I said on The Bert Show how surreal I thought it was to watch “The Visible Vote ‘08” on LOGO television Thursday night. The fact that prominent Democratic candidates felt it important enough to participate in a presidential debate geared specifically toward the gay community…..well, you just have to understand the gay community is almost trained to know people hate them and will reject them at any given moment.

Overall my biggest complaint regarding the input of the candidates at the forum, was on the issue of same sex marriage. Predictably the "lesser" candidates were for it, since they have nothing to lose.

Barack stayed safer in his responses, while John and Hillary seemed more "honest" on their stance of being against same sex marriage.

However, I felt Hillary said it far better than anyone in being realistic about what to expect, and how we've come so far in such a short time. Hard to hear, but true. She asked the audience to remember is was only a couple of years ago when there was an effort to change the Constitution to ban same sex marriage. But I can’t stand the idea that it is ok to reinforce to us that Civil Unions are a good thing, same rights with simply a different title.

My girlfriend and I came up with an easy-to-understand comparison as to why the term Civil Unions leaves such a bad taste. Try telling interracial couples that their marriages will now be called civil unions, and same-race couples would be considered married. That would also be a case of having the same rights with just a different term . . . and tell them not to be so concerned with ‘semantics.’ Outrage would ensue. There is a judgment built in to that difference in the title.

I have never lived my life thinking I'm different, and I can't start now. I plan to be married someday.