People can talk about activist liberal judges all they want. But the simple truth is that what has changed these past twenty years is not the nature of judges, but our collective understanding of what sexual orientation is. Behind all this is a deep, deep shift in our consciousness from thinking of gay people as defective straight people who perform certain sexual acts to their being the moral equivalent of heterosexuals, capable of forming relationships and building families as well as anyone. This is at the core of the generational divide: not that young people are more “liberal” or “progressive” than their parents. On an issue like abortion, they’re not. It is simply that the next generation has grown up with a different definition of who gay people are. They see gay people as interchangeable with straight people. They don’t think we’re inferior to them. Because they know us. …
Is this shift an ideological one? I don’t believe so. It’s an empirical one, based on increased knowledge of who gay people are. …
The Tin Man
When I turned 18 (1980) I was told my a friend that it was time to make a small step forward in the ‘coming out’ process. Time to let others know, and present myself in such a fashion to demonstrate I was proud of myself, and not about to take a back seat to anyone. I was very political, and so taking stands did not bother me. But it was not until two years later that I finally took some steps in the coming out process….and then more until I was the mature man with a sense of who I was, and not living a double life.
I think many of us have put a face on the ‘gay lifestyle’ just by being ourselves, and living our lives in the way that makes us feel good about ourselves, and the ones we love.
So this is my way of answering the question. It is more than a political answer. It is a very personal one that I know many, if not all of the readers here can identify with. Together, step by step we have made others see the real ‘us’, and bit by bit it has resonated in politics and the legal system.
All of us can be proud of each other and ouselves.