After the outrage that many conservatives expressed when – a grossly exaggerated – 75,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., to protest government spending on things like health care, I could only assume that the Equality March which took place on The Mall in D.C. Oct. 11 would have also been covered. Yet it too received almost no air time and I can’t understand why.

The fact that people are even still arguing against gay marriage at this point in time is exasperating.

Thinking that the most basic rights to family and partnership are still denied to so many in this country makes me bone-tired in a way that few other issues do.

I feel as though all I can do is take some comfort in the fact that my grandchildren will look on the anti-gay marriage crowd as most of my peers now look on those who once denied interracial couples their rights.

With derision.

Or maybe at best remember these times with a pitying “Well, really, back then most people just didn’t know any better.”

However, a federal judge in San Francisco gave me a little bit of hope this past weekend.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker asked lawyer Charles Cooper (who was representing the same group that sponsored Proposition 8) how allowing gay marriage would threaten heterosexual unions.

Cooper’s response? “I don’t know.”

He later elaborated on this response to essentially say that he in fact did not know, but there could be unforeseen bad consequences.

Is this the argument that anti-gay marriage groups have finally been driven down to?

A sorry “I don’t know but it could be bad!” is now the official statement given against equal rights?

It’s bizarre but at the same time it makes we feel as though perhaps we are moving forward after all even if it is at the pace of one step forward, two steps back.

Cooper had requested that Judge Walker dismiss the case, an action that would make gay marriage even more difficult to attain.

Not only did Walker deny the request, but he suggested that it may be a good idea for Cooper to have some actual evidence that same-sex marriages would undermine opposite-sex marriages.

It’s nice to see a judge really hitting the anti-marriage group where it hurts (in the realm of factual evidence from an objective source) but this means that the constitutionality of Proposition 8 is finally being questioned in court.

I never found anything about a measure that serves only to take away rights to be particularly constitutional to begin with.

So I can only hope that what we’re witnessing is a step that will ultimately be towards equality.

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