If you thought that there was a safe haven for the LGBT community, you thought wrong. Another stronghold was lost with New York this past Wedneday. We can only hope for the best with the vote in New Jersey coming up next week, but have the leaders of our cause been learning the right lessons? Have they been reviewing the tapes and figuring out why we've been losing these big states?

President of the National Organization for Marriage, Maggie Gallagher, said, "The gay marriage movement usually looks very smart,” she said. “Now it looks flat-footed.”

Should gay marriage be put on the back burner and replaced by another LGBT issue like -
HR 1283 - Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 - Introduced in March
HR 3017 - Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 - Introduced in June
HR 3567 - Respect for Marriage Act of 2009 - introduced in September
HR 3827 - Every Child Deserves a Family Act - Introduced in October

Any of the above would be honorable causes, right?

With a crushing defeat of 24-38, the New York Senate slammed the door shut on marriage equality for our brothers and sisters in the former great state of New York. Hundreds gathered in the streets of Union Square to protest the vote, but should we really be angry with the Senate or should we be angry with the "leaders" at the top? By comparing our opponents to slave owners and nazis, did we truly expect for people to say, "Ya know what? Those gays are alright, lets support gay marriage" Yeah, right.

What will be the next step for the equal rights movement? What role will the national organizations play in the coming 2010 year? How about the grassroots organzations? Will we march again? Nobody knows... that's the scary part.

One by one, the rights of my brothers and sisters are being stripped away, and the nation looks on as if it were just another day.

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. " -Martin Luther King Jr.