Dear Maggie Gallagher,

I just watched the video you made concerning the victory of anti-marriage equality advocates in Maine.

And though we’ve never met (a product, no doubt, of some great cosmic alignment of the stars in the universe — one that I consider myself grateful for every single day), I feel as though I know you. So I felt compelled to write to you this morning, in the hopes we might better understand each other.

In your video, you say we are stunned and hurt and upset over the loss in Maine. You’re right, Maggie. We are. We’re stunned that the “Yes on 1″ campaign used the same revolting, slanderous messages that have been used against us for years — that we’re child predators, that our marriages would rob people of religious freedom, that all we want is to indoctrinate children into the big scary horror that is Homosexuality. We’re hurt that people still believe all that nonsense, that decent, intelligent Americans still fall prey to such blatant fear-mongering from people who can’t use actual arguments against ours. And we’re very upset, Maggie. We’re upset that for the second time in a very short time, strangers have been given the power to decide how the law treats other people, and strangers have decided for gay men and women whether or not they can keep the right to codify and protect their relationship.

See, Mags (can I call you Mags? Come on, I mean it with affection. I nickname all my friends, and we’re friends, aren’t we?), I watched your video, and I realized you have absolutely no idea what we’re stunned, hurt or upset about. And if we’re going to be pals, I think you should at least take the time to know something real about me. So, lend me your ear, Mags, because I want to let you in on the secret you’re missing, the little piece of the puzzle you haven’t fully figured out yet.

With a little devilish twinkle in your eye (and don’t think I didn’t see it there, because I did! I so did! The mediocre webcam lighting didn’t fool me for a second!), I saw you talk about our loss with a barely repressed glee — we lost and you guys won! — and every time you mentioned us you called us “advocates” or some other impersonal nomenclature, and all of a sudden, I got it. I got you, Mags. Finally. After such a long time of not getting you.

This fight — You think it’s all about ballot boxes and campaigns and videos and votes and which states you win and which ones you lose and what commercials can we run on which stations and what do the polls say and how can we beat them, how can we win?

For us, it’s not about that at all. For us… it’s our lives, Mags.

Fess up, Mags. You can tell me the truth. Because I’m not going to tell anyone (seriously, nobody reads this, don’t worry): It’s a game to you, right? Because that’s easy, right? It’s easier just to create these cartoon versions of actual cultural moments because to actually deal with what’s happening and with real people’s lives would be complicated and harder to spin? It’s just a way to cast people in roles that make them feel good about themselves (you know, you’re the little guy standing up against the big bad monolith and if we all just stick together — and donate some funds to the cause — we’re gonna bring that big bad monolith down! Right? I’m right. Come on, Mags. You can tell me.)

Mags, I have to share this with you, because I feel we’ve become close: you remind me of someone. Well, a bunch of someones actually.

We have these women all across Lafayette (I’m in Lafayette, Louisiana, nice little city in south Louisiana, you should stop by!), these women who have wealthy husbands and really terrific houses (in River Ranch, it’s our planned community, kind of creepy if you ask me) and they have very little to do with their time other than wait in their really terrific houses for their wealthy husbands to come home in the evenings, so their days are filled with the pursuit of Meaning — not little old regular meaning, but Capital M Meaning, the kind that transforms a life from a collection of connected days to a living, breathing agent of change in the world.

They look for Meaning everywhere — in every club, gathering, organization they can think of (because nothing says Meaning like being in a room with other people looking for Meaning as well, right? Meaning by association! Awesome!) — and when they find a message they can wrap their mind around, they grab onto it with a vice grip and wrestle it to the ground, they take that message and tuck it into the deepest part of who they are and they repeat it and shout it until the message takes root there and becomes less of a message and more of an identity, a signpost of worth, a foundation upon which Meaning can be built.

They don’t have to believe the message. It doesn’t matter if it’s true to them or true in any sense of the word. It just has to work with others. Because when your Meaning is wrapped up in a message, the only way to sustain it is for others to agree with you.

You remind me of those women, Mags. All this shrieking and hyperbole and grand religious metaphor — it doesn’t sound to me like a belief. It sounds to me like a grasp at Meaning.

Because there are a lot of people in this country who still get scared of men like me, right? And all it takes is a little grandstanding, a nicely chosen word, a little divisive rhetoric and all of a sudden, those people are looking to you with admiration, looking to you for guidance, and you’re getting on TV and the news and suddenly Maggie Gallagher isn’t just someone’s name — it Means something.

I don’t blame you, Mags. Everyone wants Meaning. But you’re earning on the backs of people like me, people who work hard, contribute positive things to the community, who love with honesty and integrity and who don’t deserve to be slandered and spit on and attacked in the way your organization has attacked us.

That’s not cool, Mags. And there are times when I suspect you know it. Because while others may just dismiss you as a raving lunatic with delusions of grandeur (just saying what I’ve heard), I think there are nights when you turn out the light and lie there in dark and you know, in the secret place we all have inside of us, that what you’re doing is wrong.

Next time you have one of those nights, think about me, Mags. I’ll be in the dark in some other part of the world, and I’ll be sleeping well. Because I haven’t built my sense of self on the backs of anyone. I found Meaning in the right place — within myself.

Be well, Maggie Gallagher. I look forward to your next video.

1. Why does  anyone care what former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair thinks?

2. Should  lame duck governor Jon Corzine sign a gay marriage bill?  At first blush, I say no.

3. Why do people always include the word “hot” when they use the term Latin band.

4. Will pushing for gay marriage save New York’s David Paterson?

5. This story about  premature aging for some who are on HIV medications, proves again why safe sex is important. Wear a condom peoples.

6. Congratulations to Charles Pugh and Sandra Kurt. Local elections are just as critical as the national ones.

7. No work for me today. Levi Johnston is apparently in New York for his Playgirl photo shoot.

8. Anyone have any Palm Springs Pride stories? Please if you want to moan about how ashamed you are about Dykes on Bikes or some other “freaks”, keep the diatribe to a minimum. We all know gay marriage would be the law of the land if gays and lesbians just wore J. Crew and acted right.

9. Discovered Hill Street Blues on Hulu. I’m screwed.

10. Too many books. Not enough time.

Though it looked likely, it was still nice to see the official announcement that the “everything but marriage” ballot initiative passed in Washington State. Now, I know that Washington is a much more liberal state than Maine and equating the two would be a mistake. But I wonder, how much the removal of the word marriage assisted in the ballot victory?

Read More: Ruby-Sachs: Why Not Go For Everything But Marriage Everywhere?

Let’s end a tiring week (the Maine vote and yesterday’s Fort Hood incident) on some levity. Former reverend and present fame supplicant Ted Haggard is returning to spiritual guidance. In his living room. Read More: Withers: Haggard won’t ever be quiet

After the announcement today about the Fort Worth Bar Raid, I think it’s about time we had a frank discussion about police officers. Throughout LGBT history in the United States, the gay/trans community has been pitted against police. It’s police, in fact, who inspire our holiest of high holidays: Pride.  The clashes are universal, span from coast to coast and need to stop.

But it’s not suspensions and internal reports that are going to end this problem.

To be a police officer in Fort Worth, TX one must have completed high school or achieved a G.E.D. And that’s it. No diploma from a community college. No college degree. No Masters program in criminology or forensics or law. Then officers are trained, by the police force rather than an independent body.

A Lieutenant in the Fort Worth police department gets paid $36,000 a year.

But police officers are outfitted with guns, given immense amounts of power and asked to make sophisticated legal decisions in an instant. Are we surprised that they screw up a lot? Are we surprised that the people they recruit are not the most open-minded, educated members of a community?

The Fort Worth police department wants to solve this problem by doling out a few suspensions or by instituting training that considers the rights and experiences of LGBT community members.

I think there’s no chance the Fort Worth Texas police force, or pretty much any police force, is going to improve their relationship with the LGBT community until we start insisting the officers get more life experience and academic training, the salaries increase to be competitive with degree requirements and the force itself start to take its job seriously enough that bare minimum standards just aren’t good enough anymore.

A 365Gay history lesson: last year before the Proposition 8 vote, I wished it failed because I knew a few would jump on the “black people are such homophobes” line. Unfortunately Golden State citizens voted against marriage equality and that tired memo got a lot of play here and elsewhere. Research the site and read the comments. They ranged from folk informing me how “my brothers and sisters” screwed over the LGBT community to suggestions it would be a good idea for gays to discriminate against blacks in retaliation. Look at the stuff if you want. Read More: Withers: Why no race blame game after the Maine loss?

We lost in Maine. And that loss… well, it sucks. No point in trying to describe it otherwise.

So, now what?

For starters, if you’re not — come out. To your family, to your friends, to the people you work with. Show the people around you that there’s a face and a name and a life attached to losses like these. The people who go into voting booths and cast votes against our community more than likely only know us in the abstract — in the horrible ads that ran in California and Maine, in the pathetic, hate-filled diatribes of people like James Dobson and Maggie Gallagher, in the hellfire and brimstone damnations delivered from pulpits — and in the abstract, we are easy to reject.

But when we aren’t just an abstraction, when they know what we’re like, what we do, how we conduct our lives and that we move in the same circles and same world as they do, there’s a much better chance of changing their minds. And we can only do that if we’re out. Yes, it sometimes comes with great risk, but we’re seeing the cost of staying in the closet. Maine is the cost. California is the cost.

Secondly, we need to stop blaming the rest of the world for taking marriage away from us and channel that energy into fighting for it. It’s easy to get angry today and call the voters in Maine bigots and rant and rage and point fingers and stew. But what does that accomplish? Not a single thing. You want change? Then work towards it. If you’re spending five minutes today being angry at Maine voters, I hope you spent five minutes calling voters in Maine, urging them to vote “no,” sent emails, wrote a blog, did something, anything — otherwise, you’re wasting time and energy. Anger is only useful when it’s turned into something. Otherwise, it’s an empty emotion, and we’re no closer to victory than we were before.

Finally, we need to start thinking and acting like a real community. This morning, I saw angry missives and comments online from friends of mine over the results of Maine. But those same people, in the weeks leading up to the vote, weren’t talking about it or thinking about it or caring about it. What happens to gay couples in Maine affects gay couples in Idaho affects single gay men in Mississippi affects gay people, coupled or not, everywhere. We’re a community, and until we really start caring about what happens to each and every one of us, nothing will change for any of us. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in marriage or don’t want to be married — act for those in your community who do. Because we’ll stand up for your freedoms when the time comes.

Let’s look toward the next fight. Let’s educate ourselves. Let’s unify as a community. Let’s act. Abandon everything else.

Learn something from this loss. Otherwise, we lost marriage for nothing.

There will be finger pointing today. All unfair. The Maine loss stings and nothing will change that; however, the marriage equality advocates made a valiant argument. Right now the argument isn’t changing enough minds. Read More: Withers: It’s never easy

I was not expecting the news to look like that this morning!

Yes, it was not surprising to learn that New Jersey and Virginia both elected Republican Governors – though it is deeply saddening. But I could not have predicted a loss in the tiny, liberal, free state of Maine.

Yesterday, I posted a story talking about fundraising in LGBT causes and how central the money raised was to a successful push for LGBT rights. Maine, the state we have all been watching closely for months, had a strong pro-rights group with a significant fundraising lead over the opposition. I was sure, sure, that the dollars would translate into successful votes on an issue where spin is so central to individual political affiliations.

But, the morning after, many are saying that the same old arguments – they’ll teach your kids to be gay in schools, children will no longer have mothers and fathers, marriage will be meaningless for everyone – resonated with the public. At this point, I have to agree. There is something about the fear tactic that works.

Perhaps because fear tactics have always worked. When working to promote rights at the ballot box, we are asking people to accept an unknown, to extend benefits and to do so with no concrete benefit to themselves. They are being told that this extension of rights will have concrete negative effects on their quality of life and quality of life for their children. Many don’t want to take the risk.

Identifying the fear is important.

Things that people are afraid of take a long time to happen. But they most often do. Over time, the barriers break down, the arguments for the other side lose their cache, and people start to feel like they were just ridiculous for ever believing that a silly thing like marriage could affect their lives at all.

We will get there. Slowly, but surely. And this morning, I recognize just how difficult that optimism is to hold onto.

WNYC radio announced the Associated Press is calling New York City for Bloomberg.