[Strangler Lewis]

It's hard not to acknowledge the 800 pound gorilla in the room. However, if you look at the history of civil rights in this country, I don't know how much progress was made via respectful dialogue with the man on the street. We had the Civil War. We had Truman deciding to integrate the armed forces. We had the litigation that culminated in Brown. We had Kennedy and Johnson who made it their business to cram the Civil Rights Act down the throat of half the country. We had schools that integrated with the aid of the National Guard. We had civil disobedience in the south, and riots in the north.

Eventually, much as Archie Bunker did when the Jeffersons moved next door, people learned that mixing with black people and treating them equally was okay. I heard a similar piece on NPR recently about a small town coping with the influx of immigrants. Hostility initially, then everybody's cheering for their kids' soccer teams. I agree that change is coming, but it will come from exposure as people know more gay people and see more positive images of gay families to balance out the images of Folsom Street that weird them out. But, now, just hearing people out on theoretical issues isn't going to do anything than give people the pleasure of hearing themselves talk and dig in their heels.