IGF CultureWatch

Every year I think about writing a Thanksgiving column, but-wouldn't you know-every year I would think of it too late to get it into the paper in advance, making it pretty uninteresting if not entirely useless. So this year I am writing well in advance.

I am aware that I am not enough of a public figure to make people interested in what particulars I am thankful for (compare the typical Sunday supplement feature like "Five Things Michele Obama is Thankful For") but my hope is that by listing some of my things, I can suggest to readers categories of things to consider being thankful for that they might not otherwise think of.

I am thankful that I live in the United States. No one need run a chauvinistic line about this being the greatest country in the world, &c., in order to be aware of the benefits of living here-a written constitution, a bill of rights (free speech, free press, and the rest), and regular elections that let us change the administration. American voters do not always choose wisely, but they can sense when something has gone wrong and try to effect a change.

I am thankful to my parents for so much that to list all the things would be a lengthy task. But let me just mention that they managed to instill not so much a specific morality (though if honesty and courtesy are virtues I hope they did that) but a sense of moral seriousness about the business of living and relating to others. I do not manage these things perfectly, but at least I am aware of my shortcomings as moral lapses.

I am thankful to the friends who have been valuable supports and companions (even if often by email these days) over the years. Names are unnecessary; they know who they are and I hope they know my appreciation.

I am thankful for the composers who have excited, inspired, emotionally moved, and entertained me with their compositions. The list is not long. It suffices here to mention Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams.

I am thankful that my native language is English. I am terrible at learning foreign languages, but English has become a-dare one say, the-international language, so I am lucky that I do not have to struggle to learn a second language to communicate in a closely knit world.

I feel neutral about being gay, although I will say that it works pretty well for me. However, I am deeply thankful that I lived into and came out in an era when there was beginning to be a large and vibrant gay community to provide a supportive environment as I learned to negotiate this new self-understanding.

I am thankful that my apartment is warm in the winter, my refrigerator is well stocked with food, and that clean drinking water comes out of the tap when I turn the knob. Many people in the rest of the world have few or none of these things.

I am thankful for the members of the gay listserv I am on. Their comments have stimulated, informed and sometimes irritated me in ways that have been enormously helpful for my thinking and writing.

I am thankful that medical research has made enough progress that we now have drugs that keep those of us infected with HIV alive for a prolonged period. We can hope that the longer we stay alive the better are the chances of further improvements in the drugs, and the possibility of a cure.

It is hard to say this in public, but I am thankful for people-friends and otherwise-who over the years have pointed out-if not always in a kindly manner-my various (and apparently numerous) character and personality flaws and deficiencies. Though it was not always part of their intention, they helped me become a better person.

I am thankful that my parents did not foist a religion onto me. They decided to let me choose for myself. I ended up choosing no religion at all, deciding that all religions are a tissue of myth and imposture, and have done great harm to mankind.

I am thankful for the unexpected opportunity over the last few years to write about art for my newspaper. And I am thankful for the artists whose works have challenged my mind, delighted my eye, and lured me into looking at things more closely than I was accustomed to doing.

This is hardly a complete list, but it will do for a start and perhaps prompt your own thoughts as America's annual day of giving thanks approaches.

He is the most gifted political figure in two generations. He ran a smart, disciplined, and innovative campaign that made the most of his charisma, toughness, and confidence. When hit with a possibly fatal compilation of inflammatory clips from his pastor, he rose to the occasion with a searching and luminous speech on race that dared to treat his audience like adults. He responded to the financial crisis with a calm deliberation that belied his adversaries' charges of unreadiness. As he redrew the political map on Nov. 4, he gave our nation a moment of redemption that prompted dancing in the streets of the world.

In the process, Barack Obama showed the LGBT movement how to win. More on that shortly.

The other big news of the election - the revocation of marriage equality by California voters - has provoked plenty of drama, from massive marches to racial scapegoating. Some are claiming that the Nov. 15 protests across the country are the true start of the marriage equality movement, but that is false. The flashpoint of Proposition 8, like Stonewall before it, galvanized large numbers of people, but in both cases the movement's pioneers began laying the groundwork more than a decade before.

The racist recriminations directed by some against African Americans for the Prop 8 vote were an awful counterpoint to Obama's transformative victory. Some even blamed Obama for the result because of the increased turnout he generated, but Nate Silver of www.fivethirtyeight.com points out that new California voters actually opposed the initiative by 62 to 38 percent.

Furthermore, singling out African Americans out of all electoral subgroups for casting blame, aside from being monumentally counterproductive, ignores the fact that Prop 8's opponents included the California NAACP, the National Black Justice Coalition, the National Black Police Association, the National Congress of Black Women, and many black pastors. That we lost (although the pro-gay numbers improved from 2000) calls not for bitterness but for reassessment and recommitment.

Kathryn Kolbert, President of People for the American Way Foundation, wrote on Nov. 7 about the far right's wedge politics: "The Religious Right has invested in systematic outreach to the most conservative elements of the Black Church, creating and promoting national spokespeople like Bishop Harry Jackson, and spreading the big lie that gays are out to destroy religious freedom and prevent pastors from preaching about homosexuality from the pulpit."

Not only must LGBT advocates improve our own outreach efforts, we need to avoid playing into right-wing hands as we do when we denigrate religion and talk about taking away churches' tax exemptions. We are too often reactive, while our adversaries are strategic. We need to catch up.

In the aftermath of Prop 8, some in our community have resorted to bad old habits: ranking oppressions; referring to "the LGBT Community" as if it were monolithic and distinct from the black gay community; calling the marriage fight a "white thing"; and making disparaging generalizations about one another instead of working to build trust.

Obama's landmark campaign offers gay activists many lessons: Believe in yourself. Tell your story. Frame the issues rather than letting your adversaries frame them. Wrap yourself in faith, flag, and family - the other side deserves no monopoly. Listen to people who disagree with you; you may find common ground and supporters in unexpected places. Do your homework. Organize in a way that motivates and empowers your volunteers. Speak to your listeners' better angels instead of rebuking or pandering to them. Talk to voters like adults. Don't flee from challenges, rise to them.

One who rose to the occasion on Nov. 15 was comedian and actress Wanda Sykes, who publicly came out at a Las Vegas rally, saying that the Prop 8 supporters "have galvanized a community. We are so together now and we all want the same thing and we are not gonna settle for less. Instead of having gay marriage in California, no, we're gonna get it across the country. When my wife and I leave California, I want to have my marriage also recognized in Nevada, in Arizona, all the way to New York. ... I am proud to be a woman, I'm proud to be a black woman and I'm proud to be gay."

The source of progress is risking the next step, whatever that is for each of us. Yes we can.

Proposition 8 passed, revoking marriage rights for gays and lesbians in California and setting back the gay-rights movement throughout the country.

So did similar bans in Florida and Arizona, not to mention an Arkansas ban on adoption or foster parenting by unmarried couples. Supporters of the latter ban-written expressly to thwart "the gay agenda"-apparently believe that it is better for children to languish in state care than to have loving gay parents.

With the pressure of the election behind us, we can step back and talk about long-term strategy. What must we do to convince majorities that our love is just as worthy as theirs?

Some will complain that we shouldn't have to convince them. In an ideal world, that would be true. In the real world, it's useless whining. Let's face it: complaining that we shouldn't have to fight for fundamental rights never helped anyone secure their fundamental rights.

Here are my top five strategic suggestions as we move forward.

1. Tell our stories. A striking feature of the various anti-amendment campaigns was the invisibility of those they were supposed to help: gay people. I'm grateful for straight people who support our rights. But straight people can't directly illustrate the palpable ways in which our families matter to us.

For every time the 'Yes on 8' campaign showed that little girl telling her mom how she learned in school about two princes who got married, I wish 'No on 8' would have shown a little girl asking her mom why Aunt Ellen and Aunt Portia can't get married. Or a little boy asking his two adoptive dads-who sacrifice to make his life better-why they can't get married.

I'm guessing that focus groups showed that images of actual gays turn off swing voters (which, if true, would be further evidence of the stigma we still face). I'm skeptical about focus-groups-focus groups, after all, gave us New Coke.

But whatever was true for the campaign, it's time now for the long view. Over time, people tend to be more pro-gay the more they know actual gay people.

2. Cut the vague talk about "rights" and "discrimination." It's wrong to take away rights, right? Well, sure-but we need to be more specific than that.

Gay-rights opponents cleverly granted the premise that it's wrong to take away rights, and then argued (falsely, but effectively) that marriage equality meant taking away THEIR rights, specifically their parental and religious rights, or that gay adoption interfered with a child's right to a mother and father.

It's not enough, therefore, merely to demand "rights" or to oppose "discrimination." We need to flesh out why these rights matter and why this particular discrimination is harmful and wrong. That requires talking about the moral value of our relationships-and not just talking about it, but showing it (see #1).

3. Use words like "bigot" and "hate" sparingly. There is no doubt that some of our opponents are hateful bigots. (I've got the mail to prove it.) But 5.7 million California voters?

No. Most of those who voted yes are people you'd recognize as your coworkers, your neighbors, your grandma. Misinformed? Absolutely. Shortsighted? Without a doubt. But generally not hateful.

Furthermore, as a strategic matter, labeling widespread religious and parental concerns as "hateful" doesn't typically convert those who harbor them.

4. Don't let opponents hide behind religion. Eighty-three percent of weekly churchgoers voted in favor of Prop. 8, and they contributed a large percentage of the $36 million raised to promote it. Ninety percent of self-identified atheists and agnostics voted against it.

To be sure, there were progressive religious organizations and individuals who strongly opposed the amendment. We should continue to harness their enthusiasm: God, after all, can be invoked by all sides of the political spectrum. But we should also recognize the dangers inherent in accepting beliefs "on faith."

In my view, America is due for a healthy dose of religious skepticism, as well as a vigorous conversation about what religious freedom means and why.

5. Patience, yes; complacency, never. Time is on our side. California marriage-equality opponents drew 61 percent of the vote in 2000 but only 52 percent this year. Voters under 30 heavily opposed Prop. 8.

Meanwhile, ordinary gay and lesbian citizens are motivated like they haven't been in some time. They are peacefully demonstrating outside churches and city halls; they are donating time and money; they are coming out to friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

Ironically, opponents' efforts to "protect children" from learning about gay people has not only catapulted us to the front of the news, it has increased our determination to make our everyday presence known.

We need to do that for our own dignity. But we also need to do it for those children, who deserve an equal chance at "happily ever after" regardless of their sexual orientation. Keep fighting the good fight.

Soon after Barack Obama earned his place in history last Tuesday, the praise from gay rights organizations was effusive. "This is the dawn of a new political era of hope and engagement in the life of this country," proclaimed the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "This election represents a paradigm shift," said Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign.

One can understand why these organizations feel reason for celebration. The last eight years have seen the passage of more than 20 anti-gay state marriage amendments, an attempt by the President of the United States to write discrimination into the Constitution, and congressional foot-dragging on bills ranging from employment nondiscrimination to hate crimes. Barack Obama, meanwhile, supports everything on the gay rights agenda short of marriage equality.

But even as the state fights continue - with Wednesday's Connecticut court ruling opening the door to gay marriage there - at the federal level, the gay rights movement can expect to feel some serious cognitive dissonance in its enthusiasm for Obama. Even if our new President has a "mandate," with the economy in the tank, two ongoing wars and widespread demand for major new initiatives on health care and energy, gay rights are hardly a priority. Especially for a man who is politically strategic - or careful - to a fault, and will go to great lengths to avoid repeating the Clinton "don't ask, don't tell" debacle.

While Obama's success is on balance a good thing for gay rights, contrast that to what was lost on Tuesday. In California, thanks to the passage of Proposition 8, 18,000 already-married gay couples may lose that status and no gay person will be getting married in the country's most populous state for the foreseeable future. Same goes for Florida and Arizona, which also passed marriage amendments. In Arkansas, gay couples lost the right to adopt children. And it's worth noting that many of the voters in Obama's winning coalition, notably blacks, remain culturally conservative - and helped those referenda prevail.

Gay groups acknowledge the setbacks, but say they're outweighed by the legislation that will come with a President Obama and a Democratic Congress. The three major items they cite are a hate crimes statute that would punish anti-gay violence more harshly than other violent crimes, legislation to ban anti-gay employment discrimination and repeal of the law barring openly gay people from serving in the military.

All these bills are significant, but are they truly likely to get off the back burner, with so many other things at full boil? Perhaps. If so, would their passage trump anti-gay marriage amendments in three states? No. There are principled reasons for those considering themselves "pro-gay" to oppose hate crimes laws as they criminalize thought, not action. Nor is there evidence that they reduce anti-gay violence. Regarding employment discrimination, there are no reliable statistics determining the actual number of people who have been fired or denied a job because of their sexual orientation. And change isn't likely to come on gays in the military until the military leadership advises it. Moreover, during the campaign, John McCain said that he'd be open to a "review" of the policy should the brass recommend it.

In 1993, gays similarly welcomed Bill Clinton into office with much enthusiasm. Their fervent support was answered with the President's gays-in-the-military misstep, (the first misjudgment of the Clinton presidency), and was followed with his signing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

To avoid the disappointments of the Clinton era, gays should keep trying to win hearts and minds at the state level - without investing too much hope or energy in Obama. While the President-elect has spoken inclusively about gay people, he does not have a legislative record on gay rights and has displayed the same knack for political opportunism as our last Democratic President. Obama was more than happy to employ "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin in an attempt to win the votes of socially conservative blacks in the South Carolina Democratic primary. And while he nominally opposed Proposition 8 in California, that opposition consisted of nothing more than a letter sent to a gay Democratic group in San Francisco.

To be sure, having a President who speaks empathetically about gay people - and Obama has done this more than any presidential candidate in history - will, in and of itself, change the national tone on homosexuality. Obama will probably also hire a liaison to the gay community, a post that Clinton inaugurated and that President Bush left vacant, and invite gay leaders to the White House. All together, that may help tear down homophobia, the last acceptable societal prejudice. Indeed, the mere fact of having a black man in the White House may lessen Americans' anxiety when it comes to thinking about another minority. All these positive outcomes are possible, but last Tuesday's losses, and cold political reality, are too great for gays to get their hopes up.

On Oct. 7, 1801, Nehemiah Dodge signed a letter on behalf of himself and his fellow Baptist parishioners from Danbury, Conn. In it, they congratulated the newly elected Thomas Jefferson on his victory and urged him to uphold a policy of governmental non-interference in private religious matters. In Jefferson's response to the Danbury Baptists, he assured them that he personally interpreted the First Amendment as building "a wall of separation between Church & State." And that letter, of course, is the origin of that famously worded principle.

Now, it would be foolish to think that this Nov. 4 was the first time in over 207 years that Jefferson's letter and intent was ignored, disregarded or willfully turned on its head. America, after all, is a Western democracy in which the secular and sacred mix and mingle to an almost ridiculous degree. I'm not ecstatic about exercising my most fundamental democratic right - the right to vote - in a church. Or about taking the SAT with a bloody crucifix gazing down upon me. Divine inspiration, indeed.

But this past Tuesday, Californians voted in favor of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment revoking marriage equality from gay and lesbian couples. It passed thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormons. When I say "no small part," I actually mean that LDS church members donated an estimated 77 percent of the funding for 'Yes on 8' groups. LDS churches around the country read out a letter in June from the church leadership encouraging members to "do all you can do" in support of the amendment. The church itself made a $2,078.97 donation to cover the travel costs of several church leaders traveling to California for a 'Yes on 8' meeting.

The tragicomic aspect of this is that the Mormon church was likely doing this, in part, to increase its evangelical bona fides in the larger religious community. The less-than-eager reception to Mormon Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy apparently spurred a rivalry with gay couples in California the unfortunate bystanders: anyone you can condemn, I can condemn better!

This issue would stay in the realm of social movement and future litigation if it were not for that peculiar characteristic of American religious organizations: tax-free status. In an effort to buttress Jefferson's wall, we have decided that the government has no place collecting money from organizations with a religious purpose (or, for that matter, charitable, scientific, "testing for public safety," literary or educational purposes).

The law governing tax-free status is appropriately accompanied by the concomitant responsibility that those organizations not engage in activities including "carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation." The wall, as it were, is barbed on both sides.

Mormon leaders have already put out statements denying any coercion or coordinated policy in encouraging church members to donate time or money. The donation from the church to send leaders to a California meeting seems to belie that claim, as do accounts of church members' souls and eternal salvation being threatened if they did not donate. If our measuring stick is explicit and centrally coordinated encouragement, it's not likely that we'll find any smoking gun. But the weight of evidence suggests a systematic effort by the LDS church to influence the amendment.

Religions these days would have you believe that these are in fact impingements on the free exercise of faith, arguing, for example, that being "forced" to recognize gay marriage is a violation of the First Amendment. That argument is as old, pernicious and outright stupid as those against teaching evolution or against interracial marriage. Using that metric, everything is potentially religious, because all laws include some aspect of "societal recognition" of some right or principle.

In reality, of course, no Mormon church, nor any other church, would be forced to officiate a same-sex marriage. And for the record, the line of gays beating down the door to become Mormon is rather short (and, I would venture to guess, rather self-loathing).

The First Amendment really is our most important constitutional principle; without it, we lose the ability to debate everything else and exercise free thought. And that includes the free exercise of religion. But when religions renege on their side of the bargain, we need to hold them to task. I urge you to find any of a number of websites that show you how to file an IRS complaint easily. This isn't about dictating belief or governmental interference - this is about making sure that Jefferson's wall stays strong and keeps on separating, in both directions.

For decades, bigots objected to interracial marriage because the participants were too different from each other. But now the bigots are objecting to same-sex marriage because-get this-this participants are too much alike. Many of today's bigots are in the same demographic groups as the bigots back then, so I wish they'd make up their minds whether it is sameness or difference they object too.

Homophobes like to argue that if we legalize gay civil marriage it will lead to heterosexual polygamy. As usual with homophobes, they have things backwards. For much of recorded history, marriage was a man and a number of women, depending on the man's economic status. Any reader of the Old Testament knows this. That tradition continues to this day in Muslim countries and existed for several decades among Mormons in the U.S. So, as same-sex marriage becomes a reality, we can accurately say that polygamy preceded same-sex marriage, not followed as a result.

"Ex-gay" advocates and their fundamentalist supporters say that one of the reasons people "become" homosexual is that they were "molested" as youths. Since almost all molesters are men, that means that young males molested by a man develop a sexual desire for men, but young woman molested by a man develop a sexual desire for women. So molestation supposedly makes men's desires turn toward the sex of the molester, but women's desires turn away from the sex of the m olester. No one has explained this contradiction. And how do they explain the far larger number of male and female youths who were molested but did not "become" homosexual? What does that do to their theory?

Robert Cary, director of "Save Me," a small-budget fictional film about an ex-gay ministry said, "Many [ex-gay functionaries] genuinely believe that they are helping people to live good lives. But they believe that you're born with your religion and choose your sexuality, when that is the opposite of the truth."-The Times of London, Oct. 7, 2008.

It is interesting that Alcoholics Anonymous insists that people who used to drink a lot but now abstain continue to refer to themselves as alcoholics long after they have stopped drinking. By contrast, the "ex-gay" proponents insist that people who used to engage in homosexuality but are trying to abstain not refer to themselves as homosexuals. One of them is surely wrong. I suspect both are.

I am not sure that sexual orientation makes us a community. We may be what Kurt Vonnegut called a "granfalloon." I think I have more in common with the thoughtful heterosexual man who likes music and art and literature than I do with a gay man who loves drag queens, "divas," and hip-hop. As hostility to gays lessens and gay people's defensive clannishness declines, other factors than sexuality will become more important in our lives. Will gays then become completely absorbed into the mainstream? That's not likely; unattached gays will still want same-sex partners and seek out places where those are most available. That does have some social ramifications.

And finally, two belated notes for Gay History Month. First, gay liberation did not begin with Stonewall; one source was in the arts community. "As some of us would later learn, if we didn't know already, sexual preference did play a part in the politics of the New York art world. New York Surrealists like Pavel Tchelitchew and Eugene Berman belonged to a gay subculture that had found greater acceptance in the uptown worlds of ballet and fashion than in the downtown Cedar Tavern scene populated by Pollock, Rothko, and company." -Herbert Muschamp, "The Secret History," New York Times, Jan. 8, 2006, section 2, pg. 1.

Art journalist Calvin Tomkins agrees: "Quite a few of the sixties artists were either bisexual or homosexual, and not a bit uptight about it. The attention and money lavished on the newcomers led to talk if a 'homintern,' a network of homosexual artists, dealers, and numerous curators in league to promote the work of certain favorites at the expense of 'straight' talents." -Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time (1980), p. 260.

Second, it seems to me that sex researcher Alfred C. Kinsey redefined homosexuality. Before Kinsey, the homosexual was the man who was penetrated, whether by bottoming in anal sex or by fellating a man. The man getting fellated was simply "trade" and could consider himself (and often was) heterosexual. But Kinsey defined homosexuality as having an orgasm with another man. So if the man getting fellated had an orgasm, Kinsey counted that as a homosexual act. And if the man doing the fellating did not have an orgasm, then he was not included in the count.

On election night, I was less anxious about who would become president than about whether a certain little girl could marry her princess.

I'm talking about the little Latina girl in the California "Yes on 8" commercials, who comes home from school to tell her mommy about a fairy tale in which a prince marries another prince.

"And I can marry a princess!" she cheerfully announces, prompting a worried look from her mother and a voiceover in which a law professor warns that if gay marriage isn't stopped, parental rights will be trampled.

Statistically speaking, the chances that she'll want to marry a princess are low. In any case, reading the "wrong" fairy tales won't alter her sexual orientation. If books had that sort of influence, every Cinderella would grow up to desire a Prince Charming and vice-versa.

In the real world, some Cinderellas fall in love with other Cinderellas; some princes fall in love with other princes. In California, they may be allowed to live happily ever after, but they won't (for the time being) be allowed to get married. Prop. 8 passed 52-48%, after a $74 million battle. (A similar measure passed in Arizona, and Florida voted to prohibit not just same-sex marriage but also civil unions and domestic partnerships.)

I say "for the time being" because nobody expects this to be the end of the story. California same-sex couples will continue to receive the statewide legal incidents of marriage via domestic partnerships. Meanwhile, other states, mainly along the coasts, will recognize same-sex couples: some with domestic partnerships, some with civil unions, and a few with outright marriage.

Eventually, this hodgepodge will prove legally unwieldy, or socially inconvenient, or morally embarrassing-probably all of the above-and California will revisit the marriage question. If trends continue, marriage equality will someday win the day.

In the meantime, what difference does it make if princes and princes can only have "domestic partnerships" but not marriage?

It makes a difference in two important ways. The first is legal: because of this amendment, a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts (for example) will have absolutely no legal standing when traveling through California. The text is clear: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."

Since our Massachusetts couple has marriage, and not "domestic partnership," the Golden State would treat them as nothing more than roommates-which could prove devastating in an emergency situation.

As the law professor intones in that "Yes on 8" commercial: "Think it can't happen? It's already happening." The hodgepodge of legal statuses for same-sex couples has proven a legal nightmare for those who travel or relocate.

The second difference is less tangible but just as powerful: the cultural significance of marriage.

Here we saw a fundamental tension in the "Yes on 8" message. On the one hand, they argued that since gays had "all the rights" of marriage, there was no reason to demand the word itself. On the other hand, their tenacious fight to keep the word exclusive attests to its significance.

Because, you see, princesses don't dream about someday "domestically partnering with" the person they fall in love with. They dream about marrying him-or, in a minority of cases, HER.

To that minority, 52% of California voters sent a discriminatory message: you are not good enough for marriage. Your relationships-no matter how loving, how committed, how exemplary-are not "real" marriage.

One thing that opponents and supporters of Prop. 8 agree on: "real" marriage transcends state recognition of it. And that's another reason why this debate will continue. Because it's not just a debate about what California should or should not legally recognize. It's also about what sort of relationships are morally valuable, and why.

Notably, same-sex relationships were virtually invisible in the "No on 8" campaign. I assume that's because campaign research showed that images of gay couples don't resonate with undecided voters.

Maybe that's true in the short run. But in the long run, people are far more likely to support gay rights when they know gay people and see the palpable ways in which marriage matters to us.

Moving forward, then, we gay and lesbian citizens need to tell our stories. We need to show that gays, like everyone else, want someone to have and to hold, for better or for worse. We need to show that when we find such relationships, it's a good thing-not just for us but for the community at large.

We need to explain that we are not interested in confusing children, or in forcing princesses on little girls who don't want them. But we also need to show that girls who grow up to want princesses deserve to live happily ever after, too.

If trends continue, we will someday make that case-in time for that little girl to marry whomever she chooses.