Sean Kershaw is the new president of the Citizens League, one of my newer weblog clients. In his second blog posting, he linked to an article in Lavender, a Twin Cities GLBT magazine, about a community award he received (article no longer online). The article included some background details on his family life — his longtime partner and their adopted son. When I saw his post I thought, “Man, how cool is that? — an influential guy, heading up an influential organization, leading a normal family life.”
Not long after this, Time carried a great essay by Andrew Sullivan titled, The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Want to foster responsibility and commitment? There is no better way. “We needn’t all agree on the issue of homosexuality to believe that the government should treat every citizen alike. If that means living next door to someone of whom we disapprove, so be it. But disapproval needn’t mean disrespect. And if the love of two people, committing themselves to each other exclusively for the rest of their lives, is not worthy of respect, then what is?”
A few days later came the Supreme Court decision tossing out (thankfully) the Texas sodomy law.
And then I got an email note from a Real Joe reader, considering a move to Northfield where I live, wondering about the town’s general level of tolerance/support of gays and lesbians. I was pleased to write back, “Very tolerant compared to most small towns. There are quite a few lesbian couples with kids, but no gay couples with kids that I know of. Of course, there’s the occasional goofball letter to the editor in the paper.”
So it’s all good progress, IMHO. And although I don’t intend for Real Joe to directly address the GLBT slant on sex and relationship issues, I’m pleased to count at least two gay guys among the readers. (July 6 follow-up: I did stumble on two articles about gay and lesbian couples and their sexual relationship struggles: Newsweek’s web-only article titled Gay Couples and Sex; and the Gottman’s, the marriage gurus, have a special gay and lesbian section to their web site.)