First off, love what you do, love your stuff.

But your criticism of my op-ed in yesterday's NYT is clueless and out of touch.

Sorry, Alex, but marriage is the most important right we're currently denied—are we about who we love or where we work?—which is not to say that I don't think ENDA is hugely important. I do, which is why I cited it. I didn't "explain" what ENDA does because I wasn't writing a blog post with an unlimited word count; I was writing an op-ed for the print edition. Space was pretty severely limited. And that whole only-A-gays-care-about-marriage/poor-black-queers-don't-care-about-marriage line you're pushing is complete and total bullshit. (Do skeezy sex-advice columnists and their DJ husbands now count as "A-gays"? Last I checked the A-gays wanted nothing to do with the likes of me. Maybe I missed a memo.)

And, I'm sorry, but being to determine who your next of kin is, to be able to sponsor the person you love for citizenship (if you fall in love with a foreign national), to collect your partner's Social Security benefits if she should die before you (a particularly important and pressing right for stay-at-home parents in gay families), to be able to make medical decisions in emergencies for your partner instead of being shoved out of the emergency room by homophobic and sometimes distant relatives, etc., etc., etc.—basically to have the rights that marriage brings—these are "real needs."

And, yes, Obama probably isn't going to talk about gay marriage at the SOTU. But that wasn't the assignment. The package wasn't a betting pool with a prize going to the writer who came closest to predicting just what the president would say. I was asked to write up what I wanted to hear the president say.

And, hey, one thing I wished for in my op-ed has already come to pass: Obama has invited Daniel Hernandez, Jr., to sit with the First Lady during his speech. And here's hoping the rest—including ENDA—comes to pass as well.

UPDATE: Interesting presser today at the White House.