Pay Attention to Me! - Everyone is all over the issue of gay marriage. Specifically, its endorsement -- or not -- by seven of nine Democratic presidential candidates at the HRC pander-fest yesterday. I neither attended the headline-grabbing affair down at the Reagan building, nor caught the C-SPAN telecast, but I know people who went, so maybe I'll get a first-hand report yet.

The NYTimes has a round-up, as does the Post, which goes on to provide a humorous take in its Style section. There's also a very good piece in the Philly Inquirer, and the Bawlmore Sun and LATimes also have custom coverage. (Kudos to the HRC's PR geniuses.)

I was annoyed Edwards couldn't show up, since he emails me twice a day, but I guess he did hit the homo circuit last month. I suppose it is a sign that we've arrived -- the articles spend most of their verbage parsing candidate's words about marriage rights vs. civil unions. We've won so many of the culture war's battles that all we have left to fight for is legally sanctioned nuptuals. You kind of feel sorry for the Religious Right's trench warriors, who are relegated to issuing condemning press releases to dreaded Massachusetts court rulings.

While the Democrats will always hold the vanguard on gay issues, it's worth noting how little the bigotry patrol has achieved under an all-GOP federal government. There are still Clinton-era regulations on the books barring employment or security-clearance discrimination because of sexual orientation. Senior GOP leaders meet with gay groups. The White House is mostly silent on the Lawrence ruling. Slouching towards Gommorah, indeed!

Honestly, when leading party candidates are on the defensive about not espousing gay marriage, you should stop and appreciate how far we've come. I'm pretty confident that the Republicans (George Pataki, anyone?) will get there eventually too. They're just slow.