What bothers me about all of this is that as a nation we don't seem capable of applying the same standards of "equality" to others as we do to ourselves. It is an endemic condition of our culture.

Christian conservatives want rights they do not want others to have, they want religious freedoms they would gladly refuse to a Hindu or a Pagan or a Moslem, and i admit, we gays can be just as bad, we are so busy worried about our own issues and agendas to care what the other side is thinking or wanting, and I think you hit it right on. We are not fighting a war in which a decisive battle must be fought, we are making progress along a road, and the destination isn't gay rights, but equal rights for all human beings.

So, yes, Maine, this time around the changes we wanted did not come to fruition, but take heart in knowing that you are moving along that road, and that we will have to stand with each other as Americans in the end, not as you and us, but as equal partners in a land we built from the bottom up, and that is a process that takes time.