I'm really sorry for what you went through. There aren't words strong enough for how wrong it was. But I think you need to re-read my comments. I specifically said it wasn't an either/or situation, that there are indeed injustices. And I specifically said the ban on gay marriages is wrong and must change. I never advocated settling for things as they are. But that does not mean there are not ovveractions in our culture, or that people don't overplay the victim card.

What happened to you was terrible. It's also, you'd have to admit, in this day and age rare. Your experience sounds like the awful things that happened to so many gays in the 80's in the first throws of the AIDS epidemic, when families would swoop down on their relatives (only when they were about to die; they'd abandoned them before that) and literally bar the partner from the hospital. I know people from that time who lost everything: their lover, every physical memory of him, and even their own family scrapbooks with pictures of their mothers and grandmothers totally unrelated to the lover's family.

But I know of no one in the past few decades who has gone through anything like that. Hospital rules have changed. Legal documents have been drawn up. Families have a different relationship to their gay relatives. I'm really, really sorry it happened to you. But you're the only person I've heard of who has experienced anything like this in the past twenty years. I know that won't effect your feelings about it, since it did indeed happen to you, but it doesn't represent the status quo.

Of course I support gay marriage. Of course I think we should continue to fight for it. But I can hardly look at myself as a second-class citizen, or complain that I'm excluded or abused by society. Can I point to specific people who don't respect me or my way of life? Sure. But I can't point to society as a whole. Considering the visibility, and support for, gays and lesbians across the country, it's impossible to do so. Geez, a middle American state allows gay marriage. And it isn't the only state in the country which does so. Doesn't that tell you something?

And it isn't older gays who are the self-victimizers, and it has nothing to do with the closet. It's gays in their 20's/30's/40's who freak out every time everything isn't perfect. What system is perfect?

Yes, there is a lot of self-victimization going on, and some of you are demonstrating in response to me, as if the only trouble you or any gay man or woman faces is the outside world, rather than your own perceptions. As if it's one or the other: either there are hate crimes and legal hurdles or there are just a lot of silly personal overreactons. In fact, there are both hostile outside forces (at times) and silly personal overreactions (at times).

Harvey Milk was fired from a job because he was seen with a man at the opera. Now companies provide health insurance for partners. People used to be rounded up for being in gay bars, and had their names printed in the newspaper, ruining their lives forever. Now online dating services pride themselves on setting up gay as well as straight couples, and any gay man or woman who isn't looking for companionship is asked if everyting is okay? That's huge progress. The media is filled with postive gay images. Hate crimes are illegal and any instance of it brings law enforcement and public sentiment down on the aggressors' heads. People with HIV are actually living long lives thanks to the medical community banding together to fight the virus.

And yet what do I hear? Complaining, whining, the world isn't perfect, "I can't get married yet so I'm surrounded by nothing but hatred and second-class citizenship." Get a grip. The opportunities and freedoms we enjoy have never been greater.

Do movies need color to hold our attention? Or stereo/surround sound? (Or come to think of it, sound at all?) Or widescreen images? No, but used effectively, they are certainly a bonus.

If 3-D directors can get beyond slinging things in our faces and just allow us to appreciate seeing images in the round—giving us the quality of live theater with the expansiveness of cinema—that could be great. Set and costume designers could create a much more organic, live-in, or (if this is the objective of the movie in question) highly stylized world. That could be entertaining, and the ambition for such things is clearly what drives the HDTV movement.

I do agree that the issue in queston is whether the device will be used to create better, more fully developed productions, or just as a gimmick to grab our attention. My guess is that as long as we have to wear glasses, we're going to be too concentrated on the newness to just relax and take it as part of the overall package. I think stereo would have never caught on if each audience member had to use a set of earplugs to appreicate it. When and if they create a 3-D device that can be viewed with the naked eye, then the technology will become part of the standard movie experience. And the movie exerience will likely be improved as a result.