Educating The Already-Tolerant

We gays have work to do. A reader writes:

You wrote:

So many sympathetic straights just don't know the kind of inequality gays live with all the time. What does that say about the effectiveness of the leading gay rights groups?

Just this week, I attended a forum of candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination to run for one of the seats to the California Assembly.  The candidates were asked whether they would vote for the Marriage Equality bill when it is introduced yet again. (It has been approved twice, and twice been vetoed by Schwarzenegger.)  Four of five said they will support the bill.  Almost as troubling as the one candidate who said he will not support marriage, was the reasoning of one of the supporters.

The supporter said that if gays and lesbians feel more equal because they can get "that piece of paper," then that should be the law.  The other comments he made demonstrated that he has no understanding of the very real legal and financial problems that have are created by the soup of varying partnership laws around the country and by DOMA's ban on federal recognition of state civil union, domestic partnership and same gender marriage laws.

LGBT political groups have worked hard to convince politicians that they can safely vote for LGBT legislation, but appear not to have worked to educate them about why they should support these laws.  It's disturbing.