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Last week I wrote about marriage-equality opponents' "Always and Everywhere" argument-the claim that since marriage has "always" been heterosexual, we ought not to tinker with it now.

In response, a prominent same-sex marriage opponent e-mailed me to explain what was "logically and philosophically wrong" with my critique. In particular, she argued that my claim that "each new same-sex marriage is a living counterexample to it" fails, because it misunderstands the rationale behind "always and everywhere." According to this opponent, the "always and everywhere" argument is not intended as a straightforward descriptive claim-in which case, a single counterexample would indeed refute it-but rather as a tool to uncover the REASON why society after society constructs marriage heterosexually.

As she put it, "Why do they keep stumbling on this idea that it's important to unite male and female in public sexual unions that define the responsibilities of male and female parents to their biological children? Is that reason still valid today?"

Interesting. Is this the right way to understand the "always and everywhere" argument? And if so, does that affect my assessment? To these questions, my answers are "Maybe" and "Absolutely not."

It's probably misleading to talk about THE right way to understand the "always and everywhere" argument, unless one is considering a specific instance of it by a particular marriage-equality opponent. After all, the claim that marriage has been heterosexual "always and everywhere" has been used by different people at different times for different purposes.

But let's suppose one is using the claim to flush out why marriage has been the way it is-that is, 'typically heterosexual almost everywhere. Why, indeed, has marriage been this way?

One huge reason is the misunderstanding and oppression of gays throughout the ages, or what we might call "heteronormativity." It is therefore no surprise that as scientific and moral understanding of homosexuality evolves, so does acceptance of same-sex marriage.

What's more, it's not clear that the reasons for heterosexual marriage would be in any way invalidated by acknowledging reasons (perhaps similar, perhaps different) for homosexual marriage. This is not a zero-sum game.

But what if there's a reason for making marriage EXCLUSIVELY heterosexual-as most (but not all) societies do? According to marriage-equality opponents, there is such a reason. It is to bind parents, and especially fathers, to their biological children.

I have two responses. First, talking about THE reason for marriage is even more misleading than talking about THE purpose of the "always and everywhere" argument. While there may be an embedded practical logic in social institutions, the underlying justifications for them are nearly always complex. Marriage looks the way it does today because of a varied and often messy history.

Second, even granting that one important reason for marriage is binding parents (especially fathers) to their biological children, it is not clear why this reason requires marriage to be exclusively heterosexual. I've said it before and I'll say it again: same-sex marriage never takes children away from loving biological parents who want them.

And here's where same-sex families provide a living counterexample in the strongest sense. It's not just that they falsify the claim that marriage is always and everywhere heterosexual (by announcing, in effect, "Not anymore it isn't!"). It is that they falsify the patently absurd claim that binding parents to their biological children is the sole justification for marriage.

No one actually believes this claim, which is why it continues to amaze me that marriage-equality opponents suggest it with a straight face. Marriage surely binds children to parents, but it also binds spouses to each other-for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health and so on. Generally, that's good for the spouses and good for society-even where children are not present.

Alternatively, opponents will make the more limited claim that this particular purpose of marriage (binding parents to children) trumps the others. But again, even if that were true, it's not clear what follows. How would allowing gays to marry make straights any less bound to their biological children?

Imagine the thought process: "Yikes, Adam and Steve are getting married! Kids, I'm outta here."

In short, whether we take the simple reading of the "Always and Everywhere" argument ("Never before, therefore not now") or this supposedly new and improved one ("Almost never before; therefore, there must be some good reason for 'not now'), the anti-equality conclusion doesn't follow.

Marriage-equality opponents frequently claim that marriage has been heterosexual since…well, since FOREVER, and that it is arrogant and foolish to tinker with such a pervasive human institution.

Whatever its logical shortcomings, the "always and everywhere" argument is rhetorically effective. Even gay-rights advocates concede that marriage equality seemed unthinkable just a decade or two ago. Imagine how novel it appears to those who, unlike us, have no direct stake in the issue.

It's tempting to respond that lots of things that seemed unthinkable a few decades ago-iPhones, Facebook, Sarah Palin-are, for better or worse, now familiar. But the reluctance to tinker with marriage is deep-seated. The "always and everywhere" argument demands a response that is not only logically sound but also rhetorically compelling.

Several responses are worth pondering. I've given them each names for convenience:

(1) False premise: The claim that marriage has always been exclusively heterosexual suffers from what should be a fatal flaw: it is simply not true. Same-sex marriages have been documented in a number of cultures, notably some African and Pacific Island cultures.

Marriage-equality opponents retort that these marriages are not quite the same as modern same-sex marriages, since they typically involve a kind of gender transformation of one of the partners. But this response is a red herring. Sure, homosexual marriages in these cultures look different from ours in various respects-but so do their heterosexual marriages. More important, it is doubtful that opponents would abandon their objection to contemporary same-sex marriages as long as one partner agreed to be the "wife" and the other the "husband."

The real problem with the "false premise" response is rhetorical: The response depends on anthropological data unfamiliar to most people, and it appeals to "exotic" cultures whose practices most Americans find irrelevant.

(2) Heteronormativity: Rhetorical considerations would also weigh against using words like "heteronormativity" when responding to people's basic fears about marriage. But it's nonetheless true that the "always and everywhere" argument begs the question against those who argue-quite rightly-that the heterosexual majority tends to oppress the homosexual minority always and everywhere. Because of that oppression, recorded history often ignores or erases our lives and commitments.

Keep in mind that just a few decades ago, gays and lesbians were still considered mentally ill in much of the West; even today, gays are stoned to death in parts of the world. Against that backdrop, it's not surprising that same-sex marriage seems newfangled. The marriage-equality movement owes as much to an improved understanding of sexuality as it does to changing views about marriage.

(3) Not mandatory: Even granting the (false) premise that marriage has been heterosexual "always and everywhere," so what? No one is proposing that same-sex marriage be made mandatory. Heterosexual marriage will continue to exist "always and everywhere" for those who seek it, even while society recognizes that it's not appropriate for everyone. The opponents' argument seems to play on the irrational notion that giving marriage to gays somehow means taking it away from straights.

(4) Non-sequitur: Let's concede to marriage-equality opponents that history and tradition are important, and that we should be cautious about changes to major social institutions. Yet even if (contrary to fact) marriage were heterosexual "always and everywhere," it does not follow that marriage cannot expand and evolve. One should never confuse a reasonable caution with a stubborn complacency.

Increasingly, that complacency is more than stubborn-it's unconscionable. Marriage-equality opponents can no longer ignore the fact that we fall in love, just like they do; that our relationships have positive effects in our lives and the lives of those around us, and that we reasonably seek to protect and nurture these relationships. If not marriage for us, then what?

Ultimately, the problem with the "always and everywhere" argument is that each new same-sex marriage is a living counterexample to it. Whatever happened in the past, we have marriage equality now-in a small but growing number of places. These same-sex marriages are by and large bearing good fruit. If ignoring tradition is "arrogant and foolish," ignoring the evidence unfolding before us is exponentially so.

"You don't just want us to tolerate what you gay people do," my skeptical questioner announced, "you want us to think that it's RIGHT."

Whenever I hear this point-and it's pretty often-I always think to myself, "Duh." Of course I want that. Why would anyone think otherwise?

Actually, the latter question is not entirely rhetorical. Even my fellow gays ask me why we should care about other people's moral approval. Beyond the obvious pragmatic advantages-for example, more moral approval means more favorable voting attitudes, means more legal rights, means an easier life-why should we give a damn what other people think? And while we're on the subject, why should THEY care? Why are our lives any of their business?

There's a myth circulating among well-meaning people that "morality is a private matter," and that therefore "we shouldn't judge other people." This is nonsense of the highest order. Morality is about how we treat one another. It's about fairness and justice. It's about what we as a society are willing to tolerate, what we positively encourage, and what we absolutely forbid. It is the furthest thing from a private matter.

There's a (wholly fictional) story I tell in my introductory ethics classes about a freshman who wrote a paper defending moral relativism. His paper was laden with references to what's "true for you" versus what's "true for me," what's "right for you" versus what's "right for me" and so on. The professor gave the paper an F. Surprised and angry, the student went to the professor's office demanding a justification.

"Well," the professor carefully explained, "I graded your paper the way I grade all papers. I stood at the top of a staircase and threw a batch of papers down the stairs. Those that landed on the first few stairs got A's…then B's, C's and so on. You wrote a long, heavy paper. It went to the bottom of the stairs. It got an F."

"That's not right!" the student blurted out.

"You mean, that's not right…FOR YOU," the professor responded, grinning.

The moral of the story (aside from, tenured professors do the darnedest things) is this: despite all of our talk of "right for you," deep down we believe in public moral standards. We may disagree about what those are, and about what actions fall under their purview-but we still believe that right and wrong aren't entirely relative.

One might object that grading affects other, non-consenting people, whereas relationships affect only the people involved. There are two problems with this objection. The main one is that the latter point is just false. Unless one endorses a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" secrecy, relationships have a public presence and thus public consequences. Gays aren't waging the marriage battle just so we can all go back in the closet. Like most people, we want to stand up before family and friends, proclaim our love, have it celebrated for the beautiful thing that it is. (At least, that's what many of us want.) We want to send the message to young gays and lesbians that there's nothing wrong with them; that they, too, deserve to love and be loved, and that there's nothing sinful or wrong about that. We want to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. All of these aims affect other people in various ways.

Second, the objection invites the response, "Says who?" Who decides that only actions affecting other people are appropriate targets of moral scrutiny? Who determines that that's the right way to look at morality? And there's no way to answer such questions without engaging in a bit of moralizing. Value judgments are inescapable that way. Those who claim that they're not taking any moral stances about other people's lives are, by that very claim, taking a moral stance about other people's lives-a "tolerant' one, though not necessarily a very admirable one. Sometimes, other people's behavior is horrific, and we should say so.

"Saying so" is part of the confusion here. There's a difference between MAKING moral judgments and OFFERING them, not to mention a difference between offering them respectfully and wagging your finger in people's faces. The latter is not just self-righteous; it's generally counterproductive. I suspect when people say that "we shouldn't judge other people," it's really the latter, pompous kind of moralizing they're concerned to avoid. But we shouldn't confuse the rejection of bad moralizing with the rejection of moralizing altogether.

In short, we should care what other people think and do, because the moral fabric touches us all.

A friend writes, "I'm coordinating a safe-space training at [an urban public university]. One participant stated that she felt she was a strong ally, but her religious beliefs dictate that homosexuality is a sin. What should I do? Can I deny her a safe-space sticker, or ask her not to advise students on religious issues?"

This is a hard question.

It's hard partly because of its legal implications. Georgia Tech, another state school, recently lost a lawsuit because its safe-space program distributed literature uniformly criticizing traditional interpretations of the Bible. Not surprisingly, a federal judge ruled that this practice violated the First Amendment by favoring particular religious viewpoints. (Georgia Tech has kept its safe-space program but dropped the religious literature.)

Legal matters aside, the question raises difficult policy issues. What counts as "safe"?

Safe-space programs generally involve a school-sponsored diversity training focusing on LGBT issues. Upon completing it, participants receive a sticker to display on their office doors announcing their "ally" status.

Given how often religion is used as a weapon, I can understand why many LGBT students would not feel "safe" while being judged as sinners. We should never underestimate the potential damage done by telling youth, at a delicate stage in identity formation, that acting on their deep longings could lead to eternal separation from God.

In contemplating my friend's question, I mainly thought of those vulnerable students, and how best to protect them. I also thought of my friend John.

John is a faculty member at a small private liberal arts college. He is an evangelical Christian who believes that homosexual conduct conflicts with God's plan as revealed in the bible. And yet John defies easy stereotypes. He supports civil marriage equality, decries the various ways religion is used to harm LGBT people, and avoids "heteronormative language" (his words) in his classroom.

While he believes that homosexual conduct (not to mention plenty of heterosexual and non-sexual conduct) is sinful, he also believes that all humans-himself included-have an imperfect grasp of God's will, and that we should generally strive to respect other people's life choices and give them wide latitude in forging their own paths. John and his wife have welcomed me in their home, and during grace before the meal, his wife asked for God's blessing on me, my partner Mark, and our relationship. (For the record, I did not take the latter to imply approval for every aspect of our relationship.)

In light of all I know about John and his loving treatment of LGBT persons, I can think of few spaces "safer" than his office. Any program that would disqualify him draws the circle of "safe spaces" too narrowly.

Moreover, there are good strategic reasons for wanting to make the circle of self-proclaimed allies as inclusive as possible, consistent with the well-being of LGBT students. We need people like John to make their presence known.

Yet I am not suggesting that we draw the circle so broadly as to rob "safe space" of any real meaning. Any student in any campus office-stickered or not-should expect to be treated with respect and professionalism. Presumably, the safe-space sticker denotes venues that substantially exceed that bare minimum (as John's office would).

So how does one draw the circle broadly enough to include John and other conservative religious allies while excluding those who might rant about gays burning in hell?

As with any policy question involving human beings, there's no perfect formula here (just as there are no perfect people). To some extent, the desired group will be somewhat self-selecting. Those interested in condemning LGBT people to hell generally don't attend voluntary pro-gay diversity trainings.

Yet there are also steps one can take to tailor the circle. My recommendation would be to include, among various other elements of a pledge taken by safe-space training participants, something along the following lines:

"I understand that my own values and beliefs may differ from those of students who seek me out for a 'safe space,' and will refer students to appropriate resources given their particular values, beliefs, interests and desires."

The idea here is that students who wish to retreat to a "narrower" circle will be assisted in doing so. Note that religious people offer such assistance all the time. Think, for example, of the Christian who helpfully directs a student to the Buddhist Student Center, despite her personal conviction that eternal salvation is through Christ alone.

On this approach, students who want pro-gay religious literature can receive it and evaluate it for themselves. At the same time, those who want the advice of fellow conservative evangelicals, for example, or fellow Orthodox Jews, can receive it and evaluate it for themselves.

Admittedly, my recommendation would allow conservative religious students to request and receive-in a designated "safe space"-literature of a sort that's often deeply damaging to LGBT people. But the approach is preferable to the alternatives: a public university's (illegally) favoring particular religious viewpoints, on the one hand, or its becoming silent on religious issues-the Georgia Tech solution-on the other.

Universities are places for free exchange of ideas. As long as that's done in a compassionate manner that respects student autonomy, it should never be considered "unsafe."

Robert George's recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, "Gay Marriage, Democracy, and the Courts," contains both sense and nonsense-but more of the latter.

George, a Princeton professor of jurisprudence and founder of the American Principles Project, is a preeminent conservative scholar. In the op-ed, he considers the federal lawsuit challenging California's Proposition 8 and claims that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality would be "disastrous," constituting a "judicial usurpation" of popular authority and inflaming the culture wars beyond repair.

First, the good points: George is quite right to insist that the Court's role is to interpret the Constitution, not to make policy. He's also right to argue that marriage law has been, and should be, tied closely to the needs of children. And he exhibits a refreshing "don't panic" attitude, asserting that "democracy is working"-although by democracy, he seems to mean only voter referenda, and not our more complex representative system, with its various checks and balances. On the latter, broader understanding, I'd agree that "democracy is working:" in the last year, five additional states have embraced marriage equality.

But the misunderstandings in George's piece are legion.

(1) George provides a lengthy analogy with the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which recognized abortion rights. But while this analogy may be relevant to the culture-war angle, it says absolutely nothing about the legal merits-since rather different issues were at stake in Roe.

What's more, it's not even clear how relevant it is to the culture-war angle. Most abortion opponents believe that abortion involves large-scale killing of innocent babies. Compare that to Adam and Steve setting up house in the suburbs. Whatever your view of homosexuality, there's no comparison in terms of moral urgency.

(2) George also considers-and summarily rejects-an analogy with the 1967 Loving v. Virginia. He writes,

"The definition of marriage was not at stake in Loving. Everyone agreed that interracial marriages were marriages. Racists just wanted to ban them as part of the evil regime of white supremacy that the equal protection clause was designed to destroy."

Seriously? Perhaps "everyone agreed" that they were marriages in some sense-as one could say equally about same-sex marriages-but they certainly didn't agree that they were valid marriages. When the Loving trial court judge declared, "The fact that [God] separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix," he expressed the widespread view that interracial marriage violated a divinely ordained natural order.

George's reference to the "evil regime of white supremacy" is also telling. In order to undermine any analogy between racial prejudice and homophobia, right-wingers often paint all those who opposed interracial-marriage as angry KKK types. But most opponents of miscegenation sincerely believed that the Bible condemns it, that it's unnatural, and that it's bad for children. In other words, they cited the same "respectable" reasons as modern-day marriage-equality opponents.

That these two groups cite the same reasons doesn't show that their arguments are equally bad or their motives equally flawed. It does show, however, that religious conviction doesn't secure a free pass for discrimination, and that friendly, well-intentioned folks can nevertheless be guilty of bigotry.

(3) George, a noted natural-law theorist, asserts that marriage "takes its distinctive character" from bodily unions of the procreative kind. By "procreative kind," George doesn't mean that procreation must be intended, or even possible-oddly, sterile heterosexuals can have sex "of the procreative kind" on George's view. He means penis-in-vagina. According to George,

"This explains why our law has historically permitted annulment of marriage for non-consummation, but not for infertility; and why acts of sodomy, even between legally wed spouses, have never been recognized as consummating marriages."

"Historically" is the key word here-as in "not any more." There's a reason consummation laws have been almost universally discarded (and were seldom invoked when present). Such laws reflected, not the law's majestic correspondence with Catholic natural-law doctrine, but an outdated mixture of concerns about male lineage and female purity.

(4) Finally, George asserts the standard false dilemma: Either accept the traditional natural-law understanding of marriage, or else have no principled basis for any marriage regulation:

"If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union-and thus to procreation-will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy."

No principled basis? How about the fact that polygamy-which historically is far more common than monogamy-is highly correlated with a variety of social ills? Or that the stability provided by long-term romantic pair-bonding is good for individuals and society-far more profoundly than typical "friendships"? Or that the state legally regulates important contracts of all sorts, and the commitment to "for better or worse, 'til death do us part" is a pretty important contract? Here as elsewhere, George seems incapable of recognizing any principles beyond those prescribed by a narrow natural-law theory.

Ultimately, the trouble with George is that his theory-which is supposed to be rooted in "nature"-is in fact divorced from reality. The reality is that gay people exist, fall in love, pair off, settle down, and build lives together-sometimes with children, often without. When we do, we seek the same legal protection for our relationships that other Americans take for granted. If the denial of such protections is not an appropriate subject for judicial scrutiny, I'm not sure what is.

So, Adam Lambert comes out in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, and you're thinking, "What's next? Rolling Stone announces 'Water is wet'"?

I get where you're coming from. But there are deeper lessons to be gleaned.

First, notice how Lambert comes out-in a music magazine, with his sexuality occupying a relatively minor portion of the article. And he does so with the candid yet indirect phrasing "I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay." The gayness is almost taken for granted-embedded in a sentence about public reaction, rather than placed front and center.

That approach reflects a larger trend in how society-and in particular, younger generations-view gayness: as a simple matter-of-fact, not something to be belabored. The contrast with Clay Aiken's "Yes, I'm Gay" People Magazine cover is subtle but important.

And yet, second, there's an ambivalence in the article that captures the national tone on the issue. Lambert says, "It shouldn't matter. Except it does. It's really confusing."

He's right on all three counts.

"It shouldn't matter." American Idol is a singing competition, and Lambert wanted to-and should-be judged on his vocal performance. His decision to wait until after Idol to answer the gay question, he claims, stemmed from his desire that his sexuality not overshadow his singing. (It may also have stemmed from a desire for votes, and I couldn't blame him for that. It's not as if he lied about being gay or took great pains to hide it.)

"Except it does [matter]." As Lambert himself put it in the interview, "There's the old industry idea that you should just make sexuality a non-issue, just say your private life's your private life, and not talk about it. But that's bullshit, because private lives don't exist anymore for celebrities: they just don't."

The music industry doesn't just sell songs; it sells images. For better or worse, personal backstory is part of that (especially on Idol).

What's more, gay celebrities give hope to closeted gay kids, who need to know that they're not alone and who sometimes don't have gay role models in their everyday lives. That's not to say that Adam Lambert is any more representative of gay life than any other gay person. It's just to say that his representation, such as it is, will reach more people.

"It's really confusing." Yes indeed. We live in a nation where, for some people, much of the time, gayness is a non-issue, and for others, virtually constantly, it's huge. American Idol is one of those "common denominator" phenomena (say that three times fast!) where these different groups interact with each other. Often they can do so while avoiding the issue of sexuality. But not always.

And the tension here is not just between groups; it's also internal. When Lambert says, "I'm proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It's just another part of me," he unwittingly raises a question-one that opponents often hurl at us: "Why be 'proud' of something that's 'just another part' of you?" Why take pride in a trait that you didn't choose and is supposed to be no big deal?

Answer: because it is a big deal. It does matter. Maybe in an ideal world it wouldn't, but we are still far from that world.

Ironically, it's a big deal precisely because our opponents insist on making it a big deal. Thanks to them, Adam Lambert (like every gay person) has to negotiate the issue of revealing his sexuality in a way that straight people never do. I think he's handled it admirably.

Lambert told Rolling Stone that "I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader." Fair enough. But it's also fair to note that civil-rights change doesn't only come from civil-rights leaders. It also comes from countless small acts of revelation by ordinary and not-so-ordinary people, including Adam Lambert.

A recent New York Times Magazine article spotlighted a shocking vestige of our nation's racism: segregated proms. It focused on one school in Georgia's Montgomery County, though the practice is common across the rural South.

I say "shocking" even though I personally wasn't surprised. One of my best friends is from rural Tennessee. His alma mater still segregates superlatives: White Most Likely to Succeed, Black Most Likely to Succeed; Funniest White, Funniest Black, and so on.

The white students quoted in the Times article expressed some reservations about the practice, but generally concluded with "It's how it's always been…It's just a tradition." In the words of Harley Boone, a platinum blond girl with beauty-queen looks who co-chaired last year's white prom, "It doesn't seem like a big deal around here. It's just what we know and what our parents have done for so many years."

"It's just what we know." Miss Boone reminded me of another beauty queen, in both her appearance and her comment: Miss California USA Carrie Prejean.

Miss Prejean, you'll recall, when asked her beliefs about marriage equality, responded (in part), "I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

How I was raised. Tradition. What our parents have done. This is not, in itself, a bad reason for doing something. It explains why I set the table the way I do, for instance, or why I always put an extra unlit candle on a birthday cake ("good luck for the next year," my mom always told me). It explains, too, more substantial practices-how we gather, celebrate milestones, express joy, or mourn loss. No generation does, or should, invent everything from scratch.

And yet, sometimes "what we know"-or thought we knew-stops working, or never worked very well in the first place.

I used to load the dishwasher with the forks tines down-because that's how my parents did and still do it-until I realized they get cleaner tines up (in my dishwasher, anyway, and please don't send me irate e-mails if yours is different).

Spotty forks are one thing. Racial and sexual inequalities are quite another. When traditions cause palpable harm to people, it's time to change. At that point, rethinking tradition is not merely optional, as in the dishwasher case-it's morally mandatory.

And that's why Prejean's " how I was raised" comment struck so many of us as a dumb answer. No educated person can justifiably claim ignorance of the challenges gay individuals and couples face. We gays are deprived of a fundamental social institution, treated unequally in the eyes of the law, and told that our deep, committed, loving relationships are inferior, counterfeit, or depraved. In the face of such injustice, "that's how I was raised" sounds hollow and cowardly.

There are those who bristle at any analogy between homophobia and racial injustice. Indeed, a favorite new right-wing strategy is to claim that liberals unfairly label as "bigots" anyone who opposes same-sex marriage, even on the basis of sincere moral and religious convictions.

But that's one reason why the analogy is so powerful, and so revealing. It shows that citing "sincere moral and religious convictions" doesn't get one a free pass for maintaining unjust institutions.

No analogy compares two things that are exactly the same. (That would not be an analogy, but an identity.) Analogies compare two or more things that are similar in some relevant respect(s). The similarities can be instructive.

The white citizens of Montgomery County, Georgia, seem like a nice enough bunch. They don't carry pitchforks or wear hooded robes. I doubt that Miss Boone ever uses the n-word, although her grandparents probably do. (Mine did, too, until we grandchildren protested loudly enough.) They are otherwise decent folk misled by powerful tradition.

I'm sure that, pressed for further explanation, many of these folks could make the right noises about doing what's best for their children and eventual grandchildren. And much like "that's just what we know," that response would sound familiar. Opponents of marriage equality use it constantly.

But don't marriage-equality opponents have social-science data backing them up? They don't. Yes, they have data about how children fare in fatherless households, for example, and then they extrapolate from that data to draw conclusions about lesbian households. The problem is that there are too many confounding variables. So then they fall back on their "vast untested social experiment" argument: we just don't know how this is going to turn out. Which, again, is precisely the sort of thing we might expect the Montgomery parents to say to justify their "tradition."

From the fact that two groups of people use the same forms of argument, it doesn't follow that their conclusions are equally good or bad. It depends on the truth of their premises.

Still, the tendency of both segregationists and marriage-equality opponents to hide behind "that's how I was raised" provides a powerful analogy-in moral laziness.

President Truman's quip about wanting a one-handed economist-so that he would cease being told, "On the one hand…on the other hand…"-pretty well sums up my reaction to the news that Ted Olson and David Boies are spearheading a federal lawsuit challenging California's Prop. 8.

Olson and Boies are two of the most prominent constitutional lawyers in the country-as evidenced by the fact that they represented George W. Bush and Al Gore, respectively, before the U.S. Supreme Court in "Bush v. Gore," which decided the 2000 election. And yes, they are from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Olson-who initiated the alliance-is a well known conservative heavyweight. In addition to representing Bush against Gore, he was the 43rd president's first solicitor general, has served on the board of the right-wing American Spectator, and defended President Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal.

On the one hand, WTF?

On the other hand, there are increasing numbers of political conservatives who think that the standard right-wing position on gays is not just silly, but profoundly unjust. Olson appeared sincere and determined as he announced the lawsuit, together with Boies, at a press conference last Wednesday. As he put it,

I suspect there's not a single person in this room that doesn't have a friend or family member of close acquaintance or professional colleague and many of them who are gay. And if you look into the eyes and hearts of people who are gay and talk to them about this issue, that reinforces in the most powerful way possible the fact that these individuals deserve to be treated equally like the rest of us and not be denied the fundamental rights of our Constitution.

I couldn't have said it better (which is exactly how Boies responded to Olson's words, patting his colleague and erstwhile nemesis on the back.)

On the other hand (that's three, and there will be more), doesn't the timing seem wrong? That's what many veterans in this fight-including folks at Lambda Legal and the ACLU-are saying. Olson and Boies seem determined to press this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Call me a pessimist, but I can't imagine the current or any near-future SCOTUS deciding in favor of full marriage equality. (I'd of course love to be wrong about this.)

Pushing this case too soon could be both judicially and politically risky. A loss at the Supreme Court would create binding negative precedent for ALL states, not just California. Such precedent is hard to undo. Moreover, if the case is pending during the 2012 presidential election, it could be a rallying cry for right-wingers.

On the other hand, assuming this case does reach SCOTUS, much will depend on the idiosyncratic Justice Kennedy-a swing vote who stood up for gays in both Romer v. Evans (which struck down Colorado's amendment barring pro-gay ordinances) and Lawrence v. Texas (which reversed Bowers v. Hardwick and eliminated laws against sodomy). Romer, in particular, may be key backdrop for this case.

And even if we lose, forcing justices to put their arguments against equality in writing, for generations of legal theorists and law students to dissect, is bound to have a salutary effect long-term.

Moreover, the bipartisan nature of this legal team, and particularly Olson's conservative bona-fides, could be just what's needed to nudge pro-gay conservatives out of the closet in supporting marriage equality. If-and I mean IF; a big, fat, entirely hypothetical IF-anyone could convince someone like Chief Justice Roberts to reject the constitutionality of Prop 8, Olson's the guy to do it.

Olson is no fool. This is a high-profile case, and that's doubtless part of his and Boies's motivation for taking it. They will be working "partly" pro-bono. It is unclear who's paying for the other part, which surely won't be cheap.

On the other hand, unlike the push for a ballot initiative to overturn Prop. 8 in 2010 or 2012, this case won't require substantial monetary contributions from the cash-strapped grass roots. And if Olson and Boies don't take up the case, someone else less well-positioned would likely do so.

On the other hand, Prop. 8 may not be the ideal case on which to pin this battle. Olson and Boies plan to argue on equal protection and due process grounds. But California still allows gays and lesbians to enjoy virtually all the statewide legal incidents of marriage, just without the name "marriage." I'm not suggesting that the name is unimportant, or that "virtually" and "statewide" are the same as "all." I am saying that it seems easier to make an equal protection case where the legal incidents, and not just the name, are substantially unequal.

On the other hand, I'm no constitutional scholar. And there's momentum surrounding Prop. 8. And you gotta dance with them what brung you.

And it's the momentum, more than anything, that gives me hope here. A super-prominent conservative attorney makes a strong and very public stand in favor of marriage equality, recognizing it at the key civil rights issue of our day. Even if we end up losing this particular battle, it's hard not to grow more optimistic regarding the war.

At the risk of stating the obvious, let me say that Adam Lambert is going to be just fine.

I'll say it anyway because, barely minutes after Kris Allen was announced as the "upset" winner of American Idol, my Facebook feed was loaded with status updates declaring Adam's loss a "hate crime," with people vowing to take the streets to protest (on the eve of the anniversary of the White Night riots, no less).

I trust that their histrionics were limited to message boards, and that the streets are safe from drama. There will soon enough be events worth marching about.

None of which is to diminish the importance of Lambert's nearly winning America's blockbuster musical talent competition as a more-or-less openly gay performer. Sure, it's not DOMA, or DADT, or ENDA. But if greater issues always displaced lesser ones, there would be no justification for watching American Idol in the first place-or for art of any sort.

As for those who think that a contestant's sexuality is nobody's business, I'll buy that the moment we apply the same standard to straight performers. Kris Allen's wife, explicitly identified, was a regular presence. Third-placer Danny Gokey, as we heard repeatedly, is a widower. Family backstory is standard Idol fare. But Lambert, as Entertainment Weekly's Mark Harris aptly put it, "was apparently made by the hand of God and left in a basket backstage at Wicked."

Should Lambert have beat Allen? Lambert is clearly the more talented singer and performer, though Allen is not without his charms.

Lambert is also queer-in the broad sense of that term. Put aside the internet pictures of him in drag making out with other guys. Many Idol voters were unaware of such pictures, despite their being aired, for example, by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. (O'Reilly did so under the guise of "Will America have a problem with this?" but it's hard to believe he wasn't trying precisely to provoke such a problem.)

Many Idol voters surely also missed Lambert's skillful non-answers to media questions about his sexuality. ''I know who I am," he told Entertainment Weekly when asked the gay question. "I'm an honest guy, and I'm just going to keep singing.''

But no viewer could miss Lambert's flamboyant costumes, his outrageous high notes, or his eyeliner. Whatever his romantic interests, Adam Lambert reads queer. And that's new territory for Idol. While Clay Aiken, the last gay near-winner, projected "wholesome," Lambert screams "edgy." (It's a pitch-perfect scream, held impossibly long, which pierces the audience.)

And that's why, despite Lambert's superior vocal skills, Allen's victory was unsurprising. American Idol contestants win by getting the most votes, and the average American doesn't typically vote for queer. That's part of what makes it queer, after all.

Nonetheless, Lambert seems no less a victor, and I hope he's basking in his glory right now, eyeliner and all.

He made it to the final round while unabashedly being himself (in his appearance and performance, if not in direct response to interview questions). He has solidified his reputation as a consummate entertainer. He will no doubt go on to have a great career, far more successful than Allen's, and probably even more successful than the career he would have had were he constrained by the packaging that comes with the "Idol" title.

Meanwhile, he has taught America something, if not about gays, then at least about "queers." He has "mad skills," yes-but he was also unfailingly polite, consistently expressing gratitude for the behind-the-scenes folks who developed his arrangements. He graciously expressed admiration for his competitors, including Allen. He was edgy, but not off-putting-all of which made it easier for people to see the main thing: his tremendous talent.

Besides injecting new life into Idol, Lambert also appears to have changed its culture. Idol has always struck me as a homophobic show, not just because of the noticeable absence of openly gay performers, but also because of the juvenile gay innuendo that regularly takes place between judge Simon Cowell and host Ryan Seacrest. That innuendo seems to have dramatically decreased this season-no doubt partly due to Lambert.

It will be interesting to see, now that Lambert must shift his attention from votes to sales, whether he chooses to talk more explicitly about his sexuality. I look forward to what he has to say. But I look forward even more to what he's going to sing.

This column hits the internet around my fortieth birthday. Forgive a middle-aged columnist for indulging in some reminiscing.

Little reminders of my age keep creeping up, like the fact that I had to re-word the last sentence after initially writing "This column hits the newsstands…" My column used to appear in print (and still does, in some markets). At least I've learned to say "music store" instead of "record store," though I don't think I've purchased a record since 6th grade. (It was Billy Joel's Glass Houses.) And even saying "music store" probably dates me.

When I came out at 19, there was no internet. Usually, we met other gays by going to gay bars-when we could find them. When traveling, I'd grab the local phone book (remember those?) and hope to locate something under "Gay," "Lambda" or "Rainbow." Then I'd look for a pay phone.

If the telephone search didn't work, I had an alternate method. I'd go to the nearest mall and find a Gap, where nine times out of ten I could spot a gay salesclerk. (Yes it's a stereotype, but it was a useful one at the time.) I would chat him up so he would fill me in on the local scene-no joking. Who needs gaydar.com when you have plain old-fashioned gaydar?

Reflecting on ways the world has changed during my life, I feel a bit like my grandfather when he talks about when gas was twenty cents a gallon. (Did I mention that, after locating the gay bar, I would walk ten miles to get there, uphill, both ways?)

Like my grandfather, I do find myself occasionally referring to "these kids today."

As a college professor, I know many of these "kids" as students. When I started teaching, I wasn't much older than they. Blessed with a youthful countenance, I could easily be mistaken for their peer. (And yes, the photo accompanying this column is recent.) Now I'm old enough to be their dad-something I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around.

I am both awed and pleased by some of the ways in which their lives will differ from mine. Mainly, I'm filled with gratitude.

Most of these kids don't know what it's like to start a gay and lesbian group at schools that don't have one, and then watch as all of their flyers get either torn down or scribbled with words like "faggot." I'm grateful that such frequent ugliness has become the exception rather than the rule in America.

Most of these kids don't know what it's like to live in a world where, in most people's minds, gay=AIDS=death. I came out in 1988. AZT was just becoming available, and protease inhibitors were some time off. I watched friends and acquaintances die with alarming speed. I'm grateful that most of today's youth don't know that horror-although I wish they would take more care with their sexual choices.

These kids live in a world where, in a handful of places, they can marry whom they love. Seeing this as possible, those in the other places can hope for, and work for, change. I'm grateful for that progress.

I'm grateful that gay sex is no longer criminal in any U.S. state-though grieved that it still warrants the death penalty in parts of the world. For seven years of my adult life I lived in a state where homosexual sodomy was criminal. I cried tears of gratitude when that changed, thanks to the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003.

I know that there's much work left to be done, and I'm grateful to be a part of that work.

I'm grateful for readers from around the world who send me words of encouragement. I'm grateful for family and friends who have supported me. And I'm grateful for my partner Mark, who has been the love of my life for the last seven-and-a-half years. He, more than anyone else, makes me look forward to the next forty.

All in all, it's a good world out there, which makes growing older something to embrace.