Unfinished business

It's the first day of a new year of a new decade. I sit down at the computer and, as I normally do, open up iTunes for a little musical accompaniment.

First up in the queue: the soundtrack from "Brokeback Mountain." Every time I hear one of the tracks composed and performed by Gustavo Santaolalla it takes me back to that evening in 2005 when our whole family -- Lori and I and the three kids -- went downtown to see the movie. (I remember thinking, wow, these are great seats -- lots of leg room! -- only to realize we were sitting in the row reserved for wheelchairs. But that's another story.)

I'd read the short story by Annie Proulx so I knew what was coming. Still, the performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were outstanding, the soundtrack was haunting. I left the theater thinking I'd just seen the best film of the year and that Ang Lee was a shoo-in for best director. Lee won, but the Oscar voters chose "Crash" as best picture.

2009 was a lackluster year in many respects -- politically, economically, culturally -- though it was filled with lots of personal highlights already sprinkled throughout this blog: our new home, Jordan's marriage and enlistment in the Army, Nathan's graduation from college, Simone's challenging job and aspirations for graduate school.

But as I look forward to 2010, the sounds and images from "Brokeback Mountain" remind me of the civil rights struggle we have yet to win. Though we've seen progress in a few states where legislatures and courts have legalized same-sex marriage, we're still far from where we should be as a society in terms of extending the same legal rights and protections to gays and lesbians that come along with marriage.

There was a time, I confess, when the idea of two men or two women marrying each other struck me as odd, as something I could tolerate intellectually but didn't particularly embrace. I've since come around to full-throated support for gay marriage. We only live one life and, in my view, there are few universal longings as powerful as the desire to love and be loved by another person. Why should we maintain legal barriers that make it more difficult, if not possible, for that desire to be expressed?

Having a gay daughter drives my thinking on this more than anything. An expanding circle of gay friends and relatives reinforces it. And the sad-sweet music of Santaolalla reminds me of the challenge that still lies before us. If I can express a wish for the '10s, it would be this: that this is the decade when we get past these prejudices and achieve equality for everyone.