It took 30 years, but Washington State finally did the right thing and passed a gay rights bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. GOP Sen. Bill Finkbeiner switched sides in his position on the bill, helping supporters get the votes they needed. Said Finkbeiner: “What the debate is about — is whether it's OK to be gay or lesbian in the state. People don't choose this. People don't chose who they love. The heart chooses.” Amen.

New York Attorney General Candidate Andrew Cuomo ducks questions about handing out signs reading “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo” in his father's 1982 campaign.

Just what do Samuel Alito and Brokeback Mountain have in common?
According to Mark Morford they're opposite ends in a cultural tug of war: “This is the ever-present push-pull of the culture. This is how we stumble toward the light, gasping and bleeding and with painful rope burns on our wrists. After all, there is no progress forward — intellectual, spiritual, sexual or otherwise — without a concomitant blood-curdling scream from the power brokers and the religiously terrified to hold it all back. Change brings fear. Sexuality brings confusion. For every person who has his rigid homophobic ideology shattered by “Brokeback”‘s emotional hammer, there is a confused neocon who redoubles his efforts to replant it.”