What a concept. A government leader actually openly supportting gay people and civil unions. No, I'm NOT talking about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama who are hesitant to speak out against those who call homosecuality "immoral."
I'm talking about British Prime Minister Tony Blai8r who spoke last night at the Stonewall Equality dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in central London. Here are the parts of his remarks that I found the most inspiring:

"... I think civil partnerships is really the thing … as I was saying to people earlier, it doesn’t just give you a lot of pride, but it actually brought real joy.I don’t know whether you remember the very first day, and it was quite a bizarre circumstance that the first ceremonies were actually in Northern Ireland."

Laughter

"I was so struck by it, it was so alive, I remember actually seeing the pictures on television. It is not often that you sort of skip around in my job, I can assure you, But it really the fact that that the people were so happy and the fact that you felt just one major, major change had happened, of which everyone can feel really proud. And now I think we were just saying, was it 16,000 civil partnerships, and what is interesting now is that other countries in Europe are looking at this legislation, and it is very divisive still in Spain and Italy at the moment. But nonetheless it is happening."

"This is my second reflection about it all: There are a whole load of different pieces of legislation, which I will not rehearse here, but what has happened is that the culture of the country has changed in a definable way as a result of it. And here is what I think is really interesting. The change in the culture and the civilising effect of it has gone far greater than the gay and lesbian community. ..If you allow discrimination to fester, that is a complete rejection of that modernising and civilising notion."

Wise words. Blair has made mistakes in his 10 years in office (Iraq war?) but his attitudes toward gay people will forever endear him to me and to many others. Our leaders in the U.S. could learn a lot from Blair in this area.