Steps forward, steps back: Ground lost in Arizona, Florida, and likely California

Last night gave you such a euphoric, joyous sense of possibility. To have all that hope share a space with the pain of all these losses, all these put-downs of gay people and our rights - it's painful.

 When the Supreme Court overturned the nation's sodomy laws in 2003 - basically saying for the first time that it was unconstitutional to make being gay illegal - Justice Antonin Scalia, hero to the far right, blamed the Court's overturn of those laws on what he decried as an "anti, anti-homosexual" atmosphere that had permeated the legal profession. By that he meant that "law" people had become ok with gay people, and they and their life-partners had become accepted within the legal community both socially and professionally.

 He was right. Gays & Lesbians in the legal profession came out in huge numbers within the profession between 1986 when the Supreme Court upheld Sodomy laws and 2003 when they finally overturned those laws. And it was that familiarity with gay people, and the lgbt's refusal to conceal or take a back seat that changed the legal culture and eventually changed the law.

 A lot of lgbt and progressive people worked hard on these recent political fights. But what needs to happen is for each of us lgbt people - whether celebrities, or politicians, or artists, lawyers, teachers, all of us - to be visibile and honest. That's what will change the culture and eventually the law.

 Barack Obama is possible in part because of the extraordinary achievements of highly visibile and gifted African-Americans before him. Gay people need to be visible in that same way.

...that American gay rights activists have largely ignored because it's unpalatable.

In the UK the compromise was made to give gays the right to "civil partnerships", which are marriages in all but name.  Legally they are almost identical to marriage under UK law. Many people were unhappy to not have the name "marriage", but the compromise on nomenclature allowed for broad support for the law and even Conservative leader David Cameron and many of his people voted in favor of it. Ironically, a lot of people, including straight ones, nonetheless ignore the nomenclature issue and say that gay people are getting "married" when they get a civil partnership.

Here in the US, in keeping with our proud tradition of absolutist politics, gay rights activists have been just as militant about all-or-nothing marriage equality as our adversaries have been about opposing us entirely.

The problem here is that one of the biggest hangups Americans (like the British) had was over the word "marriage" itself.  Civil partnerships evoke a much less emotional response, even if they are practically identical to marriage in legal terms.  They also often serve as a necessary psychological stepping stone to marriage equality.  Even the Netherlands, hands down one of the most liberal countries on Earth, went through a civil partnerships phase before realizing that it was pointless not to just grant marriage equality.  In the end they were the first country in the world to do so.

We've handed the conservatives the advantage in this fight by making the word "marriage" a non-negotiable core element of this debate.  Since the general population's main hangup here is the word "marriage" itself we find ourselves fighting a more uphill battle than we might really need to.

As civil partnerships in the UK become a more common part of life it is likely that eventually people will forget why they didn't just call them "marriages" in the first place.  They may then become "marriage" in name as well as fact.

In the US I think we need to be really thoughtful in deciding if the word is truly so critical in the short-term.  I do know that a lot of gay people have wholly unrealistic expectations of same-sex marriage.  If their parents disapprove of their homosexuality and despise their partner now, then legally marrying their partner is unlikely to change things much as an example.  I know straight married people whose parents loathe their spouses!

The best gift we get from the UK is the growing number of visible celebrities in public civil partnerships.  Send us more of those please.  A lot more.  We can use the case studies.

California has comprehensive domestic partnership laws that offer all the legal benefits and responsibilities that California marriages offered (since neither offer any Federal recognition).  The main difference is that partnerships are easier to get (no liscence or ceremony) and are easier to end (divorce requires the party to live in California).  The main difference between Civil Partnerships and marriage in the UK also seems to be how the union is registered and disolved.   California domestic partnerships are really just the equivalent of a UK Civil Partnership (again except for the no Federal recognition).

Almost?!

Sorry dude, but when you walk like a duck & talk like a duck, you are a duck.

If gays are just as racist as straights, how can we expect minorities to not be just homophobic as white people???