Bring on the fence-sitters: when it comes to supporting our interests, most players on the early slate of presidential contenders are neither here nor there--nor anywhere. Here's where they sit on our gray scale.

DENNIS KUCINICH, U.S. representative form Ohio

Supports just about every gay right imaginable and at a San Francisco press conference during the 2004 presidential campaign said that he believes same-sex marriage "is a fundamental civil rights issue. I can't, for the life of me, understand why I'm the only one who's taking this position with such emphasis."

JOHN McCAIN, U.S. senator from Arizona

Though he opposed a federal ban on same-sex marriage, he also opposed LGBT inclusion in hate-crimes laws and maintains that heterosexual marriage deserves special status. "I think that gay marriage should be allowed, if there's a ceremony kind of thing, if you want to call it that. I don't have any problem with that, but I do believe in preserving the sanctity of a union between man and woman," he said on Hardball.

TOM VILSACK, governor of Iowa

Supports extending bullying and discrimination protections to LGBT students, but told Radio Iowa in February 2006 that "we ought to honor commitment and I think we ought to value it in society because there's too little of it, but I don't think we necessarily have to redefine marriage to do it."

MITT ROMNEY, former governor of Massachusetts 

Courted the gay vote in his state before donning his GOP-friendly anti--gay family cape. "If you indicate as a society that you're indifferent between a same-sex couple marrying and a heterosexual couple marrying, then it means our schools and other institutions are going to have to indicate that there is no difference whatsoever," he said on Hardball.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, U.S. senator from New York 

Once considered marriage appropriate only between a man and a woman, but in October 2006 told roughly three dozen assembled LGBT leaders that she now sees her stance as "evolved" (a.k.a. someone else's problem). "I support states making the decision. I think that it should be in the political process, and if our governor and our legislature support marriage in New York, I'm not going to be against that."

BARACK OBAMA, U.S. senator from Illinois

Has written volumes against discrimination based on skin color yet curiously supports separate but equal civil unions. "It is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided," he wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

SAM BROWNBACK, U.S. senator from Kansas

A federal ban on same-sex marriage is his raison d'etre. He opposed adoption by gays as well as LGBT inclusion in hate-crimes laws. In November he blocked the appointment of a judge who had attended a lesbian commitment ceremony. "The legalization of same-sex marriage has been instrumental in fostering this change in perspective, leading most to think of marriage as simply the expression of mutual affection between two consenting adults," he wrote in an article for National Review Online.

JOSEPH BIDEN, U.S. senator from Delaware

Believes that nationwide same-sex marriage is likely inevitable but isn't offering any solutions as to how we'll get there. "There are long cultural and moral overtones in some religions and churches about this and it's going to be something we have to go through as part of the maturation process of the nation," he said on Fox News Sunday.

RUDY GIULIANI, former mayor of New York City 

Supports some gay rights, opposes a federal ban on same-sex marriage and lived with an affluent gay couple in New York's upper east side during his divorce proceedings. He supports civil unions but draws the line at marriage. "I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman that it should remain that way inviolate, and everything should be done to make sure that that's the case," I he said during a press conference with former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed.

JOHN EDWARDS, former U.S. senator from North Carolina 

Supports measures banning LGBT discrimination in the workplace and believes wholly in adoption by gays, but he told George Stephanopoulos on This Week that when it comes to marriage he can't find the end of the rainbow. "Do I believe they should have the right to marry? I'm just not there yet, me, in not there yet."