Liz Morrison, Jan. 9
So let me get this, uh, straight: Britney Spears can grab any guy, go to a cheesy wedding place, which incidentally offers drive-thru service, get hitched in a ceremony reminiscent of a drunken trip to 7-Eleven, and immediately gain more than 1,000 legal rights as a married person, even if she’ll never use any of them.

It’ll take more than a Big Gulp and a bag of Cheetos to digest that insult. And what makes the whole thing so incredibly ludicrous is that they got the marriage annulled a mere 55 hours later. Fifty-five hours of a prank marriage, and we can’t marry legally for 55 seconds.

So, all you right wing, holier than thou, Bible-thumping zealots, how’s that for preserving the sanctity of marriage? Why hasn’t the world, as we know it, come to an end when a heterosexual couple makes “a mockery of this scared institution”?

Gwen Smith, Jan. 23
My partner and I are legally married, and we are both women. We married back in a time, nearly 12 years ago, when we still looked like a nice heterosexual couple. The sort of pair that might make Focus on the Family smile with glee.

Unfortunately, things get sticky now that we are a legal same-sex couple, existing on the fringes of matrimony during the great marriage war of ‘04. …

It almost feels like more of a struggle for those of us in this gray area of transgender marriage than if we knew simply that we had no marriage rights. Not that any of us above would willingly give up what we may have.

Cheryl Jacques, Feb. 20
Why is marriage so important? If you’re wondering this, you’re not alone. According to a Harris Interactive poll we recently commissioned, half of all GLBT adults think civil unions are the same as marriage. Unfortunately, that’s just not true.

Simply put, civil unions do not provide any of the more than 1,000 protections or securities afforded under federal law through a marriage license. They are recognized today in only one state — Vermont — and provide only the state benefits of marriage. If two men in a civil union travel across state lines, they carry with them none of the rights or protections that they have in Vermont.

These critical distinctions boil down to unfairness.

Stephen Fallon, March 12
The fight for marriage rights is being billed as a wedge issue: nasty conservatives trying to stifle love vs. our oppressed community. …

When did this become so almighty important to most of us? Just as conservatives are lying when they say that they’re “defending” marriage, I find our overwrought complaints a little insincere. So what if we can’t march down our church aisle?

In America today, gay men and lesbians can still be fired from their jobs or denied housing simply because they are gay. The fact that society has generally evolved to a sitcom-fueled tacit acceptance of us in the workplace does not mean that we’re actually immune from such acts of discrimination, only that they crop up less often these days.

Against that backdrop, marriage doesn’t seem to me like the pinnacle issue in our quest for equal rights.

Beren deMotier, March 19
I was married in the morning. There were no rose petals to walk on. No bridesmaids all in a row. … In fact, I went down the aisle holding a toddler and said vows covered in cracker crumbs. It was a great day. …

Everyone was smiles. Our kids were beaming. We were on a cloud nine that carried us past the protesters and down to the Unitarian Church where we and our friends were married in a hastily-put-together ceremony that couldn’t have been more perfect.

Our dearest friends were there with us already. The church ladies made us bouquets to carry. Our sons carried the rings, our daughters bunches of flowers.

The minister was crying. We were crying through our friends’ ceremonies. Two of our mothers were there, and they were crying.

Liz Morrison, March 26
Becoming legally wed to my partner of six years in the state where we both reside was finally within reach. We only had three weeks to wait, or so we thought.

At 2:33 p.m. on March 11, the torrent of same-sex marriages in San Francisco came to an abrupt halt. It’s not like we were taken completely by surprise. Conservative factions had been scrambling to end our much-deserved wedded bliss ever since Feb. 12 when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom declared marriage discrimination to be unconstitutional in California.

Hearing the news devastated us. Our weekend marriage excursion was cancelled, and all we had to show for it was a couple of open-ended plane tickets. We felt sadness and then anger.

Iris S. Blumenthal, April 2
Many prominent African Americans, including Coretta Scott King and Julian Bond, agree that gay couples are as entitled to marriage as straight couples. But Rev. Jesse Jackson has publicly “disputed the position that some black leaders and other liberals have taken equating the gay marriage cause with the civil rights movement.

The time is long past when any American should be ordered to take a back seat when it comes to equal protection under the law.

The civil rights battle is not over. It will take the voice of a village and a whole country to tell our elected representatives that our families are valued -- gay and straight alike -- and that we strongly oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Bruce Carroll, April 23
This decision by our supposed leaders to push gay marriage onto center stage in America at this time and in this high-volume election year has resulted in a colossal setback that is solely the fault of those same groups.

Why? Because instead of appreciating the feelings of most Americans and undertaking a long-term commitment to educate our nation who we are, our leaders took the easy way and went to the courts to dictate one version of morality and forced tolerance from the bench. That strategy is faulty and will never work.

What we saw in Massachusetts, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi will be replicated in nearly every other state of the union. So the net impact of our activists launching this culture war will become discrimination enshrined into state constitutions. That certainly doesn’t seem a step forward for gay rights.

Gay leaders will scratch their heads and wonder what went wrong, but the fact that they don’t “get it” is proof enough that we need to find a new way and new leadership.

Robin Tyler, May 14
The lesson for those wanting marriage equality today should be clear: Those who want freedom must fight for it themselves and not depend on “friends” in government to win it for them. …

It is time that a small number of influential organizations stop trying to dominate the entire movement around the country. Most of these groups have only recently hopped on the “marriage equality” bandwagon and are using the issue to raise an enormous amount of money.

Instead of trying to silence us, they need to start demanding full marriage equality. If that means rocking Washington’s gay “liberal establishment,” which is trying to mute this activism for the sake of their political allies, so be it.

That is real activism, and we know the difference between grassroots and Astroturf.

John Kerry, May 21
The Bush administration repeatedly uses gay rights as a political tool to divide the nation. That’s just wrong.

We don’t need a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. We need civil unions with full and equal rights.

We don’t need opposition to hate crime legislation. We need to reject hate and embrace tolerance.

And we don’t need a president who plays politics with gay adoption. We need a president who works every day to support all children and families.

Ken Sain, May 28
John Kerry has a good gay rights record as a member of Congress. He says all the right things (except on marriage), and when given a chance, he votes in favor of treating gay Americans like everyone else. But, [his supporters] offer one other reason gay men and lesbians should vote for Kerry.

He’s not Bush.

So far, that has been the theme to Kerry’s campaign. I actually expect him to show up at a campaign rally with a large banner in the back that reads, “He’s not Bush.” Shouldn’t a man who aspires to be president have more to offer than that?

Martha Ackelsberg & Judith Plasgow, June 4
We love each other, and we’ve been in a committed relationship for nearly 20 years. We are residents of Massachusetts, but we are not getting married. …

The early women’s liberation and gay liberation movements challenged the claim that the married-couple nuclear family was the only legitimate way to organize our intimate lives.

What happened to that vision? Where are the feminist and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered voices calling for the separation of civil and religious unions?

Steve Weinstein, June 18
When the dust has settled and the long eye of history is cast back on the Reagan administration, this man will be considered the worst mass murderer in history — worse than Hitler and Stalin combined.

The reason for this, of course, is his criminal failure to make the hard decisions early on in the AIDS epidemic. …

The AIDS pandemic we face today could have been avoided if President Reagan had … devoted resources to fighting the disease. If he had swallowed his distaste for frank sexual talk and sanctioned safe-sex prevention materials.

As a president, Reagan made a great actor. It would be funny if it weren’t so terribly, terribly sad.

Cyd Zeigler Jr., June 18
The outpouring from my gay peers on [Ronald Reagan’s] death has been hateful, distasteful and bitter. They wrongly blame him for killing the people who died from AIDS since the ‘80s.

In typical fashion, they ignore the fact that the Democrat-controlled Congress offered no more funding than Reagan’s administration. Just as they are willing to overlook Kerry’s attack on gay marriage and bury Bush for his, their hypocrisy in the treatment of Reagan’s memory stands glaring. …

That most gay people will remember Reagan with hatred and disrespect speaks more of where our movement is headed than of the great man at the receiving end of it.

John Aravosis, July 2
One year ago, I would have opposed “outing” gay congressional staffers who work for anti-gay members of Congress. After all, I was once one of those staffers, working for a Republican, no less. Today, while outing still gives me pause, I believe recent events have made it necessary.

When President Bush and anti-gay members of Congress teamed up with the radical right to push for passage of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, all the rules changed. …

Gay staffers who work for such politicians are hardly innocent bystanders simply exercising their right to free speech. They are hired guns defending policies intended to destroy our relationships. Such staffers are, at best, enemy combatants; and at worst, war criminals. Those who would choose to aid and abet our enemies deserve neither our pity nor our compassion.

Lynden Armstrong & Mat Young, July 2
Sometimes, when we are under assault, it’s easier to attack our own rather than fight those who are actually causing us harm. In politics and in war, this is often referred to as a circular firing squad. …

That is exactly what some gay activists seem to be doing in their efforts to out gay and lesbian staffers on Capitol Hill. … LGBT people — even Capitol Hill staffers — must be allowed to go through the process of coming out and merging our personal and professional lives at a pace that is comfortable.

An individual’s sexual orientation should not be an issue for employment, and by outing staff to their employers, these activists reinforce the noting that there is something wrong with being gay or lesbian.

David Catania, Aug. 27
In April 2000, I traveled to Texas to meet with then-candidate George W. Bush. The 11 gay men and one lesbian who made this journey came to be known as the “Austin 12.” …

This February, I watched George W. Bush make a mockery of his election promises as he endorsed the divisive and discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment.

After initially fulfilling many of the commitments made during the Austin meeting, President Bush chose politics over people. …

This time around, I will not be attending the Republican Convention. And I will not be fooled again by George W. Bush’s promises. This year I will be supporting John Kerry.

Tammy Baldwin, Sept. 10
In an atmosphere of “group-thought” and a climate hostile to LGBT Americans, the Republican platform committee — filled with representatives from extremist organizations — rejected the efforts of the Log Cabin Republicans and their supporters to include a unity plank in their platform.…

One American who felt quite at home at that convention was conservative columnist Alan Keyes, the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, who was quick to label the vice president’s daughter a “selfish hedonist,” rhetoric that President Bush declined to condemn.

Is it any wonder that Mary Cheney decided not to join her family on stage?

William Butte, Oct. 8
We don’t seem to consider what it says about us when so many of us are interested in only getting to know someone sexually, but not personally.

What does it say when we brush off another person’s attempt to get to know us? What does it say that for too many of us, desire trumps respect. After all, why date, when it is so easy to mate?

But this attitude is destructive, not only to ourselves but to our community. It’s bad enough when straight people dehumanize us. We shouldn’t do it to each other. Don’t we deserve better than that?

Steve Weinstein, Nov. 15
For the first 10 years of my life, I lived in southern Ohio. I know these people. They are by and large as honest, decent and hard-working folk as you’ll find anywhere.

But above all, they re religious. They believe that the Bible is the word of God and that the purpose of history is to carry out His will.

That’s why, in a nutshell, the Democrats lost Ohio and why they lost the election.

The unasked question, however, is whether we gay Americans provoked a social revolution in the elctorate.

I accuse the gay leadership of this country of putting their own selfish interests above the greater good.

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