On Tuesday, the Vermont House of Representatives voted 79-68 to approve the Civil Unions Act, granting same-sex couples the 300-plus traditional marriage benefits controlled by the state — including the right to make medical decisions on behalf of partners, inheritance protections and exemption from having to testify against one another.

“This is a breathtaking advance,” said Mary Bonauto, co-counsel for the three same-sex couples who successfully sued the state in 1997 after being denied marriage licenses. “It’s going to make an enormous difference in the lives of people on a day-to-day basis. It goes far beyond any kinds of protections we’ve ever seen for the families of same-sex couples.”

Come July, gay couples will be able to obtain civil union licenses from town clerks, and then, just as marriages are solemnized, have a justice of the peace, clergy member or judge certify the union. After Jan. 1, couples will receive certain tax and insurance privileges from the state. And, if worse comes to worst, couples seeking to dissolve the union will have to take their case to family court, as do married couples seeking a divorce.

What Vermont’s civil unions won’t provide are the federal benefits that come with traditional marriage, including those associated with taxes, Social Security and immigration. Nor will they be recognized outside the state.

In enacting the legislation, lawmakers answered the mandate of the Vermont Supreme Court, which held unanimously in December that denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry was discriminatory under the state’s constitution. The ruling required state legislators to enact a law that would either permit gay couples to marry or create a parallel system that granted all the marital benefits and protections a state can provide. Faced with widespread opposition to same-sex marriage, lawmakers responded by drafting legislation for civil unions that is far broader in scope than any domestic partnership in the world.

As Paula Ettelbrick, family policy director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, pointed out, Vermont has “separated the baggage of marriage — the gendered, historical, cultural and religious baggage — from the benefits and looked at what the government’s obligation is. They’ve taken what has been a very moralized institution and made it into something civil, in political terms.”

Though gay rights advocates celebrated the legislation, lawmakers on both sides of the issue were uneasy. The debate over same-sex marriages has captivated Vermont for months, stirring tempers and deeply galvanizing the state, which is better known for its bucolic landscape and “good fences make good neighbors” philosophy than acrimony. For weeks, the tiny statehouse in Montpelier was packed to overflowing as thousands of impassioned voters — decked out in pink stickers (pro-civil unions) and white ribbons (anti) gathered to hear public testimony.

At times, angry words turned into angry actions. Several legislators reported that their cars had been vandalized, while others, tired of encountering obscene gestures, removed their legislative license plates. At times, normally civil public meetings descended into shouting matches, where lawmakers favoring the measure were booed into silence. Lawmakers were bombarded with phone calls and letters from opponents of the bill, who asserted that the elected reps were headed for fiery climes if they voted in favor of gay marriage. Likewise, opponents of the measure reported that they were unfairly labeled bigots, homophobes and traitors to their community’s values.

In a recent interview on Vermont Public Television, Gov. Howard Dean called the issue “the most difficult thing I have had to deal with” in nearly nine years in office.

But beyond the predictable rhetoric that civil unions would cause irreparable damage to the state’s moral fiber and lure future generations into homosexuality, something unusual happened. In an election year (all of the seats in the legislature are up for grabs in November), many lawmakers ignored the pollsters and voted their consciences. It was a politically bold and dangerous move, since Vermont polls show that only 37 percent support civil unions, with 40 percent opposing them. A mere 13 percent of Vermonters support full-fledged same-sex marriage.

“One of my motives for voting for the bill is that our court had found that there was a constitutional right that was being violated,” said state Senate Majority Leader Richard McCormack, a Democrat. “That’s sort of a no-brainer for a legislator — I’ve taken an oath of office to uphold the constitution.”

Republican state Rep. John Edwards, a retired state trooper who serves on the Vermont House Judiciary Committee, is one legislator who never bought the conservative line that gay civil unions would threaten his marriage or lead to moral anarchy. Though he voted in favor of unions, he was reluctant at first. Things were moving too quickly. “I wanted more separation between traditional marriage and what we now call civil unions. I wanted a little more definition of the differences maybe.”

During public hearings, Edwards said, “Gays and lesbians and their families and neighbors made a very compelling argument that gay and lesbian people are part of the fabric of our communities. When I thought back to my youth, I was born and raised on a farm in southern Vermont, we always had in our communities the two bachelors down the road who shared a farm together. We didn’t put a label on it and they may or may not have had a sexual relationship, but you thought about this and realized that all people are deserving of equal rights and protections.”

And as alternatives were drawn up, Edwards said he sought the help of opponents, asking them to propose a plan that met the court’s mandate. “Of course, they never did,” he says.

State Sen. Mark MacDonald, a Democrat from one of Vermont’s most conservative counties, had much to lose by supporting the civil unions. MacDonald’s Orange County constituents initially chafed at the court’s decision, at allegations that Vermont’s laws were discriminatory and at the proposed remedies. “People don’t like change,” he says. “And they don’t like being obliged to think about things they’d prefer not to. We in Vermont pride ourselves on minding our own business and respecting our neighbors’ privacy. This law made us reevaluate our tolerance and, to the surprise of many of us, myself included, our lack of tolerance.”

But it was more than abstract principles that finally swayed MacDonald to cast an aye vote. Even as the Senate seemed poised to approve civil unions, MacDonald was prepared to vote against it. That was until, he says, someone asked how he would explain his vote to his eighth-grade social studies students at Randolph High. “I realized I could tell them I voted against the bill so I could have an easy reelection or I could lie to them — and I don’t lie to my students.”

The court’s mandate for legislators to take bold action left little room for compromise. As Dean told the reporters: “I think this bill transcends what we normally think of as politics … I am not sure there is a compromise that works for people.”

The absence of a compromise led to a debate driven by what, at times, seemed like caricatured notions of left and right — with civil union proponents dishing out clichid lines about tolerance, love, understanding and compassion and opponents invoking the Bible and the usual rhetoric about immorality and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Rep. George Schiavone, one of the bill’s most outspoken opponents, claimed that legislators were “shoving this bill down the throats of our people. Our people are coughing and gagging and choking on this bill.” With a nod toward November, Schiavone added that voters would “throw it up and throw us out.”

Indeed, some Vermonters opposed to civil unions say they feel betrayed by their legislators, and opponents are vowing to capitalize on the discord when the election rolls around. It’s also likely that religious conservatives outside Vermont will provide election-time financial support to politicians who opposed civil unions.

It’s a challenge that sends shivers down the spine of lawmakers who followed the Supreme Court mandate. McCormack feels certain he did the right thing in voting yes, but he doesn’t have any illusions about the coming battle. “We have the fight of our life ahead of us,” he says. “It would be naive to pretend otherwise. There is a large faction of our population spitting nails over this. They’re just angrier than I’ve ever seen people in my 11 years in office.”

But McCormack won’t be without support. The same activists who pressured the state to pass the gay rights measure say they, too, will turn out in force to back those who stood up for civil unions. “The latest polls are showing that people are pretty closely divided on civil unions and there were a handful of politicians who really took a risk in supporting this. We’re going to be standing behind them,” said Ann Bumpus, a member of the board of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force.

“We get sent here to obey the constitution and represent our constituents and sometimes that creates conflicts,” McDonald says. “The last time I got drafted was to go to Vietnam and when I came home it took about a dozen years for my friends and neighbors to realize I’d done what my country wanted me to do and that I’d acquitted myself with honor. I hope this time things will move a little more quickly.”

But one thing is already clear: Baker vs. Vermont opens the door to the biggest redefinition of the institution of marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws banning interracial marriage in its 1967 Loving vs. Virginia decision. Though the Vermont ruling didn’t give the plaintiffs, three same-sex couples, the right to the marriage licenses, the decision marks the first time that a court has ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to absolute equality under the law.

The court asserted that extending equal rights to lesbian and gay couples “who seek nothing more, nor less, than legal protection and security for their avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting relationship is simply, when all is said and done, a recognition of our common humanity.”

Such words have the power to transform public opinion on the issue by framing same-sex marriage as an issue of civil rights, something most Americans cherish, as opposed to one of gay rights, something many Americans find troubling. By focusing on specific real-world benefits denied to one group solely on the basis of a single characteristic, the issue moves away from the debate over a private sacrament and into the arena of public accommodation — exactly where its advocates want it.

The issue is guaranteed to have national repercussions. If the Legislature affirms the right of gay and lesbian people to marry, it will affect at least the 20 states in the country that have not yet passed laws defining marriage as hetero-only and that refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

But more than this, if Vermont legalizes same-sex marriage and other states refuse to recognize such marriages, the result would be a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution’s full faith and credit guarantee, in which states are required to show regard for each others’ laws. The issue could then proceed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such a scenario would make it possible to challenge the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed by Congress in 1996, which declared that states would not be compelled to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside their borders.

While the justices held that all the benefits and protections of marriage must be extended to same-sex couples, they did not rule on the constitutionality of a “separate but equal” arrangement — e.g., domestic partnership — where couples are given the benefits and protections of marriage but not marriage itself. (It’s worth noting that Associate Justice Denise R. Johnson, known for her strongly worded dissents, wrote in a separate opinion that the court should have immediately given same-sex couples the right to marry.)

Should the Vermont Legislature decide to go with domestic partnership, advocates could then bring the case back to the state Supreme Court with the argument that domestic partnership does not fulfill the court’s mandate. But some believe a legislative ruling in favor of gay marriage is unlikely. Craig Bensen, vice president of the anti-same sex marriage group Take It to the People (TIP), asserts that, based on the 57 cosigners of a failed 1998 Vermont DOMA, same-sex is doomed in the Legislature. A Rutland Herald poll released this month showed that Vermonters preferred the idea of domestic partnership to gay marriage 2 to 1.

The distinction is central to the idea of equality — and not just for ideological reasons. Mary Bonauto, co-counsel for the three same-sex couples who kicked this whole business off by suing the state for the right to obtain marriage licenses in 1997, says, “The only way to provide all the protections and benefits of marriage is through marriage.”

Deborah Lashman, a family law lawyer in Burlington and a member of the board of the pro-gay marriage Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, says that some legislators are beginning to realize that there are certain benefits that domestic partnership won’t cover. These include having a union recognized from state to state, third-party benefits such as those given by employers, and over 1,000 federal benefits including IRS issues, immigration issues and the ability to bring suit in a federal court.

While those in favor of same-sex marriage fight their battle in the courts, opponents across the country have had success bringing the issue to a public vote in pricey campaigns for ballot initiatives backed by wealthy religious groups such as the Catholic and Mormon churches.

Hawaii once seemed the likely launching pad for gay marriage, but the efforts of conservative groups ultimately grounded that progress. In response to a preliminary state court ruling that limiting marriage to opposite-sex partners was discriminatory, opponents launched a ballot initiative, backed by millions of Mormon church dollars. Hawaiian voters OK’d the initiative, which amended the constitution to effectively limit marriage to heterosexuals. This prompted the Hawaii Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by three same-sex couples; this decision came 11 days before the contrasting one by the Vermont court.

Hope for same-sex marriage in Alaska was likewise dashed in 1998 with the passage of a similar ballot initiative, also backed by Mormon dollars. Since the state court’s decision in Hawaii, mini DOMAs have sprung up in 30 states. A ferocious battle is being waged in California, where representative Pete Knight is putting the same-sex marriage issue, which was voted down more than once in the Legislature, before the people on March 7.

Even in uniquely liberal Vermont, putting same sex marriage to a public vote would likely mean defeat. If a constitutional amendment were placed in front of Vermonters tomorrow asking them to vote on legalizing gay marriage, they might strike it down, though not by much. A January 1999 poll by Vermont Public Radio, 48 percent of those polled were opposed to allowing same-sex marriage, with 43 percent in favor.

For years gay advocacy groups have fought conservatives’ charges that they were seeking “special rights.” Advocates assert that measures protecting lesbians and gay men from discrimination, and combating measures that excluded them, are part of an effort to achieve “equal rights” — full citizenship and nothing more.

In the attempt to hammer this home, groups such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign have drawn parallels between their own fight for equality and those of other minorities, particularly African-Americans. This analogy hasn’t, thus far, flown with most Americans, who tend to see race as something immutable and sexual orientation as chosen.

But in focusing on the simple facts of benefits, of, as the court wrote, “access to a spouse’s medical, life, and disability insurance, hospital visitation and other medical decision-making privileges, spousal support, intestate succession, homestead protections and many other statutory protections,” same-sex marriage may lose some of its exotic quality and become a matter of common sense.

“More people are coming to understand that there’s no good reason to discriminate against gay people willing to take on this commitment,” says Evan Wolfson, director of the marriage project at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a group that advocates for gay rights.

But if pro-same-sex marriage groups are hoping to frame the issue as one of civil rights, opponents are hoping to sidestep issues of discrimination (which most everyone left of Gary Bauer has realized is a no-no). They hold up marriage as a protected zone, an institution that simultaneously embodies God’s plan to unite men and women and “traditional values” and is so fragile that it might suffer irreparable damage if its membership policy were changed and its privileges extended to a wider group.

Vincent McCarthy, northeast senior counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, was offended by the court’s decision, which he felt “reduced marriage to the sum of its parts and deemed it a mere functional relationship.” He went on to say, “There is an intrinsic value to marriage that cannot be replicated by same-sex partners. There’s a unitive value to marriage which is that it brings together two sexes, which is the way we are created, and brings them together in a way that is a third entity that transcends the male and the female.” In McCarthy’s view, the union marriage deserves special benefits that should not be available to everyone.

According to Ruth Charlesworth, a TIP board member who directs the Family Life Office/Respect Life for the Catholic Diocese of Burlington, a same-sex marriage law would be “damaging in the sense that it’s equalizing,” and would be “just one more inroad to weaken the family.”

But Charlesworth also asserts that her views are “not a matter of discrimination or bias or homophobia. There is no hate or dislike or bitterness in our hearts.” Like other conservatives, she steers the discussion away from gay issues in general. “This is about one issue and one issue only, and that issue is marriage and family and all of the things that would be so injurious to building strong family life in a society where family is so fragile to begin with.”

“Clearly marriage means something,” counters Lashman. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be this vehement denial of civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples. But separate is inherently not equal. There is a value that society places on people when they allow them to get married.”

Marriage has always been a loaded proposition. Today the concept of marriage tends to stand in for “traditional values” at a time when the American family increasingly has little to do with the two-parent norm held up by conservatives.

Vermont’s legislative council invited Nancy Cott, a professor of history and American studies at Yale and author of the forthcoming “Public Vows: A Political History of Marriage in the United States” to speak before the state Legislature. She described the history of marriage as a history of change, especially as it concerned the rights of slaves and interracial couples to marry.

In an interview, Cott stated that this is not the first time that people have balked that change would kill the institution. When the property rights of married women were modified between 1830 and 1870, people “had all sorts of dire predictions and marriage changed, but it is still very much with us. It made people as uncomfortable as same-sex marriage makes people now.”

Though some people — gay and straight — may feel “uncomfortable” with same-sex marriage for a variety of reasons, its emergence seems inevitable. A recent Wall Street Journal poll revealed that two-thirds of all Americans believe same-sex marriage will come to pass. Wolfson says such numbers indicate that on some level, people are ready to live with it.

Californians will vote on the issue on March 7, and the Vermont decision has sparked the introduction of mini-DOMAs in New Hampshire and Ohio’s state legislatures. While the cultural debate rages on the legal train chugs forward, unperturbed.

But meet they did in this town at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, each flanked by hundreds of clerical and lay supporters. From his Thomas Road Baptist Church and church-affiliated Liberty University, Falwell recruited 200 straight, buttoned-down evangelical fundamentalists to
participate. From 30 cities and various faiths White amassed 200 gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight people who had signed on to Soulforce, his pacifist social change organization that is modeled on Mahatma Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophies.

Dressed in their Sunday best, the participants gathered Saturday afternoon in the
gymnasium of Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church where they sat together, prayed together and listened as, for the first time, two major religious leaders — one gay, one straight — sat down to discuss the impact of hate speech and hate-motivated violence on the lives of their followers.

Generically billed as the Anti-Violence Forum, a title seemingly designed to deflate controversy and establish a common ground, the stated purpose of the event was to diminish the “hateful rhetoric” on both sides of the fence. Both men came to the table because they agree that too much hateful rhetoric flows between gay people and conservative Christians and that hate speech and violence needs to end.

Oddly, Falwell believes that rhetoric from gays has contributed to a wave of violence against Christian fundamentalists. As examples, he has cited the teens at the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, and Columbine High School who he believes were killed “because of their faith.” After the Wedgewood shootings, Falwell told a reporter, “Most hate crimes in America today are not directed toward African-American or Jewish people or lesbians. They are directed at evangelical Christians.”

White, meanwhile, maintains that there is a direct link between the anti-gay remarks that pepper Falwell’s sermons and fund-raising literature and the long-standing epidemic of violence against gay men and lesbians. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, there have been 28 murders of gay people since Matthew Shepard’s killing a year ago.

Although White and Falwell came seeking reconciliation,
they were both, in very different ways, equally lead-footed. During an appearance on “Good Morning America” Friday, Falwell apologized for judging all gay people based on the actions of a few “kooks.” He also told the News and Advance newspaper that there was “no way” he would ever veer from his view that homosexuality is a sin. Though White was relentlessly
diplomatic and openhearted, imploring his followers to love Falwell and his
people as family, he went into the meeting speaking of his determination to “bring [Falwell]
truth, in love, relentlessly until he, too, is set free.”

On Saturday, participants on both sides were jittery. Two hundred yards from the church, a less pacifist form of democracy was in action. Protestors jeered at meeting participants, waving signs reading “Mel wants to sodomize your sons” and “Falwell insults church with fags.”

Gathered together in the church parking lot before the meeting, the Soulforce delegates, some in clerical garb, all wearing palm frond leis, attempted to cut some of the tension by launching into a hymn, as they are wont to do. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” the Rev. Jimmy Creech of Raleigh, N.C., sang out. A tall, slender heterosexual Methodist minister who performed a same-sex marriage after the church forbade them, Creech has the distinction of being the first man to be put on trial for defying the 200-year-old church’s “social principles.”

Cathy Thompson, a married, 28-year-old Lynchburg resident, was ready to roll. “I want to say to Falwell’s people: This is the face of a woman whose best friend is a lesbian, and let me tell you about her and her partner and how they used to have to sneak around and let me tell you about how they love each other.”

But even though hopes were high and unlikely new friends were made (many Soulforce participants attended church with some of Falwell’s people the next morning), after an hour-and-a-half of speeches and a follow-up press conference, the two men, who continued to refer to each other as friends, also continued to see things differently.

At a press conference following the meeting, Falwell addressed what hadn’t been discussed. “I happen to oppose same-sex marriage and we didn’t talk about that,” he said, nor did they address “special rights and privileges,” a turn of phrase that has long irked gay rights supporters, who prefer to call theirs a struggle for “equal,” not “special,” rights.

Falwell also praised White for never having interfered with his preaching on the belief that the Bible condemns homosexuality. “And I hope that evangelicals might build a bridge to gay and lesbian people just as we have built a bridge to drug addicts, alcoholics and unwed mothers.”

After hearing himself being cast alongside groups who are the white American Baptist equivalents of untouchables, White asserted, “religious rhetoric kills people when it builds fear towards gay people” and in a weird display of killing the enemy with kindness, lavishly praised Falwell, asserting that his openness to dialogue was “the solution.”

After asserting that his “ultimate goal is to bring [homosexuals] out of the lifestyle and into the Lord,” Falwell infuriated White and his supporters by introducing Michael Johnston, founder of Kerusso Ministries, a ministry that attempts to convert gay people to heterosexuality via “treatments” that the American Psychiatric Association has condemned.

Johnston spoke of his twin journeys out of drug addiction and homosexuality, which he now looks back on as equally depraved, and urged listeners to follow him. On Oct. 11, Johnston’s message, given in San Francisco to coincide with National Coming Out Day, was squelched by a well-aimed blueberry pie delivered by two members of ACT UP and the Biotic Baking Brigade. This time his reception was less fruity, but no warmer. Creech labeled Johnston’s comments “spiritual violence” and following the press conference a shocked White, red in the face, informed Falwell’s associates that if Johnston spoke at Falwell’s church service the next morning, White and his followers would walk out.

Falwell later told White he didn’t know anything about Johnston or Kerusso Ministries, and asserted that Johnston had approached him that day and asked to appear at the press conference to tell his story. Likewise, Falwell asserted that the anti-gay rhetoric disseminated in his recent fund-raising letters and on his Web page (including such choice nuggets as “the America [homosexuals] demand is a sewer of moral filth … an environment that’s incredibly dangerous to our children … a culture that despises Christian faith and morality”) were neither written nor approved by him. Falwell’s refusal to accept responsibility echoed a similar denial he issued last year when his organization was widely derided for stating that handbag-toting Teletubby Tinky Winky is a recruiting tool for gays.

“Every time he claims ignorance on something he does, we’re going to confront him,” White said firmly.

“I like Jerry. He’s wrong about gays and lesbians, but he’s sincere about it. We’re primarily people of faith gathered here, and he still compares us to bootleggers.”

When Falwell countered that “homosexuality is not a sickness, but like drinking is a sin to be forgiven,” White finally delivered a swift counterpunch to this “love the sinner, hate the sin” line of reasoning. “Calling people sinners over and over again,” he said simply, “becomes hate language very quickly.”

Falwell’s retort, delivered in the velvety Southern voice that has moved hundreds of thousands, “I don’t agree with your lifestyle, I will never agree with your lifestyle, but I love you” and more significantly, added “anything that leaves the impression that we hate the sinner, we want to change that” and that “henceforth … we love the sinner even more than we hate the sin.”

Such words were a big step for Falwell, whom many believe has built his church by fueling homophobic fears, working since the fall of communism in 1990 to repeatedly invoke the specter of depraved, power-hungry homosexuals bent on world domination in order to raise funds and recruit volunteers.

Reached by telephone prior to Saturday’s meeting, Wayne Besen, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington gay rights lobby, quipped, “If White could get Falwell to come around, then I think a lot more people would believe in miracles than ever before.”

But in a way White did move mountains, simply by engaging Falwell on his home turf, as a fellow minister, and backed by people of faith. HRC and most other national gay and lesbian organizations are largely focused on policy issue — training their sights on secular goals that aim to avoid any appearance of activity that the right might label an attempt to “legislate morality.” Namely, they’re intent on securing equal rights under the law.

Activist groups such as ACT UP have shown more interest in taking on the church, but historically only as a target for direct action, not as a partner in debate. And while many lesbians and gay men believe that organized religion is the primary source of homophobia, the church is a form of family for many gay men and lesbians, just as it is for many Americans, period. The Metropolitan Community Church, a predominantly lesbian and gay denomination that combines many Christian traditions, is the largest gay and lesbian organization in this country, and one of the most popular gay non-fiction books this decade has been Daniel Helminiak’s “What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality.” For some, turning away from the church, as so many gay people have done, is not an option.

After Falwell’s sermon on Sunday, in which he stressed that parents should love their children, regardless of their “lifestyle,” a number of the Soulforce delegates went out to lunch with members of Falwell’s church — a group that included Liberty University’s president, the vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, students, faculty and Liberty’s student body president, who dined with a transgender person.

During this one-on-one exchange, Soulforcers agreed, the real work of changing hearts and minds took place. The idea that homophobia can only be erased by having fearful or ignorant straight people get to know real live homosexuals and see them as plain old people is a central tenet behind much gay and lesbian organizing.

For Brian Randall, a 30-year-old gay Soulforce delegate and Liberty graduate, it was a deep and complicated homecoming. After his evangelical fundamentalist parents shuttled him into deprogramming at ex-gay ministry Exodus, Randall spent four closeted years at Liberty, living in fear that his secret would be revealed, his scholarship cut off and his parents humiliated.

Randall said Falwell told him that he loved him and extended an invitation to come back to Liberty anytime.

“There were things that disappointed me about the weekend, but I had to put them in the perspective that this has never happened before, that I’ve been invited back to my alma mater as an openly gay man, that I could sit down with Dr. Falwell and have him say, I’m sorry, I was wrong.”

But Randall also expressed some doubt about the historic meeting’s impact. “This did not end on Saturday night or Sunday morning. This is my family. These are my roots. I fully expect Dr. Falwell to return to this kind of language. This time we were here for negotiation and if it happens again, it will be for direct action. I can forgive, but I can’t forget.”