Clearly America’s successes since the 1690′s have been illusory; in reality, she has only moved her witch hunts and trials from Salem to Silicon Valley.

Well, I have known gay people and loved gay people and buried gay people and fed gay people and edited gay people and argued on their behalf, even when it has at times meant facing opposition from my co-religionists. It seems to me some “official gay folk” need to step up, and speak up for the basic human right of free speech and free thought for all people — without fear of poverty and social stigma.

Let me be clear: I hold out absolutely no hope that this chill wind will be checked or reversed — too many people with money and influence and no individual courage at all find totalitarianism an alluring idea. Nevertheless, though everything is part illusion, I’ll still resist and say, as Tom McDonald so succinctly puts it, “this shit has to stop.”