Taking Stock - I've been sorely tempted to chime in on the huge amount of navel-gazing that's been going on post-election among gay political groups. The alleged triumph of "values voters" in the Red States has left many of my DC friends (and apparently many gay leaders) depressed and questioning whether the Heartland actually hates us. Well, let's not get carried away.

Clearly, a large portion of the populace does not share our political goals, especially same-sex marriage. Many folks -- particularly of a certain generation -- are personally not comfortable with our relationships. But outside of opposing our "agenda," what place do our harshest of critics feel gay Americans have in their vision of society. I mean, they may wish The Gay were invisible or didn't exist, but how does that translate into how they feel about individual homosexual people they may encounter in their daily lives? The latest edition of MetroWeekly helps answer this question in a survey polling the leaders and spokespersons of a number of conservative groups. What comes across is an interesting phenomenon, echoed in today's WaPo in a Michael Kinsley op-ed:

Today's near-universal and minimally respectable attitude -- the rock-bottom, non-negotiable price of admission to polite society and the political debate -- is an acceptance of gay people and of open, unapologetic homosexuality as part of American life that would have shocked, if not offended, great liberals of a few decades ago such as Hubert Humphrey.

The rest of the article is worth a read, as it serves as a nice reminder that things aren't as dark as we sometimes think, and that we've come a long way, baby.