[C0LLETTE]

My Mother was born before the advent of jet planes. She lived to see flights to the moon. I came out, in the late 50's- early 60's in a society where the only places for gays to meet were bars run by gangsters who ripped you off on the way in; and you were often met by cops who beat you up and/or arrested you on the way out.Maybe it is generational but, like Anya, I never thought I'd live to see gays being married on national television ( though it did smack a bit of Rev. Moon ).

I'll leave the deconstruction of events to the ideologues and those with the necessary vocabulary for these things. However I do think that no social movement is ever pure and it is counterproductive to insist on that. Imperfect it may have been but the performance was a broadly shared "happy" occasion and I'm glad I got to see it.

Conflicted as always, I can't help but add a note of caution. Like many, I tend to become complacent when I see progress being made. Then I remember that the Jews of Germany thought they were sewn into the fabric of German society with full rights of citizenship; the swiftness and severity of their disabuse offers evidence enough that they never really were. That said, I don't want to live with that pessimism alone; with insecurities that deny me the pleasure of some victories and advancements, flawed or not. And I do have the benefit of hindsight and of "having been there" to offer testimony that progress is most definitely being made.