(On a totally shallow note? That is one of fave pics of Michael Shanks.)

I have family who insist they have no problem with gay people, they just cannot condone the lifestyle, and that's what they always toss at me.

And yanno what? They don't have to live it. Nobody is going to force them to live a gay life. They don't have to condone the gay 'lifestyle.' I don't give two shits for how they personally feel about it; it's the actions they take that I mind.

There are lots of various 'lifestyles' I have moral issues with -- so I don't take part in them. I said this elsewhere on msjudi's LJ, but I'll repeat it here in mine: I have enough difficulty deciding how best to live my own life in a moral fashion. I haven't the time or energy to live other people's lives for them.

I wish you the best of luck in winning over your family. I'm working on the old guys at my office. I suspect that, just as it took just over 100 years to go from slavery to the Voting Rights Act, it will take more than my lifetime to make it as unthinkable to be an ugly bigot about gays in public.

In my more optimistic moments, I remember how the history of the U.S. has, in large part, been about slowly expanding the Bill of Rights and Constitutional freedoms to more and more Americans. It has never been easy or quick.

In my less optimistic moments, I think how short-lived all that "America United" stuff after 9/11 was.