Tokyo Disneyland condoned this and all future same-sex ceremonies after receiving an inquiry from Higashi. Cue a confused response from a subsidiary, Oriental Land Company, which licenses the name and characters from Disney in the United States.

Higashi, 27, and her partner could “marry” at the park, they were told, but only if they dressed “like a man and a woman.” Park officials were worried that other visitors might be offended by the sight of two women in wedding dresses or morning suits.

The park relented on the dress code after a storm of protest on Twitter and other social media networks — it had all been a misunderstanding by an individual employee, it said — but the couple will not be allowed to exchange vows in the park’s chapel due to “Christian teachings.”

Those restrictions go to the heart of the flimsy protection offered to the rights of LGBT people in Japan, say campaigners. Homosexuality is not illegal, but same-sex marriages are not legally recognized.

“There needs to be more pressure for legal unions between gay people in Japan,” said Taiga Ishikawa, one of only a handful of openly gay politicians in the country. “This is only a guess, but I’d say there are more people now who are in long-term relationships and want that to be recognized in the form of a civil partnership.”

The 37-year-old, who won a seat on the Toshima Ward assembly in Tokyo last year, is campaigning to introduce an ordinance in the area to offer some form of marital recognition and to increase the number of administrative rights and services afforded to same-sex couples. But he admits that it’s “some way off.”

If Disneyland was being held up as an agent of progress, one of Japan’s most popular celebrities popped up to demonstrate that, in some quarters, ignorance reigns.

Commenting on TV on President Barack Obama’s recent declaration of support for gay marriages in the US, the film director and comedian Takeshi Kitano told a fellow guest: “Obama supports gay marriage. You would support marriage between humanoid and animals eventually, then,” before questioning the ability of gay couples to raise children.

Kitano has since tried to explain his outburst: “I was only talking about people who love their pets so much that they may think of marrying them,” AFP reported him as saying. “There is no way I look at gay people in the same way as I do animals, let alone implying sexual relations with animals.”

His were not the first comments with homophobic overtones to be made by a high-profile public figure in Japan. In late 2010, Shintaro Ishihara, the outspoken governor of Tokyo, suggested gay people were “deficient” after watching same-sex couples take part in a parade in San Francisco. “We have even got homosexuals casually appearing on television,” he said. “Japan has become far too untamed.”

Yuji Kitamaru, a journalist who writes about LGBT issues, said he was “very disappointed” by Kitano’s remarks, particularly as he has spoken up for minorities, including transgender people, in the past. “I felt it was a big betrayal not only to us and the audience, but also to himself. Public figures like Kitano can easily indulge in that kind of bigotry because Japanese people in general haven’t considered the difference between public discourse and private gossip.”

Yet Kitamaru, who has written on LGBT issues in Japan for two decades, believes social media has quickly become the forum for a more open discussion about sexuality, citing Twitter’s role in the Disneyland decision and a meeting held in Ni-chome, a gay neighborhood of Tokyo, to thank Obama for his support.

Higashi and her partner, meanwhile, have visited Disneyland to break their good news to Mickey Mouse. They have yet to set a date for the wedding, and there are reports that their inquiries were intended only to test the theme park’s commitment to equality.

Ishikawa welcomed Disneyland’s decision, which apparently came after officials in Tokyo contacted the company’s US headquarters. “I wrote 10 years ago that I looked forward to the day when gay and lesbian couples could hold hands and go to Tokyo Disneyland, so I’m very happy,” he said. “But we’re still not at the point where a man or woman can tell people, especially co-workers, that they have a same-sex partner.”

In March, Ravi was convicted of charges of bias and intimidation stemming from the death of Clementi, his Rutgers roommate, whom he had secretly filmed, in Ravi’s words, “making out with a dude.” It was a story that reverberated around the world, and helped invigorate the anti-bullying movement. As Judge Glenn Berman handed down the sentence Monday afternoon, calling Ravi’s actions “offensive and unconscionable,” he said that he would not recommend deportation. But the judge did pointedly tell Ravi, “I haven’t heard you apologize once” for his callous behavior. And he said he made “no comment” regarding any further civil actions the Clementis might take.

Though Berman said he believed the sentence “disenchanted both sides,” it’s one that shows respect for the law as it stands in New Jersey. It also offers what Berman calls the “hopeful” possibility that Ravi — and others who have so cavalierly shamed and exploited people — might learn something about the quality of mercy. Maybe all those hours of service can teach Ravi something he, as an 18-year-old college freshman, was so devastatingly lacking.

In her remarks to the court Monday, Clementi’s mother tearfully said that a piece of her died when her child killed himself. And M.B., the anonymous young man whom Ravi secretly recorded with Clementi in September 2010, said in a statement to the court that while he bore Ravi no malice, he “just wanted him to acknowledge that he had done wrong and take responsibility for his conduct.” That atonement isn’t something a judge can impose. And it’s a statement Ravi has yet to make.

Then there’s the subtler version. The kind where you look around one day and suddenly realize that gay people have been building families and creating homes together this whole time. They’re your neighbors. They’re your fellow parents on the PTA. And they are totally the couple building an amazing new deck this weekend. For 18 years now, HGTV has been a steadfast force for exactly that kind of tolerance, simply by advancing the radical notion that homosexuals are out there in the world obtaining mortgages and painting their interiors just like straight people.

It’s not that LGBT-friendly content doesn’t exist elsewhere on television. I mean, Christ, have you ever seen Bravo? We could start with Andy Cohen and not even get around to “Project Runway” for days. There are entire gay-oriented networks, like Logo. But what distinguishes HGTV is both its durability and its ordinariness.

HGTV doesn’t trade in drama or high camp; it doesn’t offer “Wig Parties and Threesomes” stereotypes. Sure, one might suggest that the network’s high population of flamboyant gay designers panders to a different kind of typecasting. But the presence of hosts like David Bromstad and the married, father of two Vern Yip seems more like a logical, ordinary reflection of the makeup of the field. It’s also likely why there are so many gay contestants on its competitions as well. Just look at last year’s “Design Star” combatants, which included the lesbian former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader (and mother of four) Leslie Ezelle, and “average gay dad” Tyler Wisler.

More significant than its regular on-air talent pool, however, is the network’s consistent depiction of America’s gay and lesbian population as normal, carpooling, Home Depot-shopping folks whose agenda includes upgrading the kitchen backsplash. Far from the cavalcade of dysfunction on networks like TLC, the network regularly presents typical families of different ages and ethnicities — some of whom happen to be same-sex — on shows like “Property Virgins” and “House Hunters,” where the most shocking element of an odyssey is likely to be the property’s price tag.

That a network built around design would position itself as gay-friendly might seem like a no-brainer. But it’s also a network that  still has an overwhelmingly female core audience that isn’t necessarily going to identify with male same-sex couples. But by depicting a variety of couples and families, the Scripps-owned empire is broadening its base and appealing to a wider demographic. It’s also reflecting the reality of contemporary America.  As “Property Virgins” casting director Michael Barrick said when he put out the call for Atlanta-area LGBT parents last month, “I do prefer to see as diverse a population featured on television as possible. People like to watch a show that they can relate with, be it black, white, Asian, interracial, gay and straight. If they don’t see that representation, they are more likely to change the channel – and that is something as a casting director, that I just don’t want to see.”

There are still plenty of people out there stuck with antiquated ideals. Some of them are even running for president. But the fact that the American family doesn’t always resemble an Eisenhower-era sitcom is something more and more of us accept. It’s been a long time coming and it’s still a work in progress, but our American image of home and family is, in the words of the president, evolving. It evolves when a law is changed or a leader speaks out. And it evolves when two guys buy a house together on basic cable, and then another two, and another two, and the two ladies. Suddenly it’s not weird or unique or groundbreaking at all. It’s improvement. One home at a time.

OK, it’s generally accepted that invoking Sodom and Gomorrah in general — and Sodom and Gomorrah of Old, in particular — is not going to win anybody a seat at the GLAAD awards. Sure enough, Pacquiao’s statements quickly set off a chain of angry and just plain disappointed responses from across the Net, where Pacquiao has been celebrated as a Filipino icon, and beloved for his humanitarian works. On Tuesday evening, the Los Angeles shopping center the Grove, where Pacquiao was to be interviewed for “Extra,” called off the event. “Based on news reports of statements made by Mr. Pacquiao,” read a statement from the center’s spokesman Bill Reich, “we have made it be known that he is not welcome at the Grove and will not be interviewed here now or in the future. The Grove is a gathering place for all Angelenos and not a place for intolerance.”

It’s a relatively free country, which means that the Catholic Pacquiao is welcome to express his views, even views many of us find backward and exclusionary. In return, a business like a shopping mall may choose to decline his patronage. What is not OK is what happened along the way.

You see, within the original Examiner.com piece, Ampong went off on a bit of biblical tangent. “Pacquiao’s directive for Obama calls societies to fear God and not to promote sin, inclusive of same-sex marriage and cohabitation,” he wrote, “notwithstanding what Leviticus 20:13 has been pointing all along: ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.’”

That’s Ampong. Quoting Leviticus. You could go ahead and infer that this is what Pacquiao was alluding to in his remarks, and you definitely could say that’s some convoluted writing there. But Pacquiao himself clearly didn’t issue the quote. But let’s not let the barest understanding of attribution get in the way of a sensational headline, shall we? Before you could say gross perversion of the facts, Change.org was running a petition asking Nike to drop “homophobic boxer Manny Pacquiao,” declaring, “In an interview published Tuesday, March 15th with the conservative Examiner newspaper, the world-famous boxer and Los Angeles resident quoted Leviticus…” And except for the fact that Pacquiao didn’t quote Leviticus, Examiner.com is not a conservative newspaper, and the interview didn’t run on Tuesday, sure.

The confusion stems largely from a Tuesday L.A. Weekly blog post by Simone Wilson, in which she wrote, “Pacquiao told the National Conservative Examiner over the weekend that gay men should be ‘put to death’ for their sexual crimes.” She then backpedaled a tad by noting “Yes, he was quoting Leviticus 20:13, but he hasn’t backed down from his harsh stance.” She continued further in the piece to invoke “what Pacquiao said” and ponder that “For the sports star to announce that he thinks thousands of gay Angelenos should be ‘put to death’ for loving a same-sex partner should hugely alienate him to the locals,” adding that “Because … uh … ‘put to death’? You just don’t say that kind of thing in 21st century America.” Maybe that’s why he didn’t. And by the way, calling the source “the National Conservative Examiner” greatly glorifies Examiner.com, a site anybody with an Internet connection and rudimentary typing ability can write for, “even if you’re not a professional writer.” It’s a site with all the journalistic credibility of, oh, L.A. Weekly.

But what kind of commitment to facts could we have expected from Simone Wilson? This is the person who, when real journalist Lara Logan was attacked in Egypt last year, hastily banged out a grotesquely offensive fantasy version of events, writing, “In a rush of frenzied excitement, some Egyptian protestors apparently consummated their newfound independence by sexually assaulting the blonde reporter.”

Wilson’s colleague Dennis Romero added more fuel to the mythic Pacquiao interview story Tuesday, in a piece headlined “Manny Pacquiao Says Gay Men Should Be ‘Put to Death.’” USA Today then jumped in, reporting that “Pacquiao also invoked Old Testament, and recited Leviticus 20:13, saying: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman.” And the Village Voice blog, for good measure, reported, “The Bible Via-Manny Pacquiao: Gays Shouldn’t Get Married, They Should Be ‘Put To Death.’” How ridiculous did the whole thing get? On Pacquiao’s own “official” website Tuesday, writer Keith Terceira said, “Manny Pacquiao was recently quoted in the USAToday as invoking the old testament.” [sic]

I get that nobody really pays attention to what anybody posts on Examiner.com, but seriously. If you’re going to quote someone, read the damn source material already. You need to have an eighth-grade reading proficiency level to get a driver’s license, yet apparently you can be functionally illiterate and work for L.A. Weekly and USA Today.

On Wednesday, Granville Ampong wrote a follow-up post on the matter, saying of the Leviticus quote, “Pacquiao never said nor recited, nor invoked and nor did he ever refer to such context.” And Pacquiao likewise issued a statement, saying, “I didn’t say that, that’s a lie… I didn’t know that quote from Leviticus because I haven’t read the Book of Leviticus yet,” and adding, “I’m not against gay people … I have a relative who is also gay. We can’t help it if they were born that way. What I’m critical off are actions that violate the word of God. I only gave out my opinion that same-sex marriage is against the law of God.”

Pacquiao inarguably has a long way to go in the tolerance department. And his remarks were ignorant, to be sure. But you can’t cure ignorant with stupid. And you can’t change minds with lies.

UPDATE: LA Weekly writer Simone Wilson called us Wednesday to clarify our assertion that she initiated the story that Pacquiao himself deployed the Leviticus quote, telling us that “USA Today, the Village Voice, and his own Web site had already reported it” by the time she wrote her piece. Though the misleading content of her story remains the same, her place in the fray was not first. For which we apologize — and offer the sincere hope that the story can’t get any more meta now.

It’s no accident that the president’s change of heart happened to make for a perfect sound bite. Nearly as fast as Barack Obama, leader of the free world, could utter the words “Same-sex couples should be able to get married,” to ABC News correspondent Robin Roberts, @barackobama — the president’s not-nearly-as-popular-as@JustinBieber Twitter account — was announcing “Same-sex couples should be able to get married.” As of Thursday morning, it had been retweeted over 56,000 times and counting.

And just like that, what had been a fuzzy campaign issue for Obama just a week ago became a defiant stance – and an easily forwarded post. The president’s Twitter and Facebook accounts wasted no time issuing a photo of Obama with his statement, under the heading, “history.” The campaign’s main page itself immediately splashed up the quote, along with the ABC News clip and the invitation to “stand up with the president.” And the campaign’s colorful, friendly-looking poster stating that “Every single American/Gay Straight Lesbian Bisexual Transgender/Deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of our society/It’s a pretty simple proposition” popped into a place of honor on the Obama Pinterest and Instagram pages.

Elections can turn on a few provocative words – from “Read my lips” to “It’s the economy, stupid” to, simply, “Hope.” But there’s never been a time when a single sentiment could be parroted across so many different platforms. The Obama campaign knows this, and has shrewdly seized upon the immediate, visceral reaction that one sentence can inspire with impressive immediacy. Watch and learn, Romney. Though we’ve yet to see how the president’s “evolved” stance will shake out into real votes in November, for now, it sure makes for a whole lot of likes and pins. Whatever happens next, Obama’s won Twitter.