Do not go gently into that Knight.

OK, usually I try to be a little lighthearted on this page, since I am a dyed-in-the-wool, warp-and-woof optimist. But I'm sure you'll forgive me this one trip into a more serious matter. I once heard the incredibly talented attorney Connie Rice, speaking on behalf of the NAACP, say, "Defamation precedes annihilation." As a student of history, she knew that the concentration of power in the hands of a few is often purposefully built on a foundation of hatred and distrust against a minority group.

As testament to this theory, I learned through my public school education (though never from my teachers) that Jews poisoned European rivers, that African-Americans are less than human, that Catholics are cannibals, and that gay people are sexually dangerous because they lure children into an unspeakable life. These lies were always buttressed by the claim that they are the expression of God's will.

Well, forgive me if I doubt. I guess I more resemble Stephen Vincent Benet's narrator in his great epic poem, "John Brown's Body," when he said that "all of them are sure they know God's will. I am the only man who does not know it." The reason these lies--and others like them--need God's imprimatur is that the propagandists, mostly wanting to manipulate the impressionable for other reasons, know they are false.

When the press, the pulpit, and the lawmakers begin to doubt the lies and when the lies are more often met by the truth (like when we come out), the liars grow more desperate and inevitably turn to the hammer of the law to imbed the lies in public policy.

It used to be easy to commit us to institutions, to bar us from the workplace, to refuse to protect us in schools, and to scatter our families by failing to legally recognize them. But we are now passing laws that aim to protect us in the workplace and in schools. The argument that it is good public policy to discriminate doesn't fly when folks realize they work with gay and lesbian people or when they see their children question discrimination at school.

But the far right's "defense" of the family has yet to budge. This defense inevitably takes the form of drawing a tight circle around one form of an otherwise flexible word. Then that circle is fixed into law, demonizing all those who don't fit its narrow definition.

The latest avatar of this strategy is the anti-"recognition of otherwise invalid marriages" initiative in California, known familiarly as the Knight initiative after its principal author, state senator Pete Knight. Since California law already states that marriage can be performed only between one man and one woman, the only legal import here is to prohibit recognition of same-sex marriages legally performed in other states, none of which perform such marriages.

The real import, of course, is to use this hatemongering as an organizing tool. Deny us our families, and you deny us our humanity. It's a kind of two-for-one for the Right. The "thinking" goes like this: "Gays and lesbians are too immoral to be allowed to marry and raise children, so we will deny them the ability to marry and raise children within the law. Then we can point to the fact that they have no real families as a good reason for the denial."

It's time to toss in the monkey wrench. Gay men and lesbians must come out to everyone. Gay and straight people alike must speak up, speak out, and speak the truth so that lies don't win this time. No matter how you identify, it's important that you help fight this initiative. With one out of every seven Americans living in California, simply getting the word out to registered voters will take a huge effort. Kathy Levinson, chief operating officer of the Internet stock trading company E*Trade, recently made a personal contribution with her partner, Jennifer Levinson, of $300,000 to ensure that opposition to the Knight initiative will be a winning campaign. Follow her example and find out how you can help by logging on to www.advocate.com. It's time to become a full-fledged member of the monkey-wrench brigade.