Friday, May. 10, 2002 - 1:04 p.m.
HOORAY!

Much of the current gay rights agenda bores me. That’s not to say I don’t support much of it; I do. But the homo politicos’ current preoccupations—same-sex spousal benefits and the struggle for queer marriage—do not rouse me the way more (to my mind) important and basic issues of queer equality, health and justice do. I don’t think we do enough to counter homophobic violence, or enough about unsafe sex among gay men; these issues deserve scads more attention and energy than the arguably misguided attempt to ape heterosexuality’s least-successful of institutions.

Today, however, comes a victory that’s worth celebrating. That courageous 17 year old gay student in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada has won his court case: the mean-spirited decision of the Catholic school board has just been overturned by a judge and Marc Hall will be able to attend tonight’s high school prom with his boyfriend.

I am giddy. I feel like dancing.

Not only is this another blow to the evil Catholic patriarchy, but a brave young man has fought for—and won—something unthinkable when I was seventeen: Marc Hall gets a happy and gay memory of a high school social event.