentally decent people. For both principled and pragmatic reasons, we don't want to saddle them with an identity that suggests their being beyond redemption. In other words, we don't want to label them "bigots" prematurely.

At the same time, we don't want to shrink from identifying the evil of anti-gay bigotry, wherever and whenever it occurs.

And so, we can distinguish. We can point out the sin of bigotry forcefully while using the epithet of "bigot" sparingly (though that epithet, too, has its uses).

Because, in the end, we do know it when we see it.

It's November, which means bookstores have next year's calendars on display.

When I was a teenager, this annual occurrence unnerved me. The "male interest" calendars"-think "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model of the Month"-held no appeal for me. Instead, I would nervously reach for a Chippendales calendar, hiding it behind something innocuously themed (race cars, puppies, whatever) so that I could stare admiringly at half-naked men. As soon as I noticed anyone approaching, I would throw both calendars back on the shelf and dart out of the store.

I laugh now at the thought that I could ever find the overly pumped and coiffed 1980's Chippendales dancers appealing. But when I see these calendars on the shelves today, I still feel a residual emotional tug. Like the underwear models in the J.C. Penney catalog (and so many other ordinary features of American life), the calendars were a painful signal: you are not like other boys.

I noticed a calendar display in a bookstore the other day just shortly after receiving an e-mail from a reader complaining that I waste too much time trying to win over straight society's approval. "When are you going to stop seeking other people's acceptance?" he asks.

My answer? I'll stop seeking it once we get it.

The calendars reminded me of why. It's not because I'm still scared that other people will know my "secret." Today, I can walk into a bookstore and look at whatever I want. Indeed, I sometimes make a point of picking up the "female interest" calendars just to remind myself-and anyone else watching-that I can. It's my way of saying: No, I am not like (most) other boys, and I'm okay with that. Honestly, I really don't give a flying fig whether you give me a dirty look when I do it.

But there are plenty of boys and girls growing up who are not there yet. They still get unnerved when they see the calendars, or the catalogs, or countless other possible triggers. They still feel that nauseous shame and isolation. They have yet to learn that the feelings they dread can eventually be a source of great joy, and beauty, and comfort.

Social approval can make a huge difference in the lives of these kids, not to mention those who come after them.

This is one significant way in which LGBT people differ from most other minority groups. Whereas black children generally have black parents, Jewish children generally have Jewish parents, and so on, LGBT people can have any sort of parents-and most often have straight ones. Far from being able to take for granted our parents' understanding of the discrimination we face, we often have to struggle for their acceptance, too.

So while their parents' opinion on homosexuality may not directly matter to me, you can be damn sure it matters to them.

I don't mean that they can't go on to have happy, fulfilling, successful lives even if their parents ultimately reject them. I just mean that doing so will be harder-needlessly, sometimes tragically so.

Moreover, it's not as if I have no stake at all in their parents' opinion. As we've seen over and over, their opinion affects how they vote. And their votes make a difference to our legal rights, whether we like it or not.

Of course it isn't fair. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.

So I'll stop seeking their approval when we get it, and not a moment sooner. Because their approval helps make our political struggle easier. Because it's crucial to the lives of their kids, some of whom are LGBT. And because it's the right thing.

When I was a "fag" on the junior high playground, getting punched hurt even when I saw it coming. So too with Maine this past week.

Like many, I was dispirited but not surprised when we lost. The rights of minorities (gays especially) generally don't do well when put to a popular vote. And the opposition's central message-that gays want to influence schoolchildren-remains as effective as it is sinister.

The message conjures up the image of gays as child molesters-a myth debunked but never fully extinguished.

A slightly less sinister (but still false) version portrays us as anti-family and anti-morality. Still another falsehood is that we're trying to "recruit."

Then there's the underlying truth that sustains the myth as plausible. Yes, of course marriage equality will affect what children are taught in schools, because if same-sex marriage is legal, they will naturally be taught that it's legal. That it's an option for consenting adults who want it. That women sometimes fall in love with women, and men with men, and live happily ever after.

We should not shrink from saying these things, but we do. No doubt, the ugliness of the sinister versions-not to mention our opponents' penchant for quoting us out of context-makes us nervous about discussing the truthful version. And that's surely one lesson of this loss: the closet is still powerful, and our opponents use it to their advantage.

But we will not go back in the closet again.

We will keep telling our stories. We will keep showing our faces. We will keep getting married, even if-for now-Maine doesn't legally recognize our relationships. We will not go back in the closet again.

And though we've lost this particular battle, we will continue to win the war.

On the same day that Maine voters took away marriage equality, Detroit (where I live) elected an openly gay City Council President. This, in a city that's 84% African-American and where churches exert considerable political influence. The rest of the country hardly noticed, but Detroit defied several stereotypes on Tuesday.

His name is Charles Pugh. A popular newscaster before running for City Council, Pugh was actually endorsed by both the Council of Baptist Pastors and the AME Ministerial Alliance. They knew he was gay and they endorsed him anyway.

One could argue that Pugh was endorsed-and won-because of name recognition. Detroit elects all nine council members at-large, and the top vote getter automatically becomes council president. It's a dumb system in several ways, and in the past it has resulted in famous but incompetent council members-Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas, leaps to mind. (Incidentally, in this year's primary Reeves was voted out, and in the general election voters overwhelming approved a referendum for council-by-district.)

But even if Pugh's landslide can be attributed to sheer popularity, it sends an encouraging message about the way the world is changing. Being openly gay is no longer an absolute bar to getting public support. And even those who regularly oppose us will sometimes let other factors trump whatever makes us scary otherwise.

Meanwhile, the more they know us, the less scary we become.

It's unfair and unfortunate that we need to work harder than our opponents to win. They win by exploiting fear, which is easy to do when you're in the majority. We win by building relationships-by letting voters know who we really are. That takes time.

So our opponents have a soundbite edge, but we have a long-term advantage. The closet is crumbling.

In the wake of the Maine loss, we will catch our breath and press on. We will continue to live our lives; we will keep speaking our truth. We will stand up in the firm conviction that our love is real, and valuable, and worthy of equal treatment under the law.

Because whatever legal roadblocks they may put in our way, we will never go back in the closet again.

I've spent the last week traveling through rural Wisconsin for a series of diversity lectures at small technical colleges. Lecturing on gay issues at such venues can be eye-opening. It's a big country out there, and while students today may be a good deal more gay-friendly than they once were, not everyone shares the views of a typical liberal-arts major at NYU or UC-Berkeley.

Of course, there are pleasant surprises along the way, like the scraggly welding major who came up after one talk and said, "I'm a former homophobe. Thanks for being here." On the other hand, it's hard not to react visibly when an audience member tries to establish his scholarly bona fides by announcing, "My views on this are very well thought out. I studied the Bible carefully when I was in prison."

My travels through the Midwest got me thinking about national LGBT movement's tendency to focus on California and the Northeast. There are good reasons for this bias, insofar as these are populous and influential regions. But having discussed Maine in my last column, I decided to spend this week discussing the other two gay-related ballot initiatives currently going on-in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and in Washington State. They both deserve more attention than they're getting.

Kalamazoo:

The Kalamazoo initiative is close to home for me-I live in Detroit, about two-and-a-half hours away. Kalamazoo is a small town in a conservative part of the state. Nevertheless, as the home of Kalamazoo College, Western Michigan University, and the Arcus Foundation, it has a vibrant progressive streak.

About three years ago citizens began discussions with city representatives about expanding Kalamazoo's non-discrimination ordinance (which prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations) to include protections for sexual orientation and gender expression. In December of 2008, the Kalamazoo city commission unanimously approved the expanded ordinance, but opposition forced the city to subject it to public review.

As a result, in June of this year a new ordinance was introduced with stronger exemptions for churches and other religious organizations. Once again, the ordinance passed unanimously, and once again, opposition groups derailed it, this time by collecting enough signatures to suspend the ordinance until it can be put to a public vote in November. A YES vote would preserve the ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender expression; a NO vote would strike it down.

Opposition has largely been organized by the Michigan American Family Association (AFA)-a small-minded, sex-obsessed group that even some right wingers I know prefer to steer clear of. They've been trying to instill fear in voters by raising the specter of men with "psycho-emotional delusions" preying on women and children in restrooms.

Reasonable minds can differ about whether, and to what extent, legal action is the right response to discrimination by private employers, landlords, and so on. But if we're going to have non-discrimination laws at all, they should surely include sexual orientation and gender expression. Visit One Kalamazoo's website for more information.

Washington State:

For some years Washington State has had limited domestic partnership rights which include hospital visitation, inheritance rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and legal standing under probate and trust law. This year legislators expanded the law so that domestic partners would be granted the remaining statewide legal incidents of marriage (though not under the name "marriage")-including access to unpaid sick leave to care for an ailing partner, various legal process rights, pension benefits, insurance benefits, and adoption and child-support rights and responsibilities, among others.

Opponents then collected signatures to force the new law on the ballot. As in Kalamazoo, a YES vote here is the pro-gay vote: it would support the expanded domestic-partner law. A NO vote would kill the expanded domestic-partner law, leaving Washington staters with the far more limited domestic-partner rights they previously had.

The opposition's campaign is ugly. Take a moment to visit protectmarriagewa.com and click on the video on the right with the smiling white couple in wedding attire. There you will learn that "God established, and defined marriage, between a man and a woman….Senate Bill 5688 violates GOD's mandate."

Incidentally, you will also learn that Adam and Eve look like they should be doing Breck commercials-at least as depicted in a certain Lowell Bruce Bennett painting owned by the Mormon Church.

The visuals may be funny, but ignorance and discrimination are not. Visit approvereferendum71.org and learn more about efforts to preserve robust domestic-partnership legislation in Washington State.

Polls for both of these initiatives show us close enough to win-but if, and only if, we support them.