Advocates have railed against these unjustifiable inequities to no avail until Congress took one small step forward last year by passing the Fair Sentencing Act, which was signed into law by President Obama. The FSA reduced the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentencing guidelines to 18-1, but it did not apply retroactively to prisoners already sentenced under the old 100-1 disparity. Now, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has backed the beginnings of a plan to further fix the broken sentencing system. In a new sentencing reduction scheme before the House of Representatives, federal prisoners already sentenced for crack cocaine offenses could be awarded an average sentence reduction of three years. If adopted, this plan would go the rest of the way to ease the baffling sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Over 12,000 prisoners could be effected by this change. In support of the reductions, Holder said, “There is simply no just or logical reason why their punishments should be dramatically more severe than those of other cocaine offenders.”

This change in policy would be a start, but it isn’t enough. First, sentencing guidelines are just that — guidelines. Unlike mandatory minimum sentencing, another broken drug policy that has been subject to searing scrutiny in recent years, judges are not required to abide by guidelines. They merely serve as suggestions for certain possible sentences within a range of minimums and maximums. While some judges may be anxious to mete out shorter sentences, many others may take no heed of the change in guidelines. Furthermore, there is simply no logical reason why people whose sole offense is the use of illegal substances should be subject to prison terms at all. The U.S. prison system is not a drug rehabilitation facility, and offers little to no treatment or effective counseling for re-entry in society. The reliance on strict incarceration to fix drug addiction merely creates an underclass of lifelong inmates, a revolving door between the streets and the prisons. If Congress is serious about correcting the harms of drug abuse, the money and the focus should be on creating programs that actually help addicts heal by addressing the reasons many of them turn to drugs in the first place: lack of education, lack of work, lack of available and affordable mental health treatment.

One of the oft-used arguments for the continued prohibition of crack and other similar substances is that their sale and use robs communities of otherwise productive members of society: Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters are lost to the effects of addiction. Particularly in impoverished communities, the correct response to the real problems of drug abuse cannot be to further rob them of their fathers, mothers, sons and daughters by making them prisoners of the criminal justice system instead of a substance. Mass incarceration for drug offenses is a classic, tragic example of the cure being worse that the disease. To truly address the problem of substance abuse, Congress must make sweeping, long-term changes to U.S. drug policy without relying on the shameful out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach of mass incarceration of American citizens.

Leslie Fenton is a 2005 graduate of the NYU School of Law. She is licensed in Louisiana and Illinois and currently runs her own family law practice in Chicago.

The reaction from larger Tennessee was swift, silent and deadly. While the news media continues to swarm around an anti-gay bill nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” (because it would essentially prohibit the discussion of homosexuality in sexual education curricula for public schools), the legislature quietly passed the equally odious “Special Access to Discriminate” bill, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Bill Haslam on May 23. The law, officially and ironically titled the Equal Access to Intrastate Commerce Act, forbids municipalities from enacting any anti-discrimination ordinances that are broader than state anti-discrimination laws. While the law does not specifically reference LGBT workers as those left unprotected, the state’s anti-discrimination laws do not currently include them. Under this new law, both of Nashville’s ordinances are invalid and unenforceable, leaving LGBT workers vulnerable to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The failure to specifically mention LGBT workers in the law is no accident. The new Tennessee law and its origins bear eerie resemblance to an infamous Colorado state constitutional amendment that was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court. In 1992, as a reaction to local ordinances banning anti-LGBT employment discrimination, Colorado voters passed a constitutional amendment (“Amendment 2″) prohibiting such local anti-discrimination protections. The amendment specifically targeted gays, lesbians and bisexuals, and forbid any new legislation awarding them any kind of legal protection. In the court case that struck the amendment down, Romer v. Evans, the Court found that the amendment violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy stated, “One century ago, the first Justice Harlan admonished this Court that the Constitution ‘neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.’ Plessy v. Ferguson… Unheeded then, those words now are understood to state a commitment to the law’s neutrality where the rights of persons are at stake.”

Is the new Tennessee law similar enough to Colorado’s Amendment 2 that it would simply be held unconstitutional under Romer? There are arguments either way. The Colorado law was so blatant that it specifically named gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, removing them from the legislative process that every other group of people remained free to participate in. But the Tennessee legislators clearly learned their lesson from Romer: They did not single out the LGBT community, rather, they applied the law to any group that does not currently receive state protections. On the other hand, they did forbid municipalities from enacting any new legislation designed to protect LGBT citizens, even if it isn’t explicitly stated. Further, the origins of the law are less than subtle; it is clearly a reaction to the Nashville anti-discrimination ordnance that protected LGBT workers. This situation is similar to the anti-gay adoption prohibition in Arkansas that was stuck down earlier this year. While it did not specifically prohibit gays from adopting, the ban on “unmarried couple” adoptions was passed as a workaround to a law that actually banned gay adoptions and was struck down by the courts. It’s also important to note that Romer and its protections have been strengthened in recent years by the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, also authored by Justice Kennedy, which struck down a Texas law that criminalized homosexual sodomy. The Tennessee anti-gay employment measure should receive similar scrutiny, and treatment, from the court system.

Even though the Tennessee law is likely to face swift legal challenge and, in my opinion, will be struck down under Romer, its very existence — and the swiftness with which it passed — underscores the continuing, desperate need for federal employment protection for LGBT workers. Particularly in this economy, it is unthinkable that LGBT citizens are denied these basic job protections. As the laws stand now, 29 states allow discrimination agaist gay and lesbian workers, and 37 states allow discrimination against transgender workers. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which is currently pending in Congress for the umpteenth year, would prohibit discrimination against LGBT employees in all states. Because the states have failed so miserably to protect their own citizens, Congress must now step in and pass this law to protect American workers from odious, unconstitutional discrimination.

Leslie Fenton is an attorney in Chicago, Illinois. She and her wife will open their new family law firm, Fenton & Fenton, LLC, in May 2011.

“So what does your husband do?” They always notice my ring, a plain platinum band, which I tend to twist absent-mindedly between my right thumb and forefinger during conversation. “Do you have any kids?”

When I was a lonely, angry gay teen, I ached for the time when I could have readily available a reason to come out on a 10-times-daily basis. “I have a wife!” I imagined myself shouting through a megaphone at anyone who asked, within earshot of any random passersby who didn’t. “I’m married to a woman, not a man. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?” As a socially isolated loner, my younger self had to make do with the fantasy. If I was lucky, I’d get the chance to answer defiantly when adults asked whether I’d managed to land a boyfriend, but most of the time I had to make do with outing myself at random intervals. Unsuspecting stranger: “Do you know what time it is?” Me: “It’s 2:00 p.m. and I’m still a lesbian. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?” I wasn’t terribly popular in high school.

Throughout my teens and early 20s, my identity was a fixed point, a perfect six on the Kinsey scale. I was as sure as I was proud. But somewhere around the time I settled down with my wife, then my girlfriend, I grew increasingly anxious about outing myself in casual conversation. It was a gradual shift, beginning with my growing desire to take a pass on outing myself when the opportunity arose and eventually culminating in out-and-out lies of the closet. The self-loathing I experienced over each and every pass on declaring myself, at my failure to come out wherever I was, far surpassed any shame I’d ever felt about my actual identity as a lesbian. Several years ago at Hanukkah I confessed to my wife, practically in tears, that I’d engaged in subterfuge when the woman behind the jewelry counter at Macy’s asked whether I was buying a present for someone or shopping for myself. “I lied,” I moaned, disgusted with myself. “I told her it was for me.” Ann raised one eyebrow and asked what I’d really done. Apparently she does this all the time, just to get out of the store quicker, with absolutely no self-torment involved.

After years of self-analysis with no end to this growing sense that I’m actually beginning to re-closet myself, the only explanation I can come up with is that I got tired of the well-meaning, never-ending follow-up questions. Yes, I said wife. Yes, as in woman. Yes, we’re married. No, it isn’t legal. Mostly our families accept us, but some of them are assholes. To go, please. Can I have an extra ketchup? I used to dream about the day I could wear my marriage like an ever-waving rainbow-hued flag. Now, I just want to pick out a gift for my wife without having to give every salesperson within hearing range a legal, religious and familial history of our various attempts at formalizing our relationship. I used to feel a great sense of pride in what I perceived as my responsibility to bring open gayness into as many people’s lives as possible. The longer I live, the more I feel I’ve taken upon myself a task of Sisyphean proportions.

So when my new acquaintance in court asked me about the husband and kids, I took one look at her and felt the weight of an enormous boulder pressing down against my tightly folded arms. I’d be waiting for my paperwork at least another 10 minutes, plenty of time for her to interrogate me about every aspect of gaydom, from the origins of my gayness to how my family felt about it to how many cats we hoard. (Two, because my wife won’t let me get a third.) That is, that’s how the conversation would go if she was friendly and didn’t pull the old I-Have-To-Go-Stand-In-This-Corner-Now-Excuse-Me trick, which is far more depressing than the interrogation is annoying. I shifted my eyes back and forth, searching for an escape hatch. Finding none, I looked at the floor and gave my standard monotone answer, bracing for the barrage of questions or stony, judgmental silence. “I don’t have a husband. I’m married, but to a woman.”

She blinked, startled. “Why’d you say it like that?”

I didn’t ask like what. I knew. Like I was ashamed, or expecting her condemnation, or a combination of both. I smiled weakly and said, “I just never know how people will react.”

“But why’d you say it like that? Ain’t nothing wrong with you. You shouldn’t say it like that.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her cellphone. “Let me show you my girlfriend,” she said, and pulled up some pictures on the display. The two of them got their portraits taken at a local Glamour Shots, in front of a star-studded backdrop. “We’re gonna have a commitment ceremony next year, but it’s hard. We’d like to get married.” I admired the photos and asked some polite questions, but if anything I was even more desperate to get out of the conversation. The small talk died out, and we parted ways.

I wonder if she felt sorry for me. From her perspective, I was a shy, anxious lawyer so clearly hung up on my own insecurities that I couldn’t even tell her about my wife with the bursting pride she clearly felt for her girlfriend. I wanted to tell her it didn’t used to be this way, that I’d held the banner long enough and that now it’s someone else’s turn. But maybe her arms are just as tired, and her road miles longer. Who am I to pass the buck, to grow weary of innocent inquiry, to close myself up like a fist around my own solid foundation? To brace myself so fiercely against an anticipated slight that I appear to doubt my own worth?

I can’t promise that I’ll take up the next random stranger on an open offer to out myself. But if I do, I certainly won’t say it like that.

Unfortunately, our life matched the tenor of our television. I was truly miserable in New Orleans, which is rotted through with two of the facts of life I find most unbearable: Public corruption and humidity. At the time, I was a lawyer investigating the egregious misdeeds of various government officials and their agents. But any progress I made in helping my clients, mostly institutionalized children and mentally ill adults, was undone almost instantly — sometimes by my own agency.

We faced another New Orleans-related problem too: The city is nestled deep into a corner of what is arguably the most conservative state in the country. Homophobia, racism and incarceration are to Louisiana what beer, Bourbon Street and burlesque are to New Orleans. As a lesbian-headed household, we’d have to travel through several other just-as-hostile states in any direction before reaching friendly territory. There would be no legal protection for the relationship between me and our son. Furthermore and unrelated to our gayness, the public schools of New Orleans made Season four of “The Wire” look like “Glee.” The forecast for our future in the South was not looking particularly sunny.

“You’re going to change our lives, son,” I sang joyfully to our eight-month-old fetus as Ann and I packed up our belongings and fled like thieves in the night, back to Illinois with our tails between our legs. I thought Chicago would save me. I had a new job at a new non-profit, there was snow on the ground instead of monstrous roaches and stinging caterpillars, and I truly felt that my faith in humanity and the true underlying goodness of people would be restored.

But things didn’t get better. Two weeks after our son Julian and his expensive dependent health insurance needs were born, I lost my new job. Ann and I started watching old episodes of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” in between diaper changes, Walgreens runs and crying jags. The thoroughly amoral gang of losers and their over-the-top viciousness squared perfectly with my new worldview. Every episode evoked a bitter laugh or two, which was more laughing than I’d done in quite some time. I was so debased that the only thing keeping me going was this biting parody of the human condition and the knowledge that, despite all the horrors in the world, a tiny, beautiful baby had been born.

There was just one problem: Julian hated our new favorite show. Every time the gang got rowdy, which is usually about 10 seconds into every episode, he started howling. He simply couldn’t abide the screaming matches, the conflict, the unveiled contempt for fellow humans that the characters so perfectly embodied. Desperate for a show that would take our minds off our new, scary reality without offending our sensitive baby, Ann and I did something we never thought we’d do: We turned on network television, specifically, the current season of “The Biggest Loser.” I’d never had any interest in the show before; in fact, I found the idea of competitive weight loss gauche and depressing. But we were deprived of a favorite show and of sleep, and the baby seemed to really take to Trainer Bob and his somehow gentle intensity. We started tuning in on Tuesday nights.

This season’s “Biggest Loser” features teams of overweight relatives. Strangely, these pairs seem to genuinely enjoy each others’ company. Unlike other reality contests, which seem both coerced and edited for maximum conflict, “The Biggest Loser” is steeped in the spirit of friendly, supportive competition. Unlike other reality competitions (“America’s Next Top Model,” for example), there is no sabotage or hair-pulling or paranoia-induced fit of psychotic rage. It’s as if the audience is actually supposed to like these people. During one tear-jerking episode, spirited leader Marci sacrifices her own spot on the show because she knows she can finish her weight loss at home, and others need the continued support of a structured environment. As she explains her gracious exit, the anguish on the faces of the other competitors is real, particularly that of her daughter Courtney. Even the show’s most scripted moments are worth the suspension of disbelief. The weigh-ins and the trainers’ effusive proclamations of wisdom are just that heartwarming, if slightly hokey. “Your destiny,” Trainer Jillian exhorts a dejected competitor, “is just waiting for you to show up.” 

The old me would have cracked sarcastic jokes all the way through and found ways to pick apart at each contestant’s good intentions. The me-just-after-New Orleans would have looked at the competitors and thought, “Phonies. I wonder what they’re saying off-camera.” But the new me, the post-baby me, the me whose life has changed finds inspiration in the journeys of these people who truly seem invested in each others’ successes rather than their downfalls. They have been moved to seek their own personal best rather than becoming mired in besting their friends. On Tuesday nights, I get a little glimpse of what it means to be hopeful for the future of our species (beyond my own progeny who of course is perfection personified).

I have to hand it to Julian: His taste in television may be a little pedestrian, but there’s something to be said for not steeping in artsy dramas that showcase humanity’s worst. To make sense of the darkness, even those of us who tend toward the macabre sometimes need to seek the light.

Luckily, it’s nothing serious. In fact, I wanted to file this case. Everyone else is delighted for us, but my wife, Ann, and I are just gritting our teeth until it’s over. We can’t help worrying that something will go dreadfully wrong, even though we’re certain to get what we want in the end. But it’s impossible to avoid white-knuckled anxiety when the stakes are so high: I’m petitioning the court to adopt my own son.

In addition to being terrified, I was overwhelmingly annoyed. I shouldn’t have to do this. My wife conceived our son, Julian, through artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor. If I were a man, I’d be the legal father already. No one would have cross-examined me or performed a DNA test before allowing me to sign the forms for his birth certificate. But I’m not a man, so Ann and I can’t get legally married and Julian is not considered my legal son. I have to go through the adoption process as if I were a stepparent, or relative caring for a neglected child. As if I hadn’t married his mother almost five years before he was born. As if I hadn’t woken in the middle of the night to his tiny feet kicking me from underneath my wife’s skin. As if I hadn’t been the first one to see his pinched, purple-lipped face emerging into the world, or the one who cut through the gristle of the cord that still bound his bloodstream to my wife’s.      

I should be grateful for this opportunity. And in truth, I was happier about it just a few short months ago, knowing that I came very close to not being able to adopt Julian at all. Ann and I moved to New Orleans in 2009. We’d briefly lived in NOLA before Hurricane Katrina, but evacuated to and eventually stayed in my hometown, Chicago. Ann, a California native, couldn’t take the idea of a lifetime of frigid winters. I promised her that we could go back to Louisiana after she finished law school. Though I was apprehensive about the move, I was also exited: We’d both managed to land interesting jobs in a unique city where we thought we’d start our life together in earnest. I was 28 years old and not yet comfortable with a fully adult identity. I still had a taste for adventure, which is what New Orleans most resembled from the outside looking in. I imagined nights drinking beer on the bayou until the stars faded and gave way to dawn. I fantasized about winning federal civil rights lawsuits by day and crawling the jazz bars by night.

Once we settled in, our social life was anything but adventurous. Like any good modern lesbian couple, we bought a house, moved in with our two cats, and shortly thereafter invested $6,000 in premium-quality frozen sperm with which to impregnate Ann. It took the doctor one try. Thus, our son was conceived in Louisiana, a state so hostile toward gay families that even a years-long lawsuit and multiple court orders aren’t enough to get them to change a birth certificate to reflect the child’s legal adoptive fathers. As a family law lawyer, I should have known better than to start a family there. But Ann loved New Orleans, and I loved Ann, and love makes the world go round, right? 

But we had to rethink our long-term strategy once The Baby was no longer a fantasy. After Ann got pregnant, the signs popped up everywhere — and they all read “Run While You Still Can.” I heard a terrifying story at work about potential clients, two moms, whose kids were temporarily placed in foster care, probably because a child protection worker didn’t like lesbians. The Louisiana Legislature handily killed a bill to legalize second-parent adoption for same-sex couples. To the east, the North Carolina Supreme Court voided all second-parent adoptions performed in the state. This move was especially terrifying. Neither North Carolina’s nor Louisiana’s law technically allows for same-sex parents to adopt a child together, but judges in more liberal areas of the states have been performing them anyway for years, waiving the parts of the adoption law that conflict with the situation. If North Carolina’s highest court could so callously reach back in time to undo all those adoptions, so too could Louisiana’s.

We heeded the warnings. In about three months’ time, we sold our house and made arrangements to return to Illinois, where the law has allowed second-parent adoptions for years. We couldn’t even let Julian be born in Louisiana, because we knew we’d never be able to get a proper birth certificate. It almost happened anyway: He was born three weeks before his due date, just 10 days after we crossed the Illinois state line.

As if to save us from any lingering love we had for New Orleans, Illinois called us home by passing a civil unions law that goes into effect on June 1, 2011. Because of that law, our next baby will have both of our names on the original birth certificate. I tried to think about that on that morning as I cycled through the oddities of the adoption process, the needless and somewhat intrusive formality of it. I even managed to rouse a smile at the sheer absurdity of this morning’s strangest moment, which was the service of process upon our 11-week-old son. A sheriff’s officer, grinning as if she’d won the coin toss, stepped out from behind the faux granite counter and touched our adoption petition to Julian’s chubby thigh. He was then deemed served. I snapped a picture of the three of them, my wife and baby and the happiest sheriff’s officer in Chicago. I want to remember this when it’s all a relic. 

Leslie Fenton is an attorney in Chicago. She and her wife will open their new family law firm, Fenton & Fenton, LLC, in May 2011.