The Bush-Cheney years have been a petri dish of neoconservative policy, quasi-theocratic legal victories, and state-sponsored bigotry that has bred contempt and persecution for gay men, lesbians, and transgenders. The “unity” ticket could be that first important building block to address many of the queer community’s concerns. Clinton, the policy wonk, is comfortable discussing LGBT issues with gay groups and is on a first-name basis with many leading activists. She’s the more practical partner, knowing the structures and systems that could be easily maximized to achieve rights for our community. Obama doesn’t seem as comfortable talking to our groups -- at least not yet -- but brings another impressive asset: The senator talks about our issues to mainstream audiences.

Just four years ago, when unprecedented turnout by born-again "values voters" was credited with ensuring George W. Bush's re-election, the political face of evangelicalism was Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, screeching red-faced to football-sized crowds about gay marriage as "the Waterloo," "Gettysburg" and a force that "will destroy the earth."

Now the Moral Majority generation of Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly, the folks who fired up politically apathetic born-again Christians in the 1970s by declaring war on public schools, abortion rights, gay rights and "liberalism," has lost its grip on the movement--partly by refusing to expand their agendas to suit a rising generation of younger evangelicals who care more about global warming than winning elections for corporate Republicans, more about combating poverty than denouncing homosexuality. With one-quarter of Americans identifying themselves as evangelicals--about 4 percent more than those who say they're mainline Protestants--the political stakes could hardly be higher. But the political upshot could hardly be murkier.

Is there a compelling public interest in preventing loving, committed, same-sex couples from getting legally married? The clear answer is no. Ask Canada. Ask Spain. Ask South Africa. Ask Massachusetts!

The real compelling public interest is in ending bigotry and discrimination. It's being true to our nation's values of freedom, fairness, justice and equality. We cannot and should not be able to regulate what individuals think and believe. But when it comes to what the government does, it must treat everyone equally. This includes same-sex couples and their families.

Years ago, the last time this gays-in-Scouting dust-up made it onto my radar, my brothers and I -- all three of us are Eagle Scouts -- fretted over the right expression of dissent. We considered sending back our Eagle badges, as others did, in protest. That we ultimately didn't says less about the extent of our outrage than our pride in achieving something fewer than 1% of Scouts manage. I worked hard for that -- suffered, even -- and, ashamedly in retrospect, I wasn't willing to give it up in the name of principle.

For me, the edification of Scouting came in the form of lifelong calls for strong community, an awareness of one's effect on the natural world, self-reliance and leadership skills. (Camping, however, remains just above waterboarding on my list of favorite activities.) To claim that these qualities are somehow reserved for heterosexuals, either as teachers or students, is to miss the point entirely.