IGF CultureWatch

Let's say you and your partner live in D.C. and are thinking of trading in your domestic partnership for a California wedding. Your heart says: Marry while you can. If it's good enough for Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, it's good enough for you.

If you've done your homework, your head might say: But you'll have trouble getting a divorce if it doesn't work out, because the state has a residency requirement for that; and California is a community property state. Besides, there is no telling when your marriage will be recognized back home, where the city's congressional overlords are bipartisan in their opposition to marriage equality.

But you're in love, and there's been enough waiting. Del and Phyllis have waited more than fifty years. Many couples arranging trips to the coast this summer are in longstanding, well-tested relationships. When you marry, your love is its own authority, your mutual commitment no one else's to give. If you have that with someone, you are already married in the truest sense of the word. What you seek in California is to make it legal.

And there's the rub. How will you get your marriage recognized in D.C.? If Mayor Adrian Fenty and his attorney general are not ready to defy Congress, will you go to court? D.C. judges are appointed by the president, not the mayor, and D.C. courts ruled against same-sex marriage in the 1990s.

In a recent interview, one reporter essentially asked Fenty why the city did not act now based on optimistic predictions about the November elections. Fenty wisely avoided putting the cart before the horse.

Last week, a coalition of leading marriage equality advocates including Lambda Legal, Freedom to Marry, ACLU, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and the Equality Federation said in a joint statement, "Pushing the federal government before we have a critical mass of states recognizing same-sex relationships or suing in states where the courts aren't ready is likely to get us bad rulings. Bad rulings will make it much more difficult for us to win marriage, and will certainly make it take much longer."

Same-sex couples have already lost cases in Arizona, Indiana, Washington State, New York, and Maryland. In 2005, a gay couple provoked threats from Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) by trying to get their Massachusetts marriage recognized in D.C. As I said at the time, taking a damn-the-consequences approach is the political equivalent of sailing down the Potomac on a flaming barge. It would be one thing if such decisions affected only the couples making them, but those who press ill-advised cases are taking the rest of us with them.

Enhancements to D.C's domestic partnership law already give registered partners nearly all the legal protections of marriage that a state can grant. We are blocked at the federal level by the Defense of Marriage Act. Even Del and Phyllis will get none of the federal benefits of marriage such as joint tax filing or Social Security.

Still, it will not do to say, as some do, "What's in a word?" The answer is: Everything. In New Jersey, a special commission reported in February that civil unions create a "second-class status." To cite one example, self-insured companies are regulated by federal, rather than state, law, and many refuse to provide health insurance to civilly-unionized partners. By the way, isn't it awkward talking about civil unions? Marriage requires no explanation, and thus has a built-in advantage over any alternative.

It is precisely because the fight for marriage equality is so important that we should wage it smartly and responsibly, which means working together. As last week's joint statement said, "We need to choose the courts and legislatures where we have the best chance of winning." In the meantime, all of us should be telling our stories and making our case to help move public opinion and lay the groundwork for future victories.

Until we get a federal version of the California ruling, married same-sex couples traveling from state to state will be in a legal no-man's-land. It is a profound injustice that will take more than rash actions to defeat. Let's stop demanding shortcuts and cooperate in the slow and steady work of making real and lasting change. Right now we have an initiative to defeat in California, to preserve the victory there.

On March 11, the State Department released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2007. A compilation of the LGBT- and HIV/AIDS-related portions is available at glaa.org. An LGBT-only compilation, available at lgbtfpp.org, was released during a panel discussion in Washington on March 18 by the LGBT Foreign Policy Project, a coalition effort launched late in 2007 to encourage "a clearer and stronger American voice" on international gay rights concerns.

The March 18 discussion featured openly gay former Ambassadors James Hormel and Michael Guest; Scott Long of Human Rights Watch; and Korab Zuka, founder of the first gay rights group in Kosovo, who recently won asylum in the United States. The discussion emphasized the need to press the State Department to act on its findings. An official from State was present and cited a 2007 directive from Secretary Rice for embassies to support human rights more actively, but this was contradicted by Rice's recent waiver of human rights concerns to permit the release of military aid to Egypt.

Long noted a wide variation in the completeness of the individual country reports, reflecting the different priority given to this work from embassy to embassy. For example, the report for South Africa is silent on the rape, torture, and murder of a Johannesburg lesbian couple on July 8. On the other hand, I found 189 countries with relevant entries in the reports for 2007, up from 142 for 2006 and 105 for 2005.

Let's review some highlights, both negative and positive.

In Egypt, the government used emergency courts intended for terrorism and national security cases to prosecute homosexuals and dissidents. The Iranian government closed a reformist daily newspaper for interviewing an alleged gay activist. In Iraq, several gay activists were arrested and tortured, and there were killings by Islamist death squads. In Saudi Arabia, numerous arrests were made at gay parties, weddings, and beauty contests. Dubai police interrogated several people on charges of cross-dressing, which was also criminalized in Kuwait.

Brazil's Bahia Gay Rights Group reported 116 anti-LGBT killings, and "confirmed that police continued to commit abuse and extortion directed against transvestite prostitutes." Neo-Nazi and skinhead gangs in Chile committed anti-gay violence. Five Honduran police officers were charged with torture and illegal detention of several gay activists. Jamaican anti-gay abuses included police harassment, arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, and targeted shootings.

Gay marchers in Bucharest, Budapest, Moscow and Zagreb were violently attacked. In Kosovo, activists were detained and harassed by police. In Serbia, pro-gay activists were accused of being anti-Serb. Lithuanian gay groups were denied parade permits. Governments in Honduras, El Salvador, and the Philippines delayed, denied, or obstructed registration of LGBT groups.

In India, authors Vikram Seth and Amartya Sen led a campaign to overturn the law criminalizing homosexuality. In Burma, "increasing numbers of children worked in the informal economy or in the street, where they were exposed to drugs, petty crime, risk of arrest, trafficking for sex and labor exploitation, and HIV/AIDS."

In Romania there was widespread discrimination against children with HIV/AIDS. Moscow officials accused foreign non-profits that fight HIV/AIDS of "encouraging pedophilia, prostitution, and drug use among teenagers." A person released from a Havana prison for HIV/AIDS patients reported poor prison conditions, erratic medical care, and irregular provision of antiviral drugs. Across Africa, from Burundi to Zimbabwe, millions of AIDS orphans lived on the streets. The Rwanda report includes this awful line: "Due to the genocide and deaths from HIV/AIDS, there were numerous households headed by children, some of whom resorted to prostitution to survive."

On the plus side, Gay pride events were held successfully in Lima, Taipei, Krakow, Warsaw, Riga (Latvia), Tallinn (Estonia), and Ljubljana (Slovenia). Sierra Leone passed a law prohibiting HIV/AIDS-based discrimination. Mozambique passed a law prohibiting anti-gay workplace discrimination. Dutch parliamentary hearings led to the reversal or delay of government plans to return gay refugees to Iran. The Polish minister of education sought unsuccessfully to bar the promotion of homosexuality in schools, and his party lost its seats in parliament. The Nepalese Supreme Court upheld the rights of sexual minorities. In Thailand, the military stopped labeling homosexuality as a mental disorder. In Taiwan, the Family Violence Prevention and Service Act was extended to same-sex couples.

In some of the harshest places one finds the bravest people. The honor roll of advocacy groups includes Sexual Minorities in Uganda; GenderDoc-M in Moldova; Nash Mir in Ukraine; the Center for Social Emancipation in Kosovo; the Lesbian-Gay Rainbow Association of Comayaguela in Honduras; J-FLAG in Jamaica; and Lambda Istanbul in Turkey.

Even in Mali, where a law against immoral association was used to deny recognition to a gay rights group, it's encouraging that there's a gay rights group in the first place. So now it can be said that there is gay activism from here to Timbuktu.

In a recent op-ed on GayWired.com, black lesbian commentator Jasmyne Cannick wrote, "Charles Knipp is a self-described 45-year-old fat, gay white man who believes he's on a mission from God. A mission that involves mimicking Black women as his alter ego character Shirley Q. Liquor." After describing what she calls Knipp's "blackface minstrel show," Cannick writes, "I blame gay America, from the political leaders to the club owners, for turning a blind eye to Knipp's blatantly racist routines. We are the reason that his racist act continues to go nearly undetected on the race radar."

Having heard an excerpt of Knipp's act thanks to PamsHouseBlend.com, I think its obscurity is well deserved. Nonetheless, if Cannick wishes to call Knipp out as publicly as possible, that is her right. But it is a big jump from blaming club owners who book the act to blaming all of gay America. Cannick specifically targets white gays. She responds to Knipp's rendition of "a welfare mother with nineteen kids who guzzles malt liquor and drives a Caddy" by making disparaging racial generalizations of her own.

It is certainly easy to understand Cannick's anger at Knipp's insulting portrayals as well as his method of defending himself from her criticism. Knipp recently photoshopped Cannick's head onto a porn actress's body and posted it on his website. Previously, Cannick received death and rape threats after her private e-mail and phone number were posted by Knipp's promoter. Unfortunately, Cannick's response hits innocent and guilty alike.

Cannick says accusingly to white gays, "you usurp the Black Civil Rights Movement's strategies and language." This suggests that the black civil rights movement is the exclusive property of African Americans, which could hardly stray further from the spirit of a movement whose legacy belongs to all Americans.

Cannick says to Knipp, "Most people in your situation settle for surrounding themselves with Black friends, marrying someone Black, moving into a Black neighborhood, listening to hip hop, watching BET, eating Soul Food and voting for Barack Obama. Why don't you give it a try and leave the act of being Black to those of us who are?"

For white people to have black friends, marry someone black, and vote for Barack Obama is merely a reflection of life in a multiracial society. It is happening in numbers far beyond what can be ascribed to a pathological desire for a race change, and merits contempt only if viewed through the prism of racial separatism.

Noting that RuPaul has defended Knipp, Cannick dismisses RuPaul by saying "he's as disconnected from Black America as Ward Connerly." How can someone's racial authenticity depend upon holding particular views? Speaking of Obama, he represents a healthy departure from this perpetual state-of-siege mentality.

Cannick's throwdown with Knipp notwithstanding, there is no evidence that white people in blackface are the next big trend in entertainment. I had never heard of Shirley Q. Liquor until I read about her in an earlier piece by Cannick. In this respect, Cannick risks helping Knipp by increasing his notoriety.

In any event, it is unclear how people who have never even seen Knipp can be blamed for his depredations. Cannick's implication is that Knipp's ability to get paid for his performances proves that white gays in general are racist. Is Knipp playing to packed stadiums? It is peculiar that Cannick seeks to combat racism by venting her own racial hostility. If she wants respect from others, she should offer it herself.

Fortunately, a new generation is emerging which is less deferential to the old racial categories, and for whom racial mixing is increasingly commonplace. For those willing to drop their protective masks of cynicism, this social development might recall the redemption in Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, where descendants of a judge from the Salem witch trials and of one of his victims dispel the old curse between the two families by falling in love.

Be that as it may, it is sad that Cannick would impugn the motives of those of us who have found love across the racial divide. Such attitudes help no one. Instead of the overused tactic of insisting that all white gays join her cause or be accused of racism, she should try something truly radical: treat people as individual human beings who are responsible for what they believe and say and do, the same as she.

This week on Capitol Hill, supporters of syringe exchange programs (SEP) for HIV prevention celebrated a victory. Last year, Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) led successful efforts in the House of Representatives to allow the District of Columbia to spend its own funds on syringe exchange after a nine-year ban. D.C. has the highest HIV infection rate in the country, and Congress' ban on local funding (interference not faced by the states) severely hampered prevention efforts. President Bush's 2009 budget proposal calls for reinstating the local funding ban in D.C., but that will likely be ignored by congressional Democrats.

A campaign is now underway to overturn the older nationwide ban on federal funds, dating to 1988. We came close ten years ago.

In 1998, President Clinton's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, was ready to call a press conference to confirm scientific findings that SEP helped decrease HIV infections without increasing drug abuse, and to announce that federal funds could be used for the purpose. At the last minute, Clinton bowed to pressure from his drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, who claimed syringe exchange sent the wrong message to children. In the end, Shalala had to defend continuation of the federal funding ban despite confirming the effectiveness of syringe exchange.

POZ magazine founder Sean Strub urged Secretary Shalala to resign in protest. He wrote, "Let's hope that Clinton's modestly supportive (albeit failed) initiatives on gay issues are never confused with his record on AIDS, which is one of cowardice, opportunism, callous disregard and cynical dismissal." Scott Hitt, head of Clinton's AIDS advisory panel, said, "At best this is hypocrisy. At worst, it's a lie. And no matter what, it's immoral."

For two decades, the federal government, in the name of its ill-conceived "war on drugs," has blocked funding for a program proven to save lives. The irrationality of the "Just Say No" mindset, whether pertaining to drugs or sex, has been amply criticized. What is more disturbing is the silence and even complicity of people who know better. Clinton caved so many times on so many issues that one wonders what he thought the Oval Office was for. Oh, never mind.

What about the Clinton now running for president? Sen. Hillary Clinton answered a question last April from AIDS activist Charles King about SEP by saying, "I want to look at the evidence on it." Reminded that Secretary Shalala had affirmed the effectiveness of syringe exchange but that President Clinton had refused to end the federal funding ban, Sen. Clinton cited political realities. King pointed out that she had said we need a president with spine, and she replied, "We'll have as much spine as we possibly can, under the circumstances." By contrast, Sen. Barack Obama supports lifting the federal funding ban. John McCain's Senate office did not respond to an Associated Press query, but he voted on the Senate floor against D.C. funding of SEP in 2001.

It is not only the feds who have allowed ideology to trump the evidence on this issue. For example, in 2006, after Massachusetts lawmakers finally passed a bill permitting the sale of hypodermic syringes without a prescription, it was vetoed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney. Fortunately, the veto was overridden. On the other hand, life-saving needle exchange programs have been limited to four Massachusetts cities (Boston, Cambridge, Northampton and Provincetown) due to local opposition. This underscores the need for federal leadership.

For now, with D.C. finally able to fund syringe exchange, there are many who deserve recognition for their leadership: Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.); D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2); PreventionWorks!, which in addition to operating an SEP without public funds, had to overcome police interference and community mistrust; AIDS Action; amfAR; DC Appleseed; Human Rights Campaign; The AIDS Institute and Director of Federal Affairs Carl Schmid; Washington AIDS Partnership and Executive Director Channing Wickham; and Whitman Walker Clinic and Associate Executive Director Dr. Patricia Hawkins.

On Feb. 7, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, the Harm Reduction Coalition launched a campaign with the NAACP, the National Urban League and other groups to lift the federal funding ban. African Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV, and intravenous drug use is a vector for new HIV infections. It is past time to put lives and science first; but experience shows that this requires more than a change of political party. It requires political will.

"We are one people." It is easy to say, but we have struggled over it for 232 years. The charismatic speaker, who once wrestled with his biracial identity and found his footing as a community organizer in south Chicago, brings a conviction that gives people goose bumps. It is a vision that clashes with the hard truth voiced by Bruce Springsteen: "No secret my friend / You can get killed just for living in / Your American skin." Barack Obama knows it is hard, and includes LGBT Americans in his call to action.

Sen. John Kerry points out that Martin Luther King was 34 when he said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'" Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he drafted that creed. If Obama wins, he will be 47 at his inauguration-a year older than Bill Clinton, four years older than Jack Kennedy, five years older than Teddy Roosevelt. His toughness is evident in his remarkable coolness in the face of smears by the Clintons.

To be sure, Obama has fought back against those attacks. Former President Clinton, who switches between charming elder statesman and eager practitioner of win-at-any-cost politics, blamed the divisiveness on Obama and the media, and used civil rights veterans John Lewis and Andrew Young as trump cards instead of addressing charges that he was behaving like the late GOP operative Lee Atwater. Those who fault Obama for fighting back must have admired Kerry's month of silence after the "swift boat" attacks in 2004.

Obama notes that the Clintons' attacks began only after he started rising in the polls. One of his central messages is, "Change doesn't come from the top down, but from the bottom up." By contrast, Hillary Clinton implicitly compared herself to Lyndon Johnson, emphasizing his key role in passing civil rights legislation. What was patronizing about that comment was the implication that change chiefly depends on Washington politicians.

Obama raised a stronger vision of leadership on Jan. 20 at King's own Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, with a speech of rare grace and power. At one point, after saying "none of our hands are entirely clean," he admonished his audience: "We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity." This was not pandering.

Obama challenges gay people as well by refusing to respond to opponents of gay equality with boycotts. As he wrote in response to the controversy over a campaign appearance by antigay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, "We will not secure full equality for all LGBT Americans until we learn how to address that deep disagreement and move beyond it." He understands that our cause requires many painful discussions, not demands for silence from those whose views offend us. He shows the way by talking to churches and ministers about homophobia.

As Obama told The Advocate in October, "on issues from 'don't ask, don't tell' to DOMA to the gay marriage amendment to the human rights ordinance in Illinois that is the equivalent of what we've been attempting to do at the federal level and that I was a chief cosponsor of and then passed-there has not been a stronger and more consistent advocate on LGBT issues than I have been." Like Clinton and John Edwards, he opposes same-sex civil marriage, but he supports giving same-sex couples the 1,138 federal rights and responsibilities accorded married couples. Needless to say, this is less than I want; but it would be a giant step toward the goal. The next few years will not bring final victory, but are an opportunity to push the debate crucially forward.

If you are not careful, life can beat the hope out of you. Some activists I know, old enough to remember the Sixties, support Hillary. They have pictures of King and Bobby Kennedy on their walls, yet now back someone more reminiscent of Richard Nixon. Instead of supporting a leader who can inspire a broad spectrum of Americans, they support someone whose idea of the presidency is managing the bureaucracy, and whose idea of bipartisanship is cosponsoring a measure against flag burning.

Some claim that Obama lacks detailed policy proposals. They should visit BarackObama.com, including barackobama.com/pdf/lgbt.pdf. Others hesitate to support him because they worry about what might happen to him. But if we are governed by our fears, we are defeating ourselves.

The times call for a leader who offers more than a continuation of the scorched-earth politics of the past two decades-someone who will do more than triangulate and outmaneuver partisans on the other side. Once again a gifted man from Illinois has come forth who understands that a nation divided against itself cannot stand, who exhorts us to summon the best in ourselves to continue the work of building our nation. I will not lower my sights because the work is hard. That is why I support Barack Obama for President.

Recent developments in the transgender movement suggest an internal conflict between methods proven successful and misdirected anger that only gets in the way.

On the winning side of the ledger are accomplishments at the state and local level. For example, in the past few weeks, both houses of the New Jersey state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill to add gender identity and expression to the state's hate crime law and strengthen school anti-bullying policies. This victory is thanks to the efforts of Garden State Equality and Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey. This illustrates the fact that, as with the fight for marriage equality, the main action currently is in the states, and that is where the bulk of resources need to be directed even as we continue our education efforts nationally.

On the self-defeating side of the ledger is a December letter from Meredith Bacon, board chair of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Speaking for herself, she offered an over-the-top denunciation of the Human Rights Campaign: "NCTE will not work with HRC in the foreseeable future, until the current HRC leadership is completely purged ..." She elaborated, "Not only is Joe Solmonese not to be trusted but neither are the second rank of HRC staff or its Board of Directors or Board of Governors. All of them would have to resign or be fired before we could even contemplate anything like cooperation. In short, NCTE is neither forgiving nor forgetting what HRC and Barney Frank have done to all of us."

To underscore her complete divorce from reality, Bacon also stated, "As long as HRC is controlled by and is dependent upon white, rich, professional gay men, such collaboration may never occur. Getting stabbed in the back is a useful experience only once in a very great while." This combines a tired and gratuitous leftist attack against leading funders of the gay rights movement with a repetition of the lie that disagreement over strategy is a betrayal.

Bacon made an interesting claim: "NCTE and the trans community do not need HRC because the United ENDA coalition has cemented our collaborative relationship with the Task Force, PFLAG, Lambda Legal and 300 other LGBT organizations." This ignores the failure of the United ENDA coalition to sway more than a handful of votes in Congress, as well as the evidence that the gay rank and file strongly disagrees with its all-or-nothing stance. In the left's ideological echo chamber, it is considered self-evident that Barney Frank's successful legislative strategy is somehow the failed one. Earth to United ENDA: Think again. Sen. Ted Kennedy has announced that he will proceed in the Senate with the version of ENDA passed by the House. If that is a sign of failure, let's have more of it.

Unfortunately, Bacon has plenty of company, as shown by the withdrawal of the Massachusetts chapter of the Transgender American Veterans Association from the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition on Jan. 11 after MTPC announced a pledge of $25,000 from HRC. The anti-HRC zealots scornfully reject the civil rights tradition of passing the best achievable bill while continuing to work for further advances.

Disparaging incrementalism and "white, rich, professional gay men" are non-starters. Transgender activists in many states have shown what works: Organizing, educating and focusing on the reality of people's lives. Stories touch people in a way that theory does not. Most Americans believe, at least in the abstract, that all citizens deserve equality under the law. The challenge is to get more Americans to recognize transgenders as their neighbors instead of as an abstracted and demonized "other." This crucial task is undermined by those transgenders (by no means all) who walk around with chips on their shoulders. If you want to insist that your anger is more than justified, I cannot quarrel with you. But unless that anger is channeled productively, it is no more liberating than that of rioters burning down their own neighborhood.

The potential power of a positive approach is suggested by the headway that Sen. Barack Obama has made as a presidential candidate with his embrace of an inspiring message that transcends the politics of racial guilt-mongering. Is that approach guaranteed to yield quick success? Of course not. Transgenders have a long, hard slog ahead. But centering your message on the arc of history bending toward justice is a damn sight more appealing than insulting your allies both in the LGBT community and in Congress.

Meredith Bacon wrote one thing I agree with, concerning the mixture of insider and outsider strategies: "Both of these strategies are valid and may be complementary as long as we all accept that we are working toward the same goals. Our needs are too important for mutually destructive animosity." She might consider taking her own advice.

On the next-to-last night of Hanukkah I went to Alan and Will's house, and before the menorah lighting there was time to read a book with 4-year-old Sam. I had brought him Lemony Snicket's The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, with a cover blurb, "Latkes are potato pancakes served at Hanukkah. Lemony Snicket is an alleged children's book author. For the first time in literary history, these two elements are combined in one book." The latke was screaming first because it had been thrown into a pan of boiling oil, and then because everyone it ran into-a string of colored lights, a candy cane, and a pine tree-tried to make it a part of Christmas, when it had nothing to do with Christmas.

I know how the latke felt, because I keep coming across fundamentalists who insist that everyone else's religion match theirs. The latest source of annoyance is Republican presidential candidates, most of whom are not fundamentalists but pander to them for their support in upcoming state caucuses and primaries. One contender in this dismal competition is Mitt Romney, who said on Dec. 6, "Freedom requires religion."

With all due thanks, I feel free to say that the former governor's statement is absolute rubbish. Organized religion has a long, bloody history of being an enemy of freedom. Granted, it depends on what the meaning of "freedom" is. Romney's version of the First Amendment, like that of Democrat Joe Lieberman before him, says that we are guaranteed freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote on Dec. 7, "In Romney's account, faith ends up as wishy-washy as the most New Age-y secularism. In arguing that the faithful are brothers in a common struggle, Romney insisted that all religions share an equal devotion to all good things. Really? Then why not choose the one with the prettiest buildings?"

Then there is Rudy Giuliani, who said on NBC's Meet the Press on Dec. 9, "My moral views on this come from ... the Catholic Church, and I believe that homosexuality, heterosexuality, as a way that somebody leads their life ... isn't sinful. It's the acts-it's the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the orientation that they have. I've had my own sins that I've had to confess." This echoes the phony fundie distinction between sin and sinner, and shows how far Rudy has drifted since living with a gay couple for a time while mayor of New York. It was smart of him to mention his own sinfulness, since he did not obtain an annulment of his second marriage as he had for his first; but his church offers gay people no option but lifelong celibacy.

Finally there is Mike Huckabee, who wrote as a U.S. Senate candidate in 1992, "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." As a reader commented on Politico.com on Dec. 8, "I feel gluttony is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk. Good thing Huckabee went on a diet before his presidential run." Huckabee also called for the isolation of people with HIV in 1992, long after it was learned that HIV was not easily communicable like airborne diseases. But to be fair, in contrast to Romney and Giuliani, Huckabee's ignorance appears genuine.

The GOP candidate follies are the Bush-Rove strategy come home to roost. The desperation and disconnect of the religious right's war on popular culture is illustrated by recent attacks against The Golden Compass, a movie based on the first volume of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials. Catholic League president Bill Donahue states, "This is pernicious. This is selling atheism to kids, and it's doing it in a backdoor fashion." Considering Donahue's assertions that the sexual abuse of children by priests was not done by pedophiles but by homosexuals, he knows all about backdoor attacks.

That fantasy literature can provoke such fury from the religious bullies shows their fear of the imagination-which is fear of freedom. Pullman responded on Nov. 2, "I prefer to trust the reader.... As for the atheism, it doesn't matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I'm not promoting anything of that sort. What I do care about is whether people are cruel or whether they're kind, whether they act for democracy or for tyranny, whether they believe in open-minded enquiry or in shutting the freedom of thought and expression."

We should not let exasperation at right-wing excesses prompt us to throw out the religious baby with the fundamentalist bathwater. For one thing, champions of liberty ought to show more tolerance than the fundies. For another, many secularists are religious. I was reminded of this on Dec. 6 at the home of Pastor John Wimberly of DC's Western Presbyterian Church, who hosted an ACLU discussion of liberty and security. When we accept the theocrats' characterization of secularism as hatred of religion, we concede more than they deserve.

At Alan and Will's, after Sam finished his dinner, he went around the table for hugs. "Good night, Uncle Ricky," he said, kissing me on the cheek. Then Will took him upstairs and read him another story unapproved by the Catholic League. And Daddy's little miracle was just fine.

Rep. Barney Frank's voice cracked with rare emotion. He was the final speaker in the House floor debate on H.R. 3685, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007. He was speaking against a Republican motion to recommit, which would have killed the bill.

"I used to be someone subject to [anti-gay] prejudice, and, through luck, circumstance, I got to be a big shot.... But I feel an obligation to 15-year-olds dreading to go to school because of the torments, to people afraid that they will lose their job in a gas station if someone finds out who they love. I feel an obligation to use the status I have been lucky enough to get to help them.... Yes, this is personal. There are people who are your fellow citizens being discriminated against. We have a simple bill that says you can go to work and be judged on how you work and not be penalized. Please don't turn your back on them."

Thank God for C-SPAN, because it showed something that the Congressional Record does not: the cheers that erupted when Barney finished. This was not a rally on the steps of the Capitol. This was the United States in Congress Assembled, as the historical documents say. It showed that the American commitment to equality is gradually winning out over hate.

Earlier in the debate, Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), a civil-rights-era veteran of the Freedom Rides and Selma, put his personal authority behind the bill: "Madam Chairman, I for one fought too long and too hard to end discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.... Today, we must take this important step after more than 30 long years and pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do."

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said, "I am proud to be an American today because when this ENDA bill passes, what we will be doing is affirming traditional values, traditional values like tolerance, traditional values like minding your own business, traditional values like allowing fellow Americans to rise to the full measure of their ability...."

After the bill passed by a vote of 235 to 184, some people on "our side" inevitably rained on the parade. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a leading group in the United ENDA coalition, brazenly called H.R. 3685 "a bill not supported by most in the LGBT community," as if that community (which is a convenient fiction in the first place) consisted entirely of a few hundred executive directors.

The Human Rights Campaign, which had the sense not to ask representatives to vote against a gay rights bill, was slammed by the left for doing its best to navigate an impossible situation. HRC's every tactical adjustment was treated as treachery by zealots who regard any change of mind as evidence of a lie.

The leftists' repeated insistence that House passage is worthless because the bill has little chance of becoming law this term ignores the entire legislative process, as if all that mattered were the end result. But passage into law would never happen without arduous intermediate efforts. Refusing to take Congress' yes for an answer because it is insufficiently comprehensive would do nothing but relegate LGBT advocates to the sidelines.

The ENDA that passed on November 7 is a good bill. I am sorry that we lacked the votes to make it better; but passage of this bill, even if only in the House, is a step forward that improves the chances for further victories including eventual transgender coverage. The all-or-nothing approach, by contrast, is as empowering as not feeding any hungry people because one cannot feed all hungry people.

Bismarck said, "Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made." That is life in an imperfect world. Opposing gay protections until we can win transgender protections is not collaboration but hostage-taking. The more the radicals attack incrementalists, the more they undermine the very idea of an LGBT movement. Killing the bill would merely have highlighted the left's proclivity for building losing coalitions. As it was, only seven House members voted against the bill for being insufficiently inclusive; all were from east coast states that already enjoy ENDA-type protections.

The endlessly repeated rhetoric about "throwing trannies under the bus" is not only unfair, it is particularly tasteless as we approach the Transgender Day of Remembrance commemorating victims of actual, savage, murderous attacks. To associate an honest disagreement over strategy with anti-trans violence is obscene.

Few of the self-righteous leftists will face up to the harm they are doing with their dogmatism; but the rest of us can limit the damage by refusing to pander to them. Working for the best bill we can achieve, while continuing to work toward a more comprehensive one, is not betrayal but the very definition of legislative effectiveness.

The House's passage of H.R. 3685 is an historic victory, albeit not the final victory. Those who refuse to celebrate it were never tossed from any train, but deliberately left the train and tried to derail it. The fact that they failed shows the unpopularity of their approach even among liberals. The African American civil rights movement was also plagued by disunity, but persevered. As our predecessors did before us, we shall overcome.

This is a partisan season, and will only become more so. I must therefore beg your indulgence while I defend the following assertion: Several recent developments suggest that significant further progress toward marriage equality in America will require that it be approached as a bipartisan issue.

To be sure, more Democrats than Republicans support civil unions, and more Democrats opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment that Republicans used in 2004 and 2006, along with anti-gay state ballot initiatives, to mobilize social conservatives. Encouragingly, there are signs that the Republicans went to that well once too often. But Democrats already held the progressive congressional districts before 2006. To win control, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Illinois) had to recruit more conservative candidates to match more conservative electorates. His success, consequently, did not change the fact that most American politicians oppose civil marriage equality.

In short, advocates of marriage equality have already picked the low-hanging fruit. Like Rep. Emanuel, we have to win over more moderate and conservative voters to gain the margin of victory. But how? As Providence would have it, a Republican stepped forward last week to show us the way.

By now you have surely seen the video from San Diego. On Sept. 19, Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders, a former police chief who is up for re-election in 2008, announced a change of mind. With his wife Rana standing beside him, and struggling with emotion, he said that he would sign a city council resolution petitioning the California Supreme Court to allow marriage equality. He revealed that his daughter Lisa and members of his personal staff were gay.

"The arrival of the resolution - to sign or veto - in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do. I have decided to lead with my heart ... to do what I think is right, and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice. The right thing for me to do is sign this resolution." He continued, "I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of people in our community they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage, than anyone else, simply because of their sexual orientation."

Sanders made it clear that his basic values have not changed. "A decision to veto this resolution would have been inconsistent with the values I have embraced over the past 30 years." He then offered a simple yet crucial insight: "I do believe that times have changed. And with changing time, and new life experiences, come different opinions. I think that's natural, and certainly it is true in my case."

When a public figure conspicuously switches positions on a controversial issue and prevails, others may be emboldened to take the same step. Many such conversions are needed if civil marriage equality is to carry the day across the country.

Don't get me wrong. If the choice in a given race, at least on gay issues, is between a flawed Democrat and a worse Republican, then the choice in favor of the Democrat is relatively easy. But the whole point is that we are not talking about voters who already embrace gay-affirming positions. Members of Congress generally reflect the views of their constituents, and we are not likely to make much more headway until we change conservative hearts. Even assuming a Democratic sweep in 2008, there will still be many Republican legislators at the state and national levels, and it ill behooves us to write off all their supporters. Between elections, even a fierce partisan like my own congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), reaches across the aisle on issues such as voting representation for D.C. in Congress.

As for those officeholders who say yes to civil unions but no to marriage, it will take more than rhetoric to change them. This is where our dollars, letters, and volunteer efforts come in.

We have our work cut out for us. Time and again, otherwise gay-friendly officials shy away from supporting marriage equality. In California, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger again threatens a veto. In Maryland, Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley backs away from his earlier support. These officials need to hear from us and they need to pay a price for their political cowardice. This requires us to re-examine our own calculations and ask ourselves whether it is truly in our interest to give money to someone just because he is a Democrat when he endorses an anti-gay ballot initiative as former Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tennessee) did last year during his U.S. Senate race. Make that his failed Senate race.

The social context is ever changing. On Sun., Sept. 23, near the end of NBC's Chris Matthews Show, the host congratulated panelist Norah O'Donnell on the birth of her new babies, then turned to Andrew Sullivan and congratulated him on his recent wedding. Matthews mentioned Andrew's husband Aaron, and showed a photo of the happy couple.

It was a simple, gracious and profound moment. We need many more. To translate them into electoral victory, we have to do more of what has worked in Massachusetts: more conversations, more phone calls, more targeted contributions, more voter mobilization.

Until they succeed in changing the prevailing wisdom, leaders like Jerry Sanders will be few. Let's be sure to thank and reward them, whatever their party affiliation.

Mike Rogers of blogActive.com is riding high these days. The scourge of anti-gay politicians who engage in gay sex themselves has been proved right in his charges last October that Idaho Senator Larry Craig was seeking gay sex in public restrooms. In the last few weeks, Rogers has been profiled by the Washington Post, interviewed by cable TV hosts Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews, and called the most feared man on Capitol Hill. The blogosphere has breached the wall of the mainstream media (MSM) that once would have ignored his efforts as unseemly.

I have mixed feelings on the question of outing anti-gay politicians. On the one hand, I agree with Congressman Barney Frank's dictum that "People have a right to privacy, but not to hypocrisy." I am as sick as anyone of being demonized by ruthless political operatives to turn out socially conservative voters. On the other hand, I am troubled by outing as a tactic because it capitalizes on people's homophobia, and it too seems ruthless. Rogers and outing pioneer Michelangelo Signorile reject the term "outing" in favor of "reporting," but the latter is less precise.

I encountered Rogers at a reception Sept. 6 at the Smithsonian Institution honoring 82-year-old gay pioneer Frank Kameny, whose picket signs from the first gay protest outside the White House in 1965 are included in a new exhibit titled "Treasures of American History." The classy affair had a lot of gay movers and shakers and good food and drink. I chatted with Rogers, who is quite affable personally, and he mentioned his next target, another Republican senator. He was praised by several guests, including a disillusioned gay Republican. Rogers acknowledged some awkwardness, as a Republican staffer whom he outed last year stood a few yards away.

As I told Rogers, I am especially opposed to his outing of GOP staffers. Over the years, gay rights activists have obtained a good deal of useful intelligence from Capitol Hill's informal gay network. Often it was staffers for right-wing Republicans who provided the best information at off-the-record meetings. Apparently, I am not the only one: On Monday, via Washington Post "Sleuth" reporter Mary Ann Akers, Rogers announced a change in strategy: he will stop outing staffers. He explained to the Post, "Enough readers expressed concerns that I have decided to now focus on elected officials, those running for office and to high level political appointees in the administration."

Rogers told me that he hates what he does, but he considers it necessary. He thinks it will significantly neutralize the far-right's anti-gay wedge politics. Assuming that is true, I still find it ethically troubling. Vindictiveness hardly seems conducive to expanding support for gay equality, and Rogers's actions smack of vindictiveness even if that is not his intent. You cannot justify playing God by citing the quality of your research.

Looking at Rogers, you might never suspect that he traffics in anyone's sordid secrets. He brings a professional polish to his media appearances. On television he appears relaxed and confident, crisply relays his talking points, and does not stumble or ramble. These skills smoothed his story's transition from the Web to the MSM. Someone who came across as creepy or eccentric would be easier to dismiss.

In January 2006, Rogers sent his then-targeted senator a letter warning him that a vote either for the Federal Marriage Amendment or for the confirmation of Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court justice would lead to the senator's homosexual activities being reported on blogActive.com. Some have suggested that this amounts to criminally punishable blackmail. Legal opinion appears divided on that question, but legality aside, it sure looks like blackmail to me. And how does Rogers avoid arbitrariness in choosing which votes justify outing someone? There was no consensus that Alito was anti-gay when he was nominated, and some evidence to the contrary.

Last week, Rogers wrote, "People are finally getting that gay Americans have had enough … Craig's arrest when coupled with the hypocrisy of his seeking sexual encounters from the very men he actively legislates against, becomes merely the catalyst to expose the dishonesty and secrecy of anti-gay politicians who expect a community to harbor its own."

Our movement has seen radical tactics before. In Washington in 1971, gay activists charged into the Shoreham Hotel's Regency Ballroom to zap the convocation of the annual convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), whose definition of homosexuality as a pathology in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was used to justify anti-gay discrimination. During the confusion, Frank Kameny seized the microphone. He denounced the psychiatrists and insisted that homosexuality was an orientation on par with heterosexuality. The electrifying moment was a declaration of war, a war the gay activists won in 1973 when APA declassified homosexuality as an illness.

Are we at a comparable moment, when a violation of protocol is needed to "get things moving," as Kameny has put it? Or does the use of outing go too far? We need a thoughtful and civil discussion about what effect the use of an inherently negative tactic might have on those who employ it and those on whose behalf it is employed.

It may be that before many socially conservative Americans will reconsider their anti-gay stance, they must become disillusioned with their leaders. Yet they might just as readily react to the shock of outings by hardening their hearts further against gay people. That is something Mike Rogers might want to investigate.