11:15 p.m. MDT: First story onto the web from a site google considers a news site: 365Gay.com. Congratulations guys. Thanks for getting it up so fast. Best passage:

CBS, in all of its promotion material refers to them as married, a term that infuriated the Christian right.  Focus on the Family called it an "aberration".  FOC and other conservative groups with all of their attacks not only increased CBS' ratings, but also put human faces on the same-sex marriage issue.

I think I'll keep adding news links to this post as they become available. Where are you AP? You better be working on a good story.

12:15 a.m. MDT:UK.gay.com just posted a very short piece, with some rather odd info (that the boys were introduced as "jocks.") Nothing yet on the American site.

1:15 a.m. MDT: The Calgary Sun just posted a cutesy, awkward but well-intentioned piece.

10 a.m. MDT (Friday): Two paragraph blurb from Gay Financial Network.

One long paragraph posted sometime this morning on TV Guide's daily entertainment news roundup (at least it read the roundup).

That appears to be it. I guess there's not going to be any real mainstream coverage. Apparently there have been too many reality shows for AP to run a story on the winners anymore. Or maybe just for higher-rated shows. Bummer. But we don't love them any less.

1 p.m. MDT (Friday): The Advocate has a story posted now. And it ends by stating: "An exclusive interview with Reichen and Chip will be posted Friday evening on Advocate.com."

2 p.m. MDT (Friday): CBS's Chicago affiliate, WBBM, has posted the Early Show recap (written in the style of a news story) on its site as if it were a regular news story, with an LA dateline. I imagine it has been sent out to all the affiliates and many more will be posting it. That's a good way to get the word out.

Now this would have really pissed me off. If you were unlucky enough to be stranded in Lansing, Michigan, the station cut away for severe weather reports in the closing minutes of the show. Yikes. That's understandable, but of course the bastards couldn't be bothered to delay their lucrative 11 (10?) p.m. news by those few minutes. Imagine watching all season, biting your nails for the hour, and then . . . nothing. I was on the verge of a heart attack at that point, and I would have smashed my set with a sledgehammer if that happened. TV stations tend to show such utter contempt for their audiences. So the station has a small posting on its site promising a replay Saturday night. And get this, they're actually like the winner is still a mystery: "The race-around-the-world competition is down to three teams from the original group of 12: Kelly and Jon . . ." It's nice, actually, that they're not spoiling it for anyone who wants to sit through the thing again, but highly comical as well.

4 p.m. MDT: Just posted two minutes ago Gay.com/PlanetOut. I'm reading it now, more in a minute. Some interesting new tidbits:

The couple said they plan to use their money and newfound fame to help enlighten people about the gay community and continue being positive role models.

"We had a party last night with people literally coming up to us and saying, 'After I watched you guys win, I called my mom and I told her I was gay. It was the most emotional moment of my life, and I just want to thank you so much for giving me the ability to relate to somebody that I'm proud of, and I see as a role model,'" Lehmkuhl told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network in New York on Friday. "That made us cry."

But they oddly don't address the divorce rumors, even after talking to them today. Hmmmm. Annoying. (And what else to conclude except that they must be broken up, or why not address it immediately. I hope I'm not an ass for participating in this rumorfest, but I held my tongue for three months until I assumed the answer was imminent and there was no harm in discussing for a few hours.)

Saturday:

One long paragraph in the Ft. Worth Star Telgram today, which includes this apparently idiotic line, "The winners, who were openly disliked by the other competitors, according to tvguide.com."

The San Diego Union Trib has a short piece headlined "Couple's 'Amazing Race' victory fitting in banner year for gays," which includes this nugget:

Most likely, many people cheered Thursday when Kelly and Jon missed a Tokyo-to-Honolulu flight Reichen and Chip were able to get on. After all, Kelly was hardly the paragon of charm during the weeks-long trek, upbraiding Jon for some of his judgment calls, and derisively calling Reichen and Chip "Chip and Dale."

I'm not kidding about the Chip and Dale. That's exactly how it appears. How can people be so clueless?

That's all so far. Pretty weak.

Tom just called and he cried too--just a little tearing up in the corner of his eyes, he said. OK.

He couldn't believe Chip & Reichen won either and so I confessed that I didn't really have complete faith in them. I sort of believed in them, but I was more convinced they were going to fall short. "Oh God, I didn't believe in them at all!" he said. "I had no confidence in them whatsoever."

I'm not going to extrapolate too far on the basis of two doubting gayboys, but let me offer this as an illustration of something endemic to the gay community that everyone inside it is aware of: We don't believe in ourselves, we don't believe in each other, we turn on one another first chance we get.

We have so few gay heroes. We find it so hard to look up to ourselves. Why do you think we celebrate "Pride" every year? We've never come close to explaining that one to you straight people. (Another big problem. Really bad marketing. For thirty years we've been having these marches and we haven't bothered to explain what the name means?) It's not about pride in being gay--who cares which kind of body arouses you? It's more personal affirmation of pride by each one of ourselves in who we are in general.

Seems kind of stupid, doesn't it? Of course you're proud of who you are, that goes without saying, why have a big parade about it? Because it doesn't go without saying for us. First we get over the shame of being attracted to our own sex, that's the easy part. Flushing out the generalized shame that comes from growing up feeling like an outcast, that's never going away. Pride is what we celebrate every year, because pride is what we lack. We look around at all the people in the world, and the biggest difference that jumps out at us is not who we're sleeping with but how miserable we feel about ourselves in comparison to the straight people.

Among other things, Reichen said the race "was about showing the world that gay people can do anything that anyone else can do." Now that sounds a little odd, I thought. Surely some bigots out there thought a couple gayboys were incapable, but I bet a lot of straight people thought, "What an odd thing to say. Why would I think they had any more or less chance because they were gay?"

The point is, we think we have less of a chance because we're gay. We may not make the direct connection to being gay--we just think we're incapable of winning because we've always known what a loser we were. Gay people suck, everybody knows that. We grew up indoctrinated to the idea that we were inferior even before we found out we were part of that dreaded we; we're never going to completely unlive all those feelings of inferiority completely. But tonight, tonight was a glorious step forward for us. We can do it. They did it. And I'm sorry I ever doubted them.

As for that deadly indoctrination, I just keep reminding myself of that wonderful last line from Still Life With Woodpecker: It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

What a sweet thing to say. Someday Reichen will get used to finishing that phrase with "husband," but it was a beautiful sentiment regardless. Reichen's full closing quote on winning the race:

"This race was about a lot of things. It was about competitiveness; it was about showing the world that gay people can do anything that anyone else can do. But the most important thing I've learned is I'm very loved by my partner. And I know that I can feel safe and happy and protected when I'm around him. And I trust him implicityly." (Except when he's driving.)

The really sweet and really cool thing about watching Chip & Reichen throughout this race and especially this last leg was to see how well they complimented each other. I have been back and forth on that complimentary thing for years in my own relationships. I tend to be drawn to people just like me a lot of the time, but the older I get the better the fit feels with someone who can pick up the slack when I'm clueless, who can paddle us along through waters unfathomable to me, who can teach me knew things and nurture talents I didn't know I had.

These guys definitely have all that going on. My friend Dave only watched the last few episodes, and asked if Chip had always been so dominant. Definitely not. If anything Reichen seemed more in command much of the race, you could see Chip's pressure steadily doubling over the past three episodes. Another week or two like this and that aneurism in his brain would have exploded all over the cameras. But instead of feeding off the stress lurching off the deep end with him, Reichen grew progressively calmer and mellower. I had not really noticed it until Dave posed that question, but Reichen was positively placid the last few legs, aside from lashing out when his foot got run over. They're a really good fit.

(Now I just pray they're still a good fit. They have been dogged by rumors all season that they split up since the taping, but I have yet to see anyone substantiate that. I've refused to fan the rumors here by repeating them, but with nine hour to go till the Early Show, I think it's safe to wonder aloud now. Either way we'll know first thing in the morning. It would be very sad if they've split: sad for them first of all, and sad to hear all the piling on that, "See, gay people can't stay monogamous."

We do have to struggle with that, let's be honest about it. Not because we're homos, because we lack a woman in the relationship. Once we get past all the struggles with the straight people and win the freaking right just to be ourselves, that problem is going to sit right atop our To Do list. (Along with that little AIDS thing.) Of course we shouldn't wait till then, but it is ridiculous that we have all this insanity to deal with instead of addressing our own problems. Self esteem is the next big one. Few gayboys ever reach adulthood without that key ingredient to success at anything stuck in the toilet. I guess that's part of why this show means so much to so many of us homos out here.

I know a lot of straight people love this show too, and have been rooting for Chip & Reichen from the beginning, but I wonder if you can comprehend just how much this silly show means to us homos. We finally had somebody we could cheer for, somebody we could be proud of, somebody we could look up to, someone we could point to to straight people and say "This is why we want to get married! This is who we want to be."

Did you see it? Can you believe it. I was on my feet the full last five minutes, I was jumping up and down, I was cheering, then I was crying. I have no way to describe the surge of electricity as they raced toward that final platform. The best part was watching the level of enthusiasm from their peers. The eliminated teams always cheer as the winners run in, but I don't remember anyone as ecstatic as the NFL wives, the models and the clowns were tonight. Or the way those first two teams rushed the platform to embrace them. Both spoke so highly of them in their Early Show interview the morning after elimination. Even the virgins were cheering, that was heartening to see.

And it was sweet to see a Race finally end with a legitmate test. The first three were all just a cab ride from the airport, followed by a short foot race. This one added several stops and a puzzle to solve, and Chip & Reichen's success in getting the address ahead of time in Honolulu made all the difference.

It's taken me awhile to write this, I couldn't calm down for the first fifteen minutes. And I just wanted to savor it. I can't wait to call my buddy Tom in Seattle, but I have to wait another hour for it to end there. Dave in Boston will be fun too, and I'm going to call him here in a second, but he's straight so he doesn't feel quite so invested.

(More on their closing comments in a minute or ten. Chip, Reichen and Kelly all had me beaming, as usual. That goatboy made me shudder. And don't forget to tape the Early Show in the morning. But don't worry, I'll have a full report once I get up. And I'll start looking for that AP story right away.)

Update: I called my straight buddy Dave in Boston and he confessed to tearing up at the climax too. Wow. It's late there so he had to go after a few minutes and said, "I do want to talk to you more about this tomorrow and congratulate you on their win." Heeheehee. I do feel like we all won tonight. I hope the Chipendales don't mind.

Last commercial break, 15 minutes to go. I just want to pause to say that I want the Chipendales to win so badly I'm practically crying, but I really like all four of the people left. (And I am so glad the goats appear to be totally out of it. I don't dislike them, but I have no affection for them the way I do the others.)

I love the way Kelly waves at Chipendale; she's so sweet. And it's pretty funny that the boys are purposely ignoring them. Jon does everything possible to get their goat, funny that's the one thing that bugs them back.

Reichen was so great telling Chip how well he had done when he was beating himself up after the roadblock. And I loved Chip landing in his parachute earlier and asking, "Where's my boy."

I'm going to write Jon's early cheering at the car wreck off to him assuming they were safe and gleeful that his better driving paid off. I really like these people, and they all seem to enjoy each other. But please God, please let those gayboys win. I would love to see them win for them, and I would love to see the AP story headlined "Married Gay couple wins million dollars." We could sure use a little burst of good will right now. And we could use a burst of enthusiasm. You boys have been our mascots, we'd love to see you take the prize. But we'll still love you if you don't.

(I may throw up in the closing minutes if this gets any more intense, but I'll still love you.)

(OK, I'm halfway through the finale, getting behind with all this posting.) Kelly was so right about making rash decisions. They're all cracking under the pressure. Highly understandable, but not good at all. Each team has made a huge blunder in haste so far tonight. Chip's almost killed them but luckily it didn't cost them any time.

So nice to see Chip & Reichen way out ahead. In any normal leg, this would insure they win the leg--having passed the equalizer--but I predict this finale will follow the lead of the three before it, and then all end up bunched together again in last ten minutes. So I'm biting my nails for nothing. I better quit posting and watch, because if this thing doesn't end soon I'm going to need a bypass.

This may be nothing but I am SO nervous about that business class seating. I know there's a rule that they have to purchase economy--please say it doesn't say anything about riding economy. The way the editor focused on it, the camera zoomed in on the boarding passes, the music . . . very foreboding. I'm praying it's a red herring.

Heeheehee. I should have recognized the foreshadowing at the start of the show: the goats saying how few mistakes they've made, just to set up their collosal blunder. (And really idiotic blunder. They had time to think about that one.)

We'll see if they luck their way out of it, but that's all it will be if the other teams miss their connection--or the damn producers equalize even a huge mistake.

I would love to see the gayboys vs the funlovers. I love them both. But I would SO love to see the gayboys win.

Man, just watch Chip wipe out the SUV and it scared the shit out of me. That boy is way too high strung right now. Reichen better be able to calm him down and steady him, or his confidence is going to be shot in the home stretch. (Pretty damn funny when he makes the crack in the plane a little later about feeling safer jumping out of the plane than in the back seat with Chip driving. So he does have a sense of humor. The joke was in v.o. from a later interview. Hopefully in the moment he was in there helping ease Chip back to earth.)

I'm suddenly liking Jon a whole let less with him cheering another team's brush with serious injury or death. Kelly gets big points for her usual concern. (And Jon wins a few back for stroking her forehead while she quivers in the plane preparing for the jump.)

Nitpicks. Someone mentioned in the comments recently how hysterical it was that the goats were touting themselves as smarter than the other teams. In tonight's opening, goatboy1 said, "We've probably made the least amount of mistakes of the three teams that remain." Least amount? Where did you go to school? Try "fewest mistakes." Always fun to watch an inflated ego make a mistake telling us how great he is for avoiding them. 

(If you didn't read earlier, this is going to be all Race Finale all the time for the next hour.)

It started It started It started!

Just watching the series recap has got me all giddy.

And nice to be reminded how good Chip & Reichen--I mean "married couple Chip & Reichen--have been to each other compared to some of the couples.

Normally, I'm a little reluctant to let one topic dominate all day. I didn't really want to make this national gay day, it just worked out that way. And since it's Chip & Reichen day and all and Reichen is a recent military officer working with SLDN to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I could hardly resist this news release from the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military this afternoon:

The retired Judge Advocate General (JAG) for the Navy, Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, has called for the end of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay soldiers from service.  In an article published this month in the National Law Journal Admiral Hutson called the gay ban "virtually unworkable in the military."  The article argues that the policy is the "quintessential example of a bad compromise," and that the "don't ask, don't tell" regulations are a "charade" that "demeans the military as an honorable institution."

Nice. It gets better:

Admiral Hutson was a Navy Captain in the office of the JAG in 1993 when the current gay ban was formulated, serving as the JAG's executive assistant.  In 1997, he became the JAG himself, and it fell to him to enforce the policy. . . . he said he initially supported the policy, concluding that "a satisfactory resolution was impossible then."  Since it was hammered out in 1993, however, much has changed.  "At that time," he said, "we thought the sky could fall.  To completely overturn the policy ran the risk of undermining our ability to complete our mission."  But with the benefit of over a decade of experience with the policy, and with what he called a "somewhat more enlightened population, particularly among younger people," he now believes it's time to end the ban.  "That was then and this is now," he said.  "I am now convinced, as I was not then, that the military could survive" lifting the ban entirely.

And here comes an argument I had not heard before:

"Eliminating the policy on balance now would serve a greater good and in many respects would foster cohesion.  Unburdened by this odious policy, the Department of Defense might come out stronger, and more able to defend the country."  He explained this was not only because more people could join or remain in the service, but because the public's support of the military could increase.  "There is right now what I perceive to be this blemish on [the armed forces], and it ought to be removed.  And if it is removed, ultimately the military would feel better about itself and it would be held in even higher regard by removing this fundamental unfairness for a fairly significant population in the country."

That's pretty persuasive. I've been in the military, and public perception of our value made huge difference. Advocates of the ban talk about morale: nothing worse for morale than going home at Christmas and finding your old friends think you're retarded for being associated with the Army, or meeting a woman at a bar off-post and having her turn her nose up when she spots your haircut.

We used to go into town (Columbus Georgia) all the time when I was at Ft. Benning, and the women there wouldn't give us the time of day. It was impossible to find a dance partner, most of them wouldn't even return your hello. That is devastating to morale. Improve the public perception of the institution, and you will do wonders for the morale inside its units.

Earlier today, I wrote about Focus on the Family's fear of Chip & Reichen in the longterm gay-marriage struggle. Mike Haley's piece takes a wierd and ironic turn at the end, which I would like to address separately, to avoid muddying my essay with a last-minute switcheroo the way he did.

At the last moment Haley lurches from Chip & Reichen to Boy Meets Boy, and complains that, "There has been no mention of the lack of monogamy so prevalent in the gay culture." Funny he should bring up the monogamy problem in the midst of an entreaty to ban gay marriage. Oblivious to the contradiction? Apparently. His team is doing everything possible to stop gays from participating in the main institution bolstering monogamy, then complains in the same breath we're not sufficiently monogamous. Has he noticed how many single straight people are having sex? If he forced them to stay single all their lives--and blocked their bility to have children as well--does he think they would all turn monogamous anyway?

(I won't pretend marriage is the only reason monogamy is much lower among gay men. The more fundamental "problem" is that they're men. But that conveniently excludes the women. In a burst of blatant dishonesty or ignorance about his subject, Haley extrapolates data from half the gay population to the whole, then indicts the imaginary result. May I repeat the oldest gay joke in the world: What does a lesbian bring to the second date? A U-haul. Lesbians tend to mate for life. Their divorce rates would shame any evangelical Christian (whose rates are no lower than the national average, currently around 50%.)

Any homo knows that monogamy is low among gay men, high among gay women--just like the straights. Gay men already have two strikes against them in a long-term relationship: two men. But some of them are making the effort anyway. You want them to be less promiscuous and this is your response? Refuse to recognize their tenuous arrangement as a marriage, refuse to grant them the standard rights or bind them with the responsibilities, refuse to allow children into the mix to provide external incentive to stay together, and what would you expect to happen? More and more monogamy? Encouraging the gayguys to settle down into monogamous relationships like good little adults is the strongest conservative argument for gay marriage.

Hardline Republicans like Bob Barr may prove our most potent weapon against the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Barr is so conservative he couldn't even get re-elected to the House from Georgia last election. He authored The Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, when it sailed through Congress and was signed by Bill Clinton. But he came out quickly against the new amendment, and he's taken an active role in the battle. Today he published an op-ed in the Washington Post outlining his opposition:

Marriage is a quintessential state issue. The Defense of Marriage Act goes as far as is necessary in codifying the federal legal status and parameters of marriage. A constitutional amendment is both unnecessary and needlessly intrusive and punitive.

Wow. I'm thrilled to have him fighting this amendment, but I'm almost as thrilled to hear some of his rhetoric. Coming from a man who tends to make my blood boil, I'm stunned to hear phrases like "needlessly intrusive and punitive." One fundamental element really has changed in the gay struggle for equal rights. You don't hear people openly vilifying us anymore, they're not using words like evil very often. And we're finally hearing phrases demonstrating a flicker of compassion in their conservatism. Bob Barr did not need to say that to win the hearts of the crowd he's preaching to. If anything, it will hurt him. It's hard not to believe that some men like Barr have actually been hearing from their consciences, and are really starting to feel a distaste for people in power picking on gays. He's not about to embrace us, but he's actually standing up against needless punishment against us. Hey, it's a start. Now back to him on the amendment:

The 1996 act, for purposes of federal benefits, defines "marriage" as a union between a man and a woman, and then allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. As any good federalist should recognize, this law leaves states the appropriate amount of wiggle room to decide their own definitions of marriage or other similar social compacts, free of federal meddling.

Following the Defense of Marriage Act, 37 states prohibit same-sex marriage and refuse to recognize any performed in other states, while a handful of states recognize domestic partnerships, one state authorizes civil unions, and a couple of others may have marriage on the horizon. In the best conservative tradition, each state should make its own decision without federal government interference.

Make no mistake, I do not support same-sex marriages. But I also am a firm believer that the Constitution is no place for forcing social policies on states, especially in this case, where states must have the latitude to do as their citizens see fit.

I love his ending best of all, because it puts the lie--the rather obvious but still powerful lie--to the chief argument coming from his kindred pushing the gay-marriage ban:

I agree that the kernel of basic morality in America -- the two-parent nuclear family -- has eroded under the influence of the "me" generation, which has left us with an astronomical divorce rate and a tragic number of hurting families across the country.

Restoring stability to these families is a tough problem, and requires careful, thoughtful and, yes, tough solutions. But homosexual couples seeking to marry did not cause this problem, and the Federal Marriage Amendment cannot be the solution.

Well, the big climax begins in just under four hours. Chip & Reichen either win a million dollars and a lot more exposure for themselves and married gays everywhere, or they don't. Odds are against them, but odds were against them getting this far.

Either way, I'll go to the gym early so I can watch the show live and get a timely response up here on the blog. I may take awhile for some longer reflection, but I'll post something right away. In fact, come to think of it, maybe I should start the show on time and blog about it blow-by-blow through the commercials. That could be fun. OK, I'll commit to it right now; there, I've just gone and changed the title of this post. See what I do for you people. (Remember, I'm in the hinterlands, so I'll see it one hour after the east and midwest, two hours before the left coast.)

Normally if I watch an hour show live, I start about a quarter past, so I can catch up to the ending without suffering through commercials. That's what I do with Survivor. I must confess that I usually watch The Race late in the evening, but I can't wait an extra minute to see what happens on Survivor. And do come back in the fall once that gets started. I'll have a lot to say about that every week, and almost none of it will be related to gays--unless something unexpected happens in the casting. I was a semi-finalist for the very first Survivor and my heart aches every episode remembering that I'm not there.

I tried to apply for the first race too, but couldn't find anyone willing to leave their wife, husband, baby, job for that long. The closest I came was a writer friend who was then an editor at Christianity Today and a Baptist preacher's wife. I thought that combo might entice the producers, but the same combo would not have gone down well in her congregation. She thought running around the world with a single man on TV would cause turmoil, and my innate disinterest in her private parts would eliminate some of the stigma but create much bigger problems of its own. So I've never even applied. I doubt I could have won anyway. I can be a bit navigationally challenged.

Don't think Focus on the Family haven't noticed a gay married couple beating back the straights on The Amazing Race. From today's issue of their online magazine:

A homosexual couple that refers to themselves as "married" could be crowned the winners in tonight's finale of the CBS reality series 'The Amazing Race.' And that's just what the gay activists are hoping for.

Yup. Those Ffammers are scared to death of Chip & Reichen. Not just the pair of them alone, but the army of Chip & Reichens they fear will follow. Unlike many gay activists, the Ffammers realize the television is mighter than the Senate.

". . . the more Americans hear something, even when what they're hearing is a lie, the more likely they are to believe it," author Mike Haley writes. Exactly. Except for that dishonesty about the "lie." Anything Mike doesn't believe in or doesn't agree with is now a lie? Please Mike, you haven't made pope yet. Even he hasn't spoken ex cathedra on gay marriage. (And the Bishop of Rome is also out of his mind thinking he can really speak infallibly anyway, even on matters of faith and morals.)

To Chip & Reichen and a lot of other homos it's a lie or a distortion or a degrading euphemism not to call what they have a marriage. They know they're married and they believe God recognizes them as married, so they say their married. But you're right Mike, repetition is the key to acceptance--if what you're talking about is acceptable.

He cites a powerful example to demonstrate his case:

Gay lobbyists have used this strategy well through the years. You've heard, no doubt, that 10 percent of the population is gay or lesbian, right? A fabrication born when a study by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey was misquoted. In fact, in a brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, a challenge to the state's sodomy law, a coalition of 31 pro-gay groups admitted that "the most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States," the National Health and Social Life Survey, "found that 2.8% of the male, and 1.4% of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual."

Of course Mike is acting blatantly dishonest again--such a pattern of dishonesty from a group purporting to speak for God. Aside from slipping in that "admitted" to connote confession of a previous lie, Mike compares a claim of how many people are gay to a number of how many identify as gay. Crucial distinction. By now any fool knows that plenty of gays don't come out to themselves until their 30s, 40s, 60s. None of those still in the closet are being counted. Others will quietly admit their sexuality to themselves, but never on earth to another human being, especially some stranger taking a poll. And no one has a clue how many latent homos are out there, still cringing in their closet for life, terrified to come out even to themselves.

But aside from Mike's opportunistic attempt to begin repeating a new, lower, but equally unreliable estimate of the size of the homosexual population, his initial point is correct: the 10 percent figure is highly questionable, yet any average person in the public is likely to quote it. Because it was repeated for decades. And, Mike fails to grasp, because it seems reasonable. It jives with the rest of available evidence and with common sense.

Call the sky green until the sun fuses and turns it scorching red and then permanently black, and no one outside an institution is going to join you. But straight people have always been aware that a large number of gays mingled among them. We were a lot harder to pin down before we marched down the street at gay pride parades or even walked erectly from the parking lot to an easily-identifiable gay bar, but straights still understood we were out there. They were never sure just how many, but one in ten seemed like a reasonable number based on the evidence all around them, even in 1948.

Gay marriage will only become acceptable once straight people get used to the idea. Not just by hearing about it, but living next door to it, working among married colleagues, and most important in the short run, watching it on TV. Television is crucial because it is ubiquitous. The problem with the living-next-door scenario is that so many of us gays have barricaded ourselves inside these urban gay ghettos. Not a whole lot of gay married couples living beside the breeders out there in the suburbs. Even fewer in Topeka, and you can bet they're calling themselves roommates if they are.

But Mike has nothing to worry about from repetition alone. Gay marriage gay marriage gay marriage gay marriage. Convinced yet? Repeating it will only work if straight people gradually get used to the idea, let go of their natural resistance to jarring change, mull it over for awhile and decide, Yeah, of course they should be allowed to marry. I'm ashamed at my parents for banning them all those generations. And I'm pretty sure they will, which is why Mike's kids have everything to worry about. If only they were to think like Mike. What Mike really needs to start worrying about is the shame his kids are going to harbor against him once they get used to the idea and decide for themselves how immoral this ban has been.

The bad news for us gayguys is we're not going to be alive to see gay marriage fully embraced. Maybe a gentle hug when we're old and weary if we're really lucky. Don't delude yourselves though gay folks: it's their kids were going to win over in real numbers.

We already have. Look back at last month's Gallup poll indicating a majority of Americans not only opposed gay marriage, ready to change the constitution to stop us (50% to 45%). The good news in those depressing figures were the radical disparity by age (missing from the mainstream coverage, but included in the Washington Blade report.) Only 22% of senior citizens favored granting us the right. They're going to die fighting us, but God love them, they're going to be dead in 20 to 30 years. Even the thirty- and forty-year-olds could only muster 37% support. But things changed dramatically under 30. The 18- to 29-year-olds who grew up with The Real World and Will and Grace and living breathing gayguys and lesbians among them supported gay marriage by a whopping 61 percent.

And if you think that's just the folly of youth talking, that they'll wise up and turn against gays like their forefathers before them when they hit 30, think again. In March 1996, 41 percent of that demo thought gay marriage should be legal. More than half that unwelcoming group has sinced moved into the 30-49 bracket, where the acceptance rate is a comparable 37% (dragged down below the 41 percent by the older folks in the age category with a still lower acceptance level). Clearly, this is a not a matter of people turning against gays as they age, but a new crop of youngsters growing up in a world that doesn't despise us. It just kind of dislikes us.

That's our target audience people, the people who grew up with us. That's who is finally going to support us in ending this immoral ban. We need to win over more of the slightly-older crowd to stop them from tightening the screws on us, but those people grew up in a different world and they'll never feel completely comfortable. The biggest thing we can do to get them all used to the idea is get them used to the idea. By getting married out in the open, displaying our names in the papers like everyone else, leaving that wedding band on at the office and not constructing a cover story to explain it, introducing ourselves as husbands or wives everywhere we go like everybody else, and for God's sake showing up married on TV.

Focus on the Family knows exactly what they need to be most afraid of. Chip & Reichen. And the army of Chips & Reichens out there ready to follow. Hopefully ready. Are you ready boys? Ready girls? We need you badly right now. If I ever find myself a man to marry I'll be lined up right there alongside you.