Howard Dean was credited with giving the establishment Democrats a set of balls again. It appears that they are already beginning to shrivel. While there are a few stalwart voices, we are offered a swath of opinion that is compliant, co-opted, apologetic and squeamish. Check out this miserable blather in Bob Herbert's New York Times editorial (emphasis added):

I kept staring at Ms. Reichman and Ms. Curnow [aka "donut-bumpers"], trying to locate the threat that others perceive in relationships like theirs. But they never came across as menacing. They just looked happy.

And further along, he continues:

Mr. Rutkowski is a grant coordinator, and Mr. Harper is a biochemist. They met 22 years ago in a church choir.

The opponents of gay marriage are on the wrong side of history. The interests of civilization are not served by driving mature love underground. And the interests of the United States, which is supposed to be the quintessence of a free society, are not served by enshrining bigotry in law.

The other day I saw a photo on my assistant's computer screen of two women in wedding dresses: Joanna Tessler, a Manhattan real estate agent, and Nicoletta Sellas, a psychology intern at the Bronx Psychiatric Center. Their arms are raised high in the air, and they are dancing joyfully in the aftermath of their marriage ceremony in Miami on Valentine's Day. It's an absolutely beautiful photo. The wedding guests are laughing and applauding.

"Bliss" would have been an appropriate caption. Why anyone would want to turn the people in that picture into outlaws is beyond me.

What the…!? Shouldn't creepy, lice-infested, impoverished, immature malcontents be allowed to get married too? Isn't that the point here – to protect a person's right to happiness, regardless of his or her ability (or lack thereof) to demonstrably conform? A quick glance at Mark Adnum's brilliant review of 1993's largest loaf of cinematic crap, Philadelphia, makes it pretty clear that not a whole fuckuvalot has changed in the last 11 years:

Good gays are clean cut, asexual yuppies who work hard, do the right thing, and most especially don’t do anything dirty or sexually confronting - they just hug, and emote...Good gays are welcome into the American fold, if they behave themselves, and generally act like well-raised children. Bad gays who have sex with strangers and go to places that only adults go to are not welcome in the fold.

The gay community needs someone who is willing to actually fight the mainstream culture on this issue. A gay Malcolm X. Yeah. "Malcolm KY" has a nice ring to it.