I skipped the HRC dinner this year, wasn't really feeling it for some reason. But one part of last Saturday's gala that seems quite touching is the speech made by "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Devil Wears Prada" star Anne Hathaway who talked about being the younger sister of a gay man: "In my household, being gay was, and is, no big deal. When my brother came out, we hugged him, said we loved him, and that was that."

My friend, Karen Ocamb, was not too impressed with the event and writes about it on The Bilerico Project. I have a lot of respect for Karen and consider her to be the best at covering politics related to the LGBT community. Here are a few snippets:

I was completely flummoxed by the Human Rights Campaign's gala in Los Angeles last Saturday - lots of tuxes and spots of inspiration but no real take-away message, except something about The Big Picture.

This is a critical election year but no one waltzed out jazzed about who's doing what to win the presidency or congressional races. And the critical effort to stop an antigay marriage constitutional amendment from making the California ballot this November only got a fleeting mention.

...Even the honorees - local heroes - didn't seem to know why they were being honored. Sweet Anne Hathaway said as much in her remarks, noting that being gay in her family was no big deal. And the others did not seem to have any direct connection to HRC or actually anything overtly political.