We have a proposition on the ballot here in California, Proposition 8, that bans same sex marriage that seems to have passed 52 to 48 percent. Voters in the bay area counties voted against it by percentages ranging from 60 to 40, 70 to 30 percent, but the interior more conservative counties seem to have voted in majorities large enough to carry it.

I've never really understood the energy that drives proponents who want to pass this kind of legislation. For me it's pretty much a civil rights issue. The idea that it will erode marriage as an institution seems ludicrous. When you see groups advocating laws that harm others, justifying them in the name of The Lord, you think lynch mob. I suspect they've never really read the bible, wouldn't have a clue how Jesus (that radical bastard) would have reacted. They put him up on a cross, after all, for advocating things the establishment didn't like. “Do unto others....” and stuff like that.

But what the hell, sections of this country were segregated when I was born, they lynched people of color for the hell of it, and today they/we elected a black man President. Times can change more quickly than any of us ever thought. The gay thing will straighten itself out as people my age die over time and the youngsters take our place.

That seems to be one of your sore points.

Gay wasn't something I can remember even hearing about until I was in, say, high school, and even then it wasn't something anyone I knew thought about. In college I'd occasionally hear “jokes” and the like and I recognized for the first time that one or two people I knew were probably gay. When I moved to San Francisco I met gay people who were out and not worried about it. I met gay women (some of whom, I discovered, would occasionally fool around with the guys if the mood was right). I met gay men (none of whom tried to sneak into my bedroom at night). All this concurrent with the civil rights movement, learning embarrassingly for the first time some of the less pleasant realities of living black in my own country. They roll together, for me.

Later. Up this morning without feeling particularly dizzy (the bleeding has stopped) which is good. A touch of vertigo crossing the street after breakfast to take the gas price photograph (sixteen cents in one day!), but otherwise OK. Since the sprained toe has been progressing nicely, I may even stick my nose out the door, take a walk, take chances, experiment!