Dear Tell All: I'm a lesbian stuck in Wisconsin, where a ban on same-sex marriage is written into the constitution. I'm often depressed about the fact that I don't have the same rights as my straight friends, but I had a rare happy day in early May when President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. My longtime partner and I celebrated with champagne and a night on the town.
But my good mood didn't last long. Shortly after Obama's statement, Julaine Appling of Wisconsin Family Action - the group dedicated to making life miserable for the state's gay population - was right back to damning us in the Cap Times. The Virginia House of Delegates blocked a highly qualified judicial nominee simply because he is gay. Bristol Palin and her ilk were all over the media denouncing gay marriage as wrong.
I guess I briefly succumbed to naivete - not easy to do as a gay adult! - but I really did think that Obama's brave stand would usher in a new era of tolerance. It looks like pretty much the same old era of intolerance to me. And it's still no fun to be gay.
Gloomy Guss
Dear Guss: I think you're seeing the glass as half-empty. Yes, a few creeps crawled out of the woodwork after Obama's statement, but they're the usual creeps - Palins, Southern politicians, "family values" conservatives. You have to expect that. What you might not have expected, however, is that rappers Jay-Z and 50 Cent agreed with Obama. So did the NAACP, which voted to endorse same-sex marriage as a civil right. A federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the Defense of Marriage Act discriminates against married same-sex couples. Even Marvel Comics is getting on board. The mutant superhero Northstar will propose to his longtime boyfriend in a June comic book.
So one could make the case that, rather than being half-empty, the glass is three-fifths full. At this rate, it could be almost completely full in our lifetimes.
