[Zerbie]

You are not the only one to have that thought, TJ. You're not alone at all.

At this point in time, TJ, yes, to think that way is overreacting. But if things get worse, at some future time it's possible that it might be an appropriate reaction to have. Things are falling into place to make life significantly worse for queerfolk, and some of the gains we've made *could* be rolled back. It *could* happen. Not it *will* happen.

All my intuition says that things can go in any direction from here. I have no sense that there is a need for us to flee. To the contrary, I feel that now is the time for us to stand our ground.

But please don't feel alone when you have those scary thoughts. I'll confess to you that I'm very afraid of something terrible happening to gays in America, and by terrible I mean worse than the things we've seen so far. But I believe that fear is irrational at the present moment.

It is a conversation I've had with my friends many times. At some time in the past year and half, ALL of us have had the very same question you just posted, TJ. The parallels between the US now and Germany in the 1930s are striking, and it is NOT an exaggeration to make some analogy between them. But at this point, talk of running away is overreactive, yes.

We need to wait and see what happens in November. Consider: with Iraq a monumental disaster, with Katrina a hideous disaster, with illegal spying scandals, with the Abramoff scandal, what have right wing republicans to stand on? Anti-gay bias, basically, along with anti-immigration bias out here in the southwest. But nationwide, it's going to be anti-gay. With 7 outta 10 folk opposed to gay marriage, whaddaya think is going to shore up the vote for the right this election season?

Expect things to be very ugly for the next 7 months. Then we should expect a change of some kind, who knows what, after the elections. It's a year from now that we will probably see better the direction the country is going in, as far as our community is concerned.