Slight of Hand

Julaine Appling's June 25 radio transcript ("The Slippery Slope of Hate Crime Laws") on the pending federal hate crimes legislation is a good example of the slight of hand used by the Religious Right when addressing public policy issues.

In her transcript, Julaine says: "And, while I hate to break it to you, Wisconsin currently has a hate-crime law of sorts. Check out chapter 939.645 (1)(b) of the state statutes. And, yes, this law has been used to govern thought. In 2001, Dary Byczek of Brooklyn, Wisconsin, after what he and many others would consider provoking behavior by his neighbors, lost his temper and began yelling at and posting messages on his truck about the four homosexual women who were his neighbors. When brought to court, prosecutors argued that Byczek's behavior should be labeled a hate-crime, which can add at least a year of jail time to a sentence. Now, I am not saying that Byczek was right for losing his temper, but should the state really be increasing punishment if it thinks you might have been acting on a belief it disagrees with?"

What Julaine doesn't tell her Christian audience, of course, is that Brczek was not convicted of a hate crime. The court threw out that charge, according to a Wisconsin State Journal article on the case.

Byczek, who appears to have harassed the couple for several years, culminating in the incident for which he was charged -- driving up and down the property line in his "monster" truck, covered with anti-lesbian graffti, yelling derogatory remarks, in violation of a restraining order -- was sentenced by Lafayette County, Wisconsin, Circuit Judge William Johnston to one year probation for disorderly conduct. He was also ordered to undergo anger management counseling.

But convicted of a hate crime, he was not, despite Julaine's slight of hand in telling half the truth.

David Springer

David Springer, 55, a litigation partner at Skadden Arps in Chicago, died this week of cancer.

As a young lawyer, Springer was a lawyer at Kirkland, where I spent my professional career. Springer moved on to Skadden Arps, where he went on to a successful career, representing major clients in major litigation.

At Skadden, as part of his commitment to gay and lesbian rights, Springer volunteered his time and talent to Lambda Legal, taking on pro-bono gay rights cases all over the nation, including a case in Wisconsin, where he successfully sued sued administrators from a high school in Ashland, Wisconsin, for failing to protect a student, Jamie Nabozny, from anti-gay harassment. A jury found Nabozny's rights had been violated, and the case was settled for just under $1 million. The case was the foundational case protecting gay and lesbian high school students.

Springer, who was quiet and almost seemed shy outside the courtroom, was a ground-breaker for gay and lesbian rights in the rarefied world of large law firms in the United States. He took the hard hits, fought back, and cleared the path for others. His life was short, but it was a life well lived.

It is finally over ...

Massachusetts legislators blocked a proposed constitutional amendment hat would have let voters decide whether to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, where it has been legal since May 2004.

The vote was 45 for, 151 against. The amendment needed 50 votes to find its way onto the ballot.

Opponents of same-sex marriage vowed to press on, but any effort to mount a new ballot question would take years at a time political support in Massachusetts is swinging firmly behind same-sex marriage.

But that didn't keep them from talking about it.

Former Governor Mitt Romney, now running for President, called the vote "a regrettable setback" and reiterated his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would invalidate the 8,500 same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts since 2004.

Ray Flynn, the former Boston mayor and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, who was the lead sponsor of the proposed amendment, said the 170,000 Massachusetts residents who signed the petition for the ban "had their vote stolen from them."

Knowing that public opinion in Massachusetts had swung strongly toward acceptance of same-sex marriage in the last couple of years, the anti-marriage crowd tried to couch their cause as a "pro-democracy" campaign: "We're standing up not necessarily on the issue of same-sex marriage, but our right to vote ..."

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute that backed the amendment, pledged to continue fighting but wouldn't commit to presenting another proposed amendment: "I don't believe it's dead because the people have not had the opportunity to have their vote. This will not go away until the citizens have their opportunity to decide what the definition of marriage is."

I've got a better idea, Kris. Why not let the voters decide your constitutional rights -- for example, whether or not your bigot-church should enjoy a property tax exemption?

You'd squeal like a stuck pig, all the way to court if that happened. And you'd eat your words, and choke on them.

Good on You, Bob Barr

Bob Barr, the former Congressman from Georgia, is about as right-wing as they come. He is certainly no fan of gays or lesbians. He staunchly opposes same-sex marriage. He staunchly opposes designation of gays and lesbians as a constitutionally protected minority. He opposes "hate crimes" legislation protecting gays and lesbians. And so on.

But when it comes to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", Bob Barr differs from the social conservatives who control the Republican Party these days. In an Op-Ed article written for the Wall Street Journal, Barr had this to say about DADT:

"Last week's forum of 10 Republican presidential hopefuls offered the country some troubling insight into the thinking of leading GOP candidates. In particular, the five who responded to questions about the Clinton-era "don't ask, don't tell" ... showed a disturbing move away from conservative principles, in favor of what smells strongly of political expediency or timidity. ..."

"Asked about reconsideration of the don't ask, don't tell policy in favor of a more open and honest approach, the simplistic responses by several Republican presidential candidates left me -- and I suspect many others -- questioning whether those candidates really even understood the issue, or were simply pandering to the perceived "conservative base." ..."

Barr goes on to analyze DADT, and concludes that it should be repealed for three reasons:

"First, true conservative political philosophy respects the principles of individual freedom and personal privacy, particularly when it comes to what people do in private. The invasive investigations required to discharge a service member are an unconscionable intrusion into the private lives of American citizens. ..."

"Second, and on a more practical level, the ban on gays openly serving in our armed forces is hurting a military that is stretched thin, putting further strain on an institution conservatives claim to love. ... Because the military can't fill its slots, it has lowered its standards, extended tours of duty and increased rotations, further hurting morale and readiness. Conservatives are supposed to favor meritocracy -- rewarding ability -- especially in the armed forces. Instead, the military is firing badly needed, capable troops simply because they're gay, and replacing them with a hodge podge that includes ex-cons, drug abusers and high-school dropouts."

"Third, the gay ban wastes money. According to a Blue Ribbon Commission made up of academics and prominent defense leaders including former Defense Secretary William Perry, the gay ban has cost taxpayers over $360 million, and even this figure did not include many of the actual costs of rounding up gays and lesbians, firing them and training their replacements."

I can't say that I agree with Bob Barr most of the time. He has two or three right wings, and I have but one, and that is balanced by a left wing. But Barr is dead right about DADT, and he is dead right about the idiotic pandering of the Republican Party on this issue.

I'm a veteran, and I know something every veteran knows: We need a competent military, and DADT, in this time, is destructive. Barr knows it, too. Its too bad that the Republicans running for President don't. Military geniuses they are not.

Loving v. Virginia

Forty years ago today -- June 12, 1967 -- the Supreme Court held, in Loving v. Virginia, that state laws criminalizing interracial marriage were unconstitutional. The decision invalidated the anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia and in fifteen other states that banned practice.

Loving invalidated Virginia's anti-miscegenation law on two constitutional grounds: (1) the law violated the Equal Protection Clause because race-based classifications are invidious, permissible only when justified by a compelling governmental purpose, and (2) the law law violated the Due Process Clause because the right to marry "is one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men," one that is "fundamental to our very existence and survival."

The ruling was a landmark decision that has echoed well beyond the immediate question of whether blacks and whites could marry each other. The ruling has been a foundation for a number constitutional doctrines, including the Constitution's protection for marriage, the proposition that there are constitutional limits on state regulation of domestic relations, and the proposition that racial classifications are invidious.

Because Loving involved a case based on racism, it was not immediately clear what impact, if any, the ruling would have on the validity of other marriage restrictions.

The Court's next marriage case, however, solidified constitutional protection for marriage even in the absence of a racial classification.

In Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) the Court struck down a Wisconsin statute prohibiting noncustodial parents who were behind on support obligations from marrying if their children were on welfare.

The Court began its analysis of the Wisconsin law by citing Loving and used heightened scrutiny to evaluate the law, even though it involved no race-based or other suspect classification, simply because marriage is a right "of fundamental importance."

Zablocki made clear that Loving's application was not limited to those drawn on the basis of race.

Loving was central to the development of constitutional protection for marriage -- a "fundamental right" -- but also established a more fundamental principle: state regulation of marriage is constrained by the United States Constitution.

It is the latter principle that will provide the foundation on which the United States Supreme Court will, in time, overturn laws and state constitutions banning same-sex marriage, including the laws and constitution of Alabama, uh, Wisconsin. Living as I do in a state that is even more backwards than Alabama when it comes to same-sex marriage, I look forward to the day.

A Stark Choice

If you want, as Barry Goldwater used to say, "a choice, not an echo", you might consider this difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates for the presidency:

Last week Democrat Presidential nominees debated and each of them affirmed that they believed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" should be repealed. This week, the Republican candidates debated, and all affirmed that they believed that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to serve openly in the military.

I guess the Republicans must have had bad experiences in high school showers, or something ... yup, it must have been that, because with the exception of John McCain and Chuck Hagel, both of whom served in Vietnam, I don't think any of them ever set foot in a military shower.

Morons Redux

Good God, if any of you doubted that the world is run by morons, consider this: Pentagon officials confirmed today that the military seriously considered building a bomb that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, causing enemy units to break down because the soldiers would became irresistibly attractive to one another, leading to rampant sodomy and all of that ...

I'm not kidding. The Air Force requested $7.5 million to research the "gay bomb". And while the request was denied, it was seriously considered, apparently -- in fact, it was submitted for scientific review, and rejected only after the scientists told the Air Force that the idea of a "gay bomb" was right up there with flat earth theory.

Wisconsin's late Senator William Proxmire used to issue "Golden Fleece Awards" for moronic misuse of government funds. Too bad he didn't live to see this ... it would have made his year.

It is laughable, except for one thing: The "gay bomb" fits perfectly with the military's continued insistence that openly gay soldiers lead to loss of morale and unit cohesion -- a "fact" unsupported by evidence -- and reflects the irrational thinking at the heart of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

The Wrath of God

Julaine Appling recently took to the airwaves in Wisconsin to bemoan the marginalization of social conservatives: "Christians are increasingly being marginalized in the political arena. In academia and the mainstream media we are often grouped alongside the Islamic fascists, for example. This marginalization was pointed out recently by radio host, Glen Beck, and founder of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson, when they discussed how the media was skewing Dobson’s words to portray his supporters and other social conservatives as radical. This political disregard can also be seen in the reaction these groups gave to the passing of Dr. Jerry Falwell, a leader in promoting Judeo-Christian principles and values in our culture and in our government. Many in the media villified him and his ideals as very radical. Some also went as far as to not give him the respect that any recently deceased deserves."

Far be it from me to become part of the devil-media or disrespect Jerry Falwell by reporting accurately on facets of his life that he tried to sweep under the rug, but I wonder if Julaine as been listening to folks like James Dobson lately.

Dobson, if recent radio broadcasts are any indication, is going off the rails, coming dangerously close to endorsing terrorist attacks as the work of God.

Listen in to two of Dobson's recent Focus on the Family broadcasts.

The first, on May 16, was an interview with Michael Youssef, founder of The Church of The Apostles and host of the syndicated radio and television program Leading the Way:

DOBSON: "Look at the mess we're in. I mean, it takes my breath away, especially because we're not hearing it. We don't hear it from any of the media or a very, very small portion of it, but you've got that whole threat that comes from what we've been describing."

YOUSSEF: "Right."

DOBSON: "We're likely to lose a city or two or three or four."

YOUSSEF: "Right."

DOBSON: "It's a matter of time."

YOUSSEF: "It's a matter of when."

DOBSON: "We had better be on our knees."

YOUSSEF: "Amen. I couldn't agree more. And I really think that sometimes I get frustrated when I try to communicate that huge burden that I carry and -- the average evangelical kind of out to la-la land, you know, in -- in September 11, I thought the lights came on and I thought, "Ah, it's the alarm bells." Now, finally, what I have been trying to do since the early '80's is gonna happen. People are gonna wake up. But I think the vast majority of people just pushed on the snooze button."

The second, on June 4, was an endorsement of a sermon given by John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church, at the most recent "National Day of Prayer", an event sponsored by Dobson's Focus on the Family:

DOBSON: "Some of our listeners are not going to agree with what he [MacArthur] has to say, but it's going to make you think, and it's also going to be somewhat disturbing. And I happen to agree with what John MacArthur was saying on this day, and I want to thank him and his team and Woodman Valley Chapel for allowing us to share this message. It needs to be heard, especially at this time in our nation."

In the sermon broadcast and endorsed by Dobson, MacArthur cataloged the symptoms of what he called America's "abandonment" by God and warned of dire consequences:

MacARTHUR: "I don't believe we're waiting for God's wrath in this society. We haven't had a massive calamity such as the destruction of an entire city. We certainly don't want that to happen -- pray that does not happen -- but it could happen. And God would be just in any calamity that he brought upon us. We have not entered into eschatological wrath; that comes in the end times. We are experiencing -- all of us do -- consequential wrath of sin. But this massive concept of the wrath of abandonment, I'm convinced, is now at work in our society. We like to talk about the fact that America was founded on Christian principles, God was at the center of it, and all of that -- whatever it might have been in our founding, it's no longer the way it is, and I want to show you how you know that has happened." ...

MacARTHUR: "The first thing that happens in a nation when it has been abandoned by God is a sexual revolution. Moral sexual perversion, pornographic desire describes the general character of the culture. You can't even count how many million pornographic websites there are. When a society is abandoned by God, it operates out of its own perverse sexual passion without restraint. You can go back to the '60s and the sexual revolution of the flower children, or Hugh Hefner and the Playboy world, and it has gone like a flood since then." ...

MacARTHUR: "So the first thing that you look for in a society if you're trying to discern whether God has abandoned that society is whether or not that society has gone through a sexual revolution so that illicit sex, adultery, every form of immorality is accepted as normal in that society. And we're there. The second step in the progression, [Romans, chapter 1] verse 26: "God gave them over not just to passions that are explicable," because they're men and women, "but to inexplicable, degrading passions. For their women exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural." You know a society has been abandoned by God when it celebrates lesbian sex. God has given them over -- gross affections, unnatural, unthinkable. So you follow a sexual revolution with a homosexual revolution. And homosexuality becomes normalized." ...

MacARTHUR: "The amazing thing of it is this, verse 27: "The men abandoning the natural function of the women, burning in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts, and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." Right into this wrath of abandonment comes the wrath -- the consequential wrath. And even though it generates venereal disease and AIDS, they keep doing it."

I don't suppose that any of this would matter all that much, except that Dobson is a very powerful man within the Relgious Right. In fact, conservative journalists who follow the Religious Right, like Dan Gilgoff, a senior editor at U.S. News and World Report, suggest that Dobson is more powerful than either the late Jerry Falwell or the living Pat Robertson ever were, even back in the glory days of the "Moral Majority".

Whether or not that is true, Dobson has the ear of the White House (he recently met with President Bush to discuss Iran and other matters of national security), and hosts a radio program that reaches more than 200 million people.

And, more to the point, with Jerry Falwell dead, D. James Kennedy seriously ill and out of the public view, Pat Robertson looking more an more senile (if the rapid onset of terminal foot-in-mouth disease is attributable to old age and not just an addled brain), and Ted Haggard out of sight and out of mind, Dobson is just about the only national voice of the Religious Right still standing and shouting into his media megaphone.

Dobson's recent remarks, like Falwell's and Robertson's infamous exchange about 9/11 a few years back, reflect an unresolved dilemma arising out of the love-hate relationship between the Religious Right and America.

On the one hand, the Religious Right lionizes "Christian America" with a fervor bordering on idolatry and raises patriotism to the level of the Great Commandment, but on the other, the Religious Right cannot stand the current reality of America and wants to destroy it, replacing it with a neo-theocracy.

The fact that "Christian America" never existed (except in the mind-bending revisionist history created by the Religious Right, in which our enlightenment founders with tenuous ties to Christianity are portrayed as "born-again" believers and in which our Constitution, which markedly does not mention religion at all except to separate religion from government, is portrayed as the embodiment of "Judeo-Christian values"), the fact that historic America was a brawling, confused largely non-believing society which wave after wave of evangelical "awakenings" failed to change all that much, and the fact that modern America is not all that different from what our country ever was, culturally, does not impinge on the dreamworld created by the Religious Right.

Nor does it matter, in a real sense.

What matters is that the Religious Right, born of fear and bias, hates what America is, when reality breaks into the dreamworld. And, coming from a religious worldview that draws the world in black and white, with a vengeful, wrathful God wreaking havoc at every turn, the Religious Right cannot -- literally cannot, because the capacity to do so is not in their mindset -- do what most of us do with relative ease: recognize that our beloved country is deeply flawed, and work to better it, little by slowly, with hope in the future.

The dilemma of the Religious Right surfaces in the conflict between their heartfelt need to destroy America as it is, on the one hand, and their heartfelt need to keep idolize America as the "New Jerusalem". Unable, given the powerful psychological conflict between the two needs, to admit that the desire to tear this country to shreds is theirs -- which, when you get right down to it, makes them no different on that score than the Islamic radicals they purport to hate -- the Religious Right gives God the role of vengeful destroyer.

But when Dobson and others on the Religious Right speak of "massive calamity" and destruction of "a city or two or three or four", and the attendant death of thousands if not millions of Americans, just whose hands do they think will be the "arm of God" in bringing that destruction about?

The dilemma of the Religious Right is born of its theology, and it deserves to be marginalized. When the theology of the Religious Right was confined to the backwoods, it did no harm except to its adherents. It is quite another matter when the theology of the Religious Right forms the basis for our national policy, as it does in the present administration.

But marginal it is. Julaine, when you get right down to it, is complaining about nothing more than the media reporting -- more or less accurately, but accurately enough -- the words and actions of James Dobson and other prominent leaders of the Religious Right. Americans will not, when the sunshine illuminates the Religious Right, enbrace the words and actions born of its theology. It is the Dobson and his cohorts who are marginalizing themselves, by being themselves.

I don't doubt that the American people will eventually dismiss the theology and worldview of Religious Right. But I hope that those of us who have been made into cannon fodder by the Religous Right can be forgiven for asking, in the words of Psalm 94, "How long, O Lord?" It is long past time.

Amendment Aftermath ...

The latest casualty of the "anti-marriage" amendment in Alabama, uh, Wisconsin is the University of Wisconsin system.

Republicans, who control the Assembly, voted down a proposal to provide domestic partner health benefits to state workers, including professors and staff in the University system.

The Republicans take the position that the measure would violate the state's ban on same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships, and, truth be told, they are probably right about that, given recent court decisions in Michigan, which passed a similar amendment to their constitution in 2004, and a June 1 Attorney General's opinion in Kentucky, which has an identical statute.

Democrats who control the Senate are expected to push for the benefits in their version of the budget, so there might be a second bite at the apple, but it is unlikely that the proposal will make it. And if it does, somehow, get into the budget, the state faces years of protracted legal wrangling at the hands of "Christian" law firms, which have been active in the state, before domestic partner benefits can be extended.

Since passage of the "anti-marriage" amendment, a number of professors, researchers and other staff have left the University system, and a spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin says that the University system has had trouble finding new staff because of the ban.

Draining the lifeblood out of the University is good news for Republicans, I guess, because for Republicans, ignorance is votes, if not bliss. Wisconsin gets more and more like Alabama every day.

Hell, if we keep this up long enough, Alabama, uh, Wisconsin might even become a "red" state, just like the real thing.

Morons!

Jason Knight, discharged in 2005 under DADT, then called up again last year, and again discharged under DADT this year, may well be recalled to active duty yet again.

Stars and Stripes reports that Jason Knight's second round of discharge papers do not mention that he was discharged because he was gay, replicating the omission that led to his being recalled last year.

Instead, Knight's discharge cites "completion of required active service", and he has a recall code of "RE-1", with a reserve obligation ending in April 2009. That means that Knight is in the "ready reserve" and could be recalled at any time.

"I can’t do anything but laugh," Knight told Stars and Stripes in a telephone interview. "It’s getting to the point of being ridiculous."

Getting to the point? Honest to God, the world is run by morons.

Fight On, Fight Hard

Last week, the HRC released the results of a candidate questionnaire that showed that all serious contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination unanimously agreed on providing basic protection at the federal level to gays and lesbians, across the board, with the notable exception of marriage.

In my view, this is a real advance. After years of vague rhetoric from Democrats about “equal rights” for gays and lesbians, the HRC succeeded in nailing down specifics.

The Democratic presidential candidates supported civil unions across the board – which is fine, I guess, but a state and not a federal issue – and, more to the point, supported repealing the provision in the Defense of Marriage Act that blocks federal recognition of gay and lesbians couples who are married or in civil unions or domestic partnerships under state law. The candidates agreed with equal tax treatment, Social Security survivor benefits, and other federal benefits for gay and lesbian couples in state civil unions and domestic partnerships. The candidates supported, as well, extending federal recognition and benefits to gay and lesbian couples in states like Alabama, uh, Wisconsin, that have an "anti-marriage" laws or constitutional provisions, as long as the couples meet yet-to-be-defined federal standards.

It is, at one level, astonishing to see how far we have come since 2000, not to mention the 1980's, when Democratic politicians ran from gays and lesbians like a dog leaving a house afire, leaving gays and lesbians the task of fighting the AIDS crisis without any support at all from government.

But talk is talk. What counts more than "talking the talk" is "walking the walk", and my experiences over the weekend reinforced my conviction that the Democrats bear careful watching, if not downright suspicion. Based on what I've been seeing and hearing lately, my view is that gays and lesbians are going to have to hold Democratic politicians' feet to the fire, constantly and consistently and for years to come, if we hope to get anything but rhetoric out of Democrats.

In Alabama, uh, Wisconsin, we live in the aftermath of the 2006 election, in which the votes in this state approved an "anti-marriage" amendment banning same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships. The aftermath has been predictable, given the experience in Michigan and other states which passed similar amendments in 2004. Every attempt to advance equal treatment for gays and lesbians, from two-parent adoption to domestic partner benefits for the University of Wisconsin, has been resisted by Republicans and complicated by the amendment.

We will get nowhere until the amendment is history.

Which brings me to the Democrats.

I am a Vice Chair of the Democratic Party of Sauk County this year, and in that capacity I was a delegate to the 2nd Congressional District convention and will be a delegate to the DPW state convention later this month.

What I saw and heard at the convention did not inspire confidence.

During the course of the convention, we were addressed by a variety of Wisconsin legislators representing senate and assembly districts within the Congressional District. The theme from all of them was consistent – first, Democrats held the governorship and took control of the State Senate in 2006, and need to work hard to take control of the State Assembly in 2008, and second, Democratic politicians in the state have put "gays, guns and God" behind us and the path is open to tackling real issues.

It is, as the confessor in Moonstruck pointed out, the second part of the message that is problematic.

The "gays, guns and God" Republican agenda – Republicans in this state seem to be fixated, in the way that only the doomed can be, with appeasing the likes of Julaine Appling -- may be behind us, but the "anti-marriage" amendment remains, defining a social contract in Wisconsin that makes a mockery of the principle that "all citizens are entitled to equal treatment under the law".

Worse yet, the "anti-marriage" amendment spreads its tentacles throughout Wisconsin statures and legislative efforts to advance the cause of equal treatment for gays and lesbians under the law. Because the anti-marriage amendment is so broad, banning any recognition of gay and lesbian couples that looks or quacks like marriage, civil unions or domestic partnership status, the amendment in Wisconsin, like the amendment in Michigan, can be and is being used to block legislation that could ameliorate the effect of the amendment on gay and lesbian couples, however slightly.

What bothered me about the convention addresses was how quickly and remorselessly Democratic politicians relegated gays and lesbians to the back burner, a group, although gravely harmed by the amendment, can be put on hold while "real" issues – that is, straight issues – are put on the front burner.

I had a conversation with Senator Fred Risser, one of the legislators who addressed the convention, about this during lunch. I told him why his obvious relief that "gays, guns and God" were off the table was inappropriate while the amendment remained in force. He, to be blunt, gave me a lot of prattle back about how I was "talking to the converted". The disconnect was striking – Risser did not seem to have a glimmer of understanding that "the converted' understand that the amendment is a roadblock across the board, and that the few, minor advances we could make while the amendment remains in force were not enough. After Risser escaped – he clearly did not want to be talking to me, as plain-spoken as I was – my lunch partner, a straight woman of a "certain age" – that is to say, about my age – from Sauk County, said "He really doesn't get it, does he?"

No, he doesn't. And he is not alone, unfortunately.

One strike.

The platform resolution discussion – each county turns in ten resolutions to the Congressional District convention, which in turn selects ten resolutions to be forwarded to the DPW state convention platform committee – was, in a word, similar. A resolution calling for repeal of the amendment was presented by the Dodge-Jefferson Democrats, but, notably and strikingly, no similar resolution was presented by the Dane County Democrats, and Dane County overwhelmingly rejected the amendment in the 2006 election.

It took a bit of parliamentary maneuvering – a delegate called for the resolution to be "seperately considered", which meant that it would be discussed – and I made a blunt speech explaining why the Dodge-Jefferson resolution should be one of the "top ten" resolutions forwarded to the state. As it turned out, the Dodge-Jefferson resolution made it, but I don't think that it would have absent the effort. And you can bet that no other Congressional District forwarded the resolution to the state DPW convention.

Two strikes.

More telling, perhaps, than the speeches and the resolution fight, was the fact that several gay DPW senior staffers came up after the resolution vote to tell me how important it was that I spoke out, telling me that it was important that the DPW hear the message loud and clear from the grassroots.

Really? The DPW has a relatively large number of senior staffers who are gay or lesbian, out, and experienced political operatives who are the lifeblood of political operations of the DPW. Why is it that they are not speaking up, pushing hard, drawing the line on equality. Is it that they have bought into the "real issues" nonsense, and are playing the game, or do they sense, as I do, that nothing is going to happen, except talk, unless the grassroots kicks and screams.

Three strikes.

I don't know, but I do know this – gays and lesbians are going to have to shoulder our own struggle for equal treatment under the law. We cannot sit back and assume that straight folks, Democrat or Republican, Green or Libertarian, are going to make it happen for us. We have to hold everyone's feet to the fire, and hold them close to the fire, or we are going to end up like the anti-abortion folks, marginalized and mocked by their "friends".

I am not suggesting that gays and lesbians should vote Republican in 2008. I plan to vote a more-or-less straight Democratic ticket, and absent something unexpected, I will.

The Bush administration has raised the bar of incompetence in government to record levels, just as the administration has raised the national debt to record levels through its "for anything else there's MasterCard" notion of fiscal responsibility. We are going to spend decades digging our country out of the hole the Bush administration dug for us in the last seven years, and electing Republicans at this point would be akin to handing a mole a power shovel, in my view.

But while we may vote Democratic in 2008, we have to remember that "talking the talk" is not enough. And we have to vigorously remind Democratic politicians that at least one leg of the "gays, guns and God" tripod is still standing. This is not a time for self-congratulation in Wisconsin – the "anti-marriage" amendment is in our constitution, and while it remains, we remain Alabama.

In one sense, things have not changed since the 1980's. Gays and lesbians cannot count on anyone other than ourselves for our liberty. Fight on, and fight hard.