Gay rights: a strange week everywhere

President Obama seemed finally on the move toward ending don’t ask, don’t tell after 16 years. The California same-sex marriage case was inching toward its anticipated target, the U.S. Supreme Court. Gay rights supporters were beginning to see rays of hope. That was the beginning of this week.

Nearing week’s end, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had joined Adm. Mike Mullen in calling for an end to the policy, was saying we should not rush into anything. Former Secretary of State and Retired Army General Colin Powell had switched gears and said the onerous law should be changed. Judge Vaughn Walker had begun to sift through testimony in the Perry v Schwarzenegger — but you can watch it (well, a reenactment set up after cameras in the courtroom were barred) yourself if you’d like to second guess the unpredictable federal judge. It has been a strange week, and it’s not even Friday yet.

In the California capitol meanwhile, State Senator Mark Leno, an openly gay and widely influential state legislator, is pushing a bill to defuse religious opposition to same-sex marriage. The bill would alleviate clergy concern about their churches losing tax-exempt status by putting the word “civil” before “marriage,” thus clarifying the differences between civil and religious ceremonies. It would protect those unwilling to perform a marriage which conflicts with religious beliefs — an argument that featured prominently in the acrimonious debates leading to Proposition 8 ’s ban of same-sex unions.

Leno’s bill has the support of LGBT organization Equality California, whose executive director Geoff Kors says it will eliminate confusion, and of the pro-Prop 8 California Southern Baptist Convention, whose spokesman Terry Barone calls it “good legislation.”

We may never see bipartisanship in Washington, but when Equality California and the Southern Baptist Convention come out in support of the same legislation, it has to be a sign of progress. Or Mark Leno’s political wisdom. Or something.