Orson's Game

There's a little burger stand near my place that I positively love. Juiciest burgers I've ever tasted, and I am a fiend for a nice juicy burger.

One day, the owners of the restaurant started telling me about how they get their tomatoes from this wonderful tomato farm. Now, I'm not a huge tomato person. Really, I could take or leave the tomato on my burger. It's just not an important part of the experience for me. But the owner was so excited about this tomato farm that I decided to look it up online, and I was dismayed by what I found out.

Oh, not about the tomatoes they produce. In fact, they do have a reputation for growing some tasty tomatoes.

No. You see, I was dismayed to find that these tomato farmers are white supremacists, and they're quite vocal about it, too. They serve on boards of organizations that seek to oppress minorities and strip them of their rights.

After that, I was really torn about going back to that burger stand. Some other patrons decided that they were going to boycott the stand. When the boycott was announced, the people who grow the lettuce for the stand spoke out, saying, “Hey, we're not white supremacists! In fact, we actively support all kinds of human rights measures. If you boycott the stand, we will suffer, too!” I appreciate the plight of the lettuce farmer. Still, I can respect the position of the boycotters. The restaurateurs didn't publicize the lettuce as being an important part of what makes their burgers so incredible. No, they talked up the tomatoes. Its the tomato farm whose name is now known far and wide in association with those juicy burgers. Not, alas, the lettuce farm.

As for me, I did go back to the stand, and I still enjoyed the burger, though I had to rationalize to myself that it was okay because I don't care for the tomatoes much one way or the other. If the restaurant owners themselves, the people who put all the work into grilling those patties and making those burgers so tasty, the people I actually hand my money over to, were the white supremacists, I never could have gone back.

However, I really wish that they would get their tomatoes from somewhere else. Surely there are excellent tomatoes on the market that aren't grown by vocal white supremacists, and I'm of the mind that the tomato farm of white supremacy does not deserve our support.

None of this is true, of course. (Well, I am a fiend for a nice juicy burger. This cannot be denied.) This is simply my analogy for the controversy around Orson Scott Card's involvement in the new Xbox Live Arcade release, Shadow Complex. Card is a science fiction author and vocal opponent of equal rights for gays and lesbians, who currently serves on the board for the National Organization for Marriage.

The game is set in the “universe” of his Empire series. While playing the game, I didn't feel that his contributions could possibly have had too significant an impact on the overall experience. If I hadn't been aware of the association as a result of publicity given to his involvement, I never would have suspected. The game's setting and plot seem generic enough that I would have just assumed the creators were riffing on Metal Gear Solid.

Some have boycotted Shadow Complex due to Card's involvement. I did not. I purchased the game and I enjoyed it, recognizing that it's the work of a great many people, many of whom don't agree with Card's views. Still, as a member of the queer community and an ardent opponent of discrimination based on sexual orientation, Card's highly publicized involvement in the project doesn't sit well with me, and I really wish that Chair Entertainment had found someone else to get their tomatoes from.

(And I'm fully aware that those who oppose marriage equality will object to being likened to those who discriminate on the basis of race, but I have yet to come across a compelling argument that there is any appreciable difference. Denying someone rights on the basis of sexual orientation is no less reprehensible than doing so on the basis of race or religion. It is a sad commentary on just how far we still have to go with this issue that, while almost all of us are quick to condemn the views of those who discriminate based on race, discrimination against gays and lesbians can still hold such widespread approval.)

----

On a more uplifting note, check out these awesome Courage Campaign volunteers, including "straight Mormon feminist" Joanna Brooks. They're an inspiration. Please help make marriage equality a reality.

Greetings from Big Surf Island!

I've been off from work this past week, taking a mandatory furlough, like many people are having to do in these harsh economic times. While I am hoping to go on an exciting trip or two in the not-too-distant future, as I wasn't being paid this week, I didn't want to spend too much money, so I stayed in town. That doesn't mean I didn't have a kind of vacation, though. I've visited the following exotic and exciting destinations during my time off:

Big Surf Island: I was absolutely mad about Burnout Paradise when it first came out, and Big Surf Island has gotten me pumped about it all over again. The island is a bit smaller than I imagined it would be, but it's positively packed with outrageous jumps and all the other stuff that makes Paradise such an exhilarating game. The dune buggies you find there are a blast to drive, too, with a great rough-and-ready feel to their handling. I've already completed 40/45 billboards, 13/15 mega jumps and 74/75 smashes. I just know that finding that last one is going to be a real pain. I also have just one event left to complete: a stunt run. Those are the bane of my existence. I'm not generally a completionist, but Paradise compelled me to get 100%, and I know I won't stop until I've jumped every jump, smashed every smash and every billboard, won every event and ruled every road in both the Time Road Rules and Showtime (AKA Katamari CarCrashy AKA Michael Bay Directs a Car Wreck) modes on Big Surf Island. It's good to be back in Paradise.

The Ring: When I was a kid, I could beat Mike Tyson without breaking a sweat. It seems my reflexes aren't what they used to be. My current record in Punch-Out!! is an embarrassing 20-67, and I'm currently facing Don Flamenco in the title defense section of the game. But I don't mind. On the contrary, I'm very pleased that the game is so challenging. It goes easy on you for a while, but once you get to defending your belt, Punch-Out!! is no joke. At this point, the bouts are tough enough to quite literally get my pulse racing, and each victory feels like an accomplishment. It's hard in much the same way that the NES game was hard,but I think it's harder, thanks to more complex attack patterns from your opponents, which you need to learn during the first phase of your career and then completely re-learn during title defense. If the game had ended when I'd won the world championship, I would have felt like I could have better spent that $50, as fun as the experience was up to that point. But this game has proven to have lasting value and to keep the excitement comin'. I'm thrilled to see this franchise get reinvigorated like this.If only the game shouted "BODY BLOW! BODY BLOW!" like the arcade games did, it would be just about perfect.

Unnamed Middle Eastern Country: In the past I've never really been one to spend much time with online shooters, but I've gotten back into Modern Warfare's online multiplayer in a big way this week. I don't consider myself to be all that great at shooters so I generally shy away from exclusively team-based games like Gears of War 2's multiplayer (that way I can't let any other players down) but free-for-all deathmatch in CoD4 is so exceptional, I keep coming back to it again and again.It's easily the online shooter I've enjoyed the most. Here's a question for anyone here who might play this game online: If I play exclusively free-for-all deathmatch, is it worth it for me to spring for the map pack that contains Creek, Broadcast, Chinatown and Killhouse?

Temeria: This compelling land is the setting of The Witcher, which I downloaded off of Steam this week. I'm utterly taken with the setting, which is rather unlike the setting of any other fantasy RPG I've played, It feels rougher, more lived-in and worn, bleaker, and more believable. I haven't yet been able to spend as much time as I would like with the mysterious Geralt of Rivia, but you can bet I'm eager to do so.

The Sprint Studio: Lastly, I've been enjoying the beta season of 1 vs. 100 on Xbox Live. The game itself couldn't be simpler, but I'm excited about the way it's being implemented. I think the opportunity to join a live game that's being played by tens of thousands of other players, that involves answering trivia questions rather than, say, killing orcs and earning loot, is really exciting. (It helps that I am a huge sucker for trivia questions.) I also like the fact that up to four people can play from a single console, as it just feels like a party game that would be way more fun when shared with friend. In fact, I think I'm gonna invite some friends over for some pizza and beer and 1 vs. 100 one of these weekends.

I also want to say just a few things about E3.

When I was a kid, it really bothered me if someone abused a stuffed animal, even though I was well aware that the thing had no feelings of its own. Apparently there's still part of me that harbors that irrational perspective, as the first thing I imagined after seeing the Milo demonstration was thousands of people unleashing verbal abuse at their Milos. It made me sad. Apparently Milo won't respond to abuse, though, so that's good. Maybe if it's utterly pointless, people won't bother to engage in it. Of course, I'm assuming that Milo is actually going to be as amazing as it appeared in the demo, but then, I have no reason to doubt that it will be. After all, it was presented by Peter Molyneux of all people.

There are too many games I'm excited about to mention, but one announcement I'm particularly intrigued by is Metroid Other M. As a huge fan of most of the 2D Metroid games, I always felt that the Metroid Prime games really missed one hugely important aspect of what makes Samus so much fun to play: she's quick and agile. Metroid Other M looks primed to rectify this issue in a big way, so I'll be keeping my eyes on that one.

So, how 'bout you? What are you playin'? Any E3 announcements strike you as particularly promising or exciting?

Watchmen

Watchmen is a very good film, if not an outstanding one. The film adeptly adapts the epic graphic novel into a comprehensible 2-hour-and-40-minute film, and there are enough delightful little touches (Lee Iacocca! Pat Buchanan! Robert Palmer videos!) to make its chilling alternate-reality 1985 feel like a possible extrapolation of our own. Strong casting helps considerably, particularly in the cases of Patrick Wilson, who is so extraordinarily ordinary as Nite Owl, and Jackie Earle Haley as the simmering Rorschach. And perhaps it helps that I'm old enough to remember the Cold War and had, at one point in my childhood, a very real sense of terror about the possibility of global thermonuclear war (Thanks, WarGames!), but the constant sense of dread over the possibility of just such a crisis in the film resonated with me pretty deeply.

There are times where the film, despite all this good stuff, feels constrained. There's a section in the graphic novel that deals not only with the origins of Dr. Manhattan, but also with the unique way in which he perceives time, with every moment existing concurrently. I consider it one of the most remarkable things I've ever read, comic or otherwise. I think much of what helps drive its power and helps the reader relate to and understand Dr. Manhattan's existence is the fact that the panels for each moment do exist concurrently, and so we exist outside of them and can behold several of them simultaneously. The film, of course, is by necessity linear, and so I was a bit disappointed with this aspect, and never felt a very strong connection to the nude blue superdude, though I don't think the film could have possibly measured up to the comic here. On the other hand, the much-ballyhooed change to the story's climax for the film is, I think, an improvement.

Watchmen has moments of inspiration, such as its terrifically theatrical opening credits sequence. On the whole, however, it lacks the spark of passion required to make a cinematic adaptation truly take on a life of its own (I'm thinking particularly of The Lord of the Rings films there), and ends up feeling like more of a companion piece to the graphic novel than something worthy of deep consideration in its own right. But regardless, it's a fascinating, goofy, often thrilling film that's true to the spirit and the ideas of the graphic novel. 8/10

Gamers in a Dangerous Time

One day you're waiting for the sky to fall
And next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
--Bruce Cockburn, Lovers in a Dangerous Time

And make no mistake, these are dangerous times we're living in. Economically, things are already pretty bad. There's a good chance you or someone you know has lost his or her job as a result of cutbacks, and things will, according to many people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do, get worse before they get better. I'm very thankful for my job and fully aware that at any point, someone could decide that my company could save a whole lot of money by paying people in Mexico or India or elsewhere to do my job. This is a time for belt-tightening and saving, not for spending.

Beyond our economic woes, long-simmering tensions in other parts of the world are building up to dangerous levels, and it's possible that the human race may blow itself to hell in the relatively near future. Is ths really a time when we should be playing games?

Heck yeah, it is. Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, and being able to relax and enjoy life is absolutely worth having. Here are the things I'm playing in these precarious days.

Prince of Persia--It's beautiful, I'll give it that. The visual design is striking, evoking ancient Persia not as it ever was but as it is in our imaginations. But the gameplay all feels a bit rote to me, and not very engaging. This one may be on the next GameFlight back home.

Fallout 3--I know I said that these are not times for spending, and GameFly seems like a good way to save money and still play the games I want to play, but after a certain point having a game from GameFly must stop being cost-effective. I think I might be reaching that point with Fallout 3. I play it in fits and starts, and I like it well enough, but more often than not there's something I'd rather be playing. Still, I have to play it through to the end. I think it might just be in very small pieces over the course of the coming months.

Lumines Supernova--Ohh, how I love/hate Lumines! Its design is so flawless, so compelling, and I want so badly to be really good at it. But Lumines greatness eludes me. Still, I keep trying. Maybe someday I'll get past the sixth skin in the basic challenge mode.

LittleBigPlanet--When I wrote up my favorite games of 2008, I called this my odd game out, because the perplexing moderation of so many wonderful user-created levels just seemed to fly in the face of the game's good-natured, Fun shall overcome philosophy. But things seem to have recovered nicely, and I still regularly encounter user-created levels that charm, thrill, and genuinely surprise me with their inventiveness.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts--I spent about an hour and a half playing Nuts & Bolts tonight, and my first impressions of the game are extremely positive. It's very funny in a way that both mocks video game conventions in general and the Banjo-Kazooie games in particular. It's gorgeous. And the gameplay is purely, tremendously fun. I haven't yet had to design any of my own vehicles, which is a good thing. The game has an excellent learning curve that lets you use pre-designed vehicles successfully in many early challenges. And the challenges themselves are varied and fun. I'm already hooked and can't wait to collect more jiggies.

Chrono Trigger--I'd never played Chrono Trigger before. I was in college when it hit the SNES and I didn't make much time for games during those four years. It's probably for the best. Without my degree in Theater with a minor in English, it's doubtful I'd have the lucrative career in tech support and customer service that I have today. But I'm making up for lost time by playing it now.

Life with PlayStation--Folding molecules for the benefit of humankind. Gee, that planet of ours sure is pretty, isn't it?

Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? Even as things get uncertain and scary, there's still so much to be hopeful for and so much to be thankful for. Play what you love and do what you love, and when things get tough, remember that nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight. Or, as the late, great Harvey Milk said, "There is hope for a better world. There is hope for a better tomorrow."



Happy 2009, everyone!

Mis juegos favoritos de 2008!

Greetings from Tijuana, Mexico, where the thing to do on a Saturday night is stay in your room writing entries in your blog! This is not a list in which I'm arguing that these are the very best games of the year. There were too many games I didn't get to play for me to make those kinds of arguments (I've barely scratched the surface in Fallout 3--PUN INTENDED!) and anyway I'm not interested in making them. This is a quick and dirty, off-the-top-of-my-head celebration of the games I personally enjoyed the most.

For me, the area where games saw the most dramatic advancement in 2008 was narrative. My two favorite games each, in their own way, set a new standard for the kinds of stories games can tell, and how those stories can be told, while also delivering outstanding gameplay.

My favorite game of the year is Grand Theft Auto IV. Games have faced me with choices before, but never have the choices been so difficult, troubling and impactful as they are in Rockstar's masterpiece. In its stylized, thrillingly alive depiction of contemporary New York City, complex protagonist Niko Bellic's journey is not just a shootout-filled crime epic, though it certainly is that. It's also a story about class, culture, loss, revenge, forgiveness, and that most elusive of all concepts: the American dream. I'm not saying this game is The Wire. I am saying it cuts deeper and truer than any other game into the America we live in now, and I was mesmerized from start to finish by nearly every aspect of the game, and how they all came together to create an experience that was as thought-provoking and emotionally affecting as it was viscerally thrilling.

In my number two spot is a game that tells an altogether different kind of story. While one could imagine the tale of GTA IV working as a novel or film--albeit without those difficult, all-important choices, the Metal Gear Solid games, and MGS4 in particular, are uniquely gamey in the tales they tell and the techniques they employ to tell them. MGS 4 is such a monumental success, such a powerhouse conclusion to this series that for me it redeems even the weakest moments of the previous MGS games. MGS 4 is somewhat accessible to even first-time players of the series, but it really shines as a tremendous piece of fan service for those who have been fascinated with every aspect of Solid Snake's long, labyrinthine odyssey. My favorite example of both the gamey storytelling and the deeply interwoven fan service are the X-button flashbacks that frequently pop up during the game's cutscenes. I was frequently surprised and even oddly moved by the connections that were woven throughout this game to past games in the series in the form of brief visual and aural flashbacks. It gave the storytelling a rather stream-of-consciousness feel, as if we were inside Snake's mind, remembering aspects of the past along with him as his journey draws toward what he knows, as his body starts to give out on him, are his final days. Of course, all of this virtuosic storytelling would be for naught if the gameplay wasn't any good, but it is absolutely excellent. Unforgettable setpieces abound, and the final brutal fistfight is a near-perfect sendoff of one of the greatest heroes and one of the greatest villains in video game history, that brilliantly evokes all of the games in this landmark series.

Of course, games are still, first and foremost, about the gameplay, and one of my favorite games of the year has no narrative at all to speak of, save what my imagination conjures up. Rock Band 2 is an endlessly exhilarating fantasy fulfillment machine. I understand that it's not a huge advancement over its predecessor, but the whole Rock Band experience was new to me the day I brought home my RB2 bundle. I've already spent many hours getting lost in the music while playing drums for The Intellivisions, and I hope to spend many more. The people behind this game really understand the culture of rock, and everything about it feels right, from the ambiance of the gigs to the iconic images on loading screens of your band, and your band's name on lunchboxes, bumper stickers and the like.

And then there's the chilling Dead Space, which builds on the framework of Resident Evil 4 by adding some uniquely sci-fi elements like vacuums and zero-g environments, and takes place on a ship so richly detailed and haunting, it feels like you've stepped into a really, really good Ridley Scott movie.

I also want to give special recognition to Fable II. It's a thoroughly enjoyable game whose storybook vibe is very charming, and whose various elements--questing, developing your character's combat and magic attributes, shaping your character's moral role in the world, and buying and selling property, come together to make for a surprisingly compelling, addictive experience. On a personal note, I also love the tacit implication in the game that gay people should be treated as equals in society and granted the same freedom to express their commitment to each other with a bond of marriage that straight people enjoy. Ah, what a ridiculous fantasy world Albion is.

My odd game out for the year is Little Big Planet, which I found absolutely enchanting in the days after its release and would not have hesitated to place on this list. Many user-created levels knocked my socks off with their beauty and inventiveness. Then things got unpleasant as many of the very best levels were nuked by Sony, in many cases for no clear reason. This left a pretty nasty taste in my mouth about the whole experience. I've heard that things have improved since then, but I haven't yet found the time to hop back into my pod and see what's new in the LBP.

I'm giving honorable mention to No More Heroes, Suda51's exhilaratingly original, audacious Wii action game. Fascinating characters, stylish lo-fi graphics, a dizzying story, excellent use of the Wii remote, and tons of fun, ludicrously bloody action. Brilliant.

And Gears of War 2 also deserves recognition. As dumb as Cliff Bleszinski's "Bigger, better and more bad-ass" phrase sounds, it's nonetheless accurate. Gears of War 2 improves upon its predecessor in just about every way, featuring action on a larger scale and a story that's nice and ignorable rather than one whose in-your-face stupidity actually hurts the experience of playing the game. Heck, there was even a cutscene in this game I found rather moving. With a slew of terrific cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes, Gears 2 is an outstanding package.

This was also an amazing year for downloadable games, both in terms of remakes of classics and original titles. My favorite update is Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, which improves the visuals of the 14-year-old classic so that they look spectacular in high definition, and polishes up the gameplay, but also demonstrates just how well the fundamental game still holds up.

My favorite original downloadable game, and one of my favorite games of the year in any category, is Braid. It's a brilliant, beautiful puzzler that's not quite like anything I've played before. It's challenging but consistently, unfailingly logical, and each time I thought I might have to break down and look at a FAQ, I instead put the game aside for a day, and when I returned to it, looking at the situation with fresh eyes, the solution was immediately apparent. To bring us full circle, it's also one of the most challenging and rewarding narratives I've encountered in a game, dealing with regrets on both a personal and historic scale, with a jaw-dropping climax that gave me goosebumps and left me feeling utterly amazed.

In space, no one can hear you say, "Hot diggity, this game is awesome!"

I'm positively overwhelmed by great games at the moment, some purchased, some GameFlown. I still need to spend a lot more time with Little Big Planet, and I've barely scratched the surface of Fallout 3. Tonight, I spent some time fending off waves of Locust with friends in Gears of War 2's terrific Horde mode, but the campaign remains mostly untouched.

The game that keeps pulling me away from all the others is Dead Space. I know this is common knowledge, but man, is this game outstanding. It doesn't reinvent the survival horror genre--you can feel the influence of Resident Evil 4 throughout--but it provides an absolutely remarkable setting and tosses in enough pure sci-fi elements to set it squarely apart from RE4 or any other game. Fighting enemies in zero-gravity environments is deliciously disorienting, and the way the sound effects contribute to the experience of running through a vacuum as your oxygen rapidly depletes has to be heard to be appreciated. Putting enemies in stasis and then blasting their appendages off and seeing them slowly twist through the air is strangely beautiful.

In fact, nearly everything about the game is strangely beautiful. The Ishimura actually feels like a once-functional spaceship, and the level of detail makes me feel like I've stepped into a Ridley Scott movie. The sound design equals the visuals in every way, with the ship clanging convincingly and the eerie echo of once-important PA announcements haunting the halls. And although the story seems like pure Event Horizon stuff, it's still told in a way that has me wanting to find out how it's all going to end, with the slick, insane Dr. Mercer giving the gruesome evil a compelling human face, and enough eerie hallucinations to give the game's horror a psychological edge.

Most of all, the game's action is what has me so hooked right now. It's difficult and satisfying, it's constantly introducing new enemies and new elements, and it always has me feeling like I'm fighting for my life.

This is one of my favorite games of the year.

A step forward, a step back

I was an ardent supporter of President Obama's campaign, not because he was black, not even a little bit, but because I strongly believe that his ideas about how to run this country are exactly what we need right now. Yet that historic aspect of his victory cannot be ignored, and it is cause for celebration, an inspiring sign of how far we as a nation of come since Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech some 45 years ago. But as I watched the reactions to this monumental moment in our history on television with friends, many politicians and pundits echoed the same sentiment: Now, when a parent tells their child, "Someday, you can grow up to be president of this great nation, that is indeed the truth regardless of who they are." And that is not yet the case.

In his moving endorsement of Barack Obama, Colin Powell said the following:

I'm also troubled by. . .what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Powell is absolutely right. The America I love is not the one represented by those who object to the notion of a Muslim president. But we are not yet at the point where a Muslim or a Hindu, an agnostic or an atheist, a gay man or a lesbian could be president of this nation. True equality is still a long, long way off.

Never have I felt joy so commingled with grief as I did last night, for even as my bus ride home took me through throngs of people cheering in the streets, celebrating this hopeful new day in America, Proposition 8 here in California, and similar measures in other states, painfully reminded me that we as a society still have so far to go.

In some states, bans on gay marriage passed in yesterday's election. Here in California, a particularly hateful proposition, propelled by a campaign that used shameful scare tactics, passed which will amend the constitution of our state to strip the right to marry away from gay couples who have already enjoyed it, making their unions invalid and unrecognized. The L.A. Times endorsement of a no vote explains just how misleading and downright false the campaign used to support this proposition was, and how unnecessary and backwards the amendment will be, far better than I ever could.

This is not a religious issue. This is a civil rights issue. No religious institution would be forced to perform or recognize gay marriages. Marriage is a social institution, not exclusively a religious one. Will we pass a law preventing atheist heterosexual couples from going to the courthouse and getting married?

Supporters of this proposition appealed to peoples' fears about their children growing up in a world where gay marriage is accepted. What's to be scared of, unless you hold on to this archaic, absurd notion that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice"? Because, right, the social alienation that goes with being gay is so tempting that lots of people are making that choice, and many straight people--who, of course, chose at some point in their lives to be straight, because it is a choice after all--struggle with the urge to give in to being gay constantly, because being gay just looks like such a good option. No. Ridiculous. I am not gay but I am transgendered, and I can no more change that about myself than I can change the color of my eyes. And believe me, I spent many long, hard, painful years trying. For our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, this is part of who they are, and it should be celebrated as just another weave in the beautiful fabric of human diversity. Instead, we continue to discriminate against them, to put them on a lower platform in our society. This is every bit as hateful as denying someone a right because of the color of their skin, and those who supported Proposition 8 ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves. Your children are not going to be more likely to "turn gay" if they grow up in a world where gay marriage is accepted. Believe me, your children will be straight or gay because they are straight or gay. Giving them a world that is more accepting of this diversity would be a gift.

But even as I grieve for this setback, I know that it is temporary, and the efforts to impede progress will inevitably prove futile. With each passing generation, more and more of our young people grow up understanding that homosexuality is nothing to revile or fear. They grow up, not with the grating, reluctant tolerance expressed by Sarah Palin in her debate with Joe Biden, but a full-hearted acceptance of their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as their equals in every aspect, deserving of all the same rights. That we will get to the point where gay marriage is allowed, where future generations will look back on this decision with all the disbelief and disappointment in us that I felt as a child looking back on the idea that at one point certain citizens had been forced to sit in the back of the bus, I have no doubt whatsoever. This is the slow but sure path of progress that has characterized the history of this great nation.

I was so happy to be alive to see this great moment in America's history. God willing, I will live to see that one as well.