Pride and Thanksgiving.

It's Pride Month, so why are we writing about Thanksgiving? Because Pride Month this year began with an encore U.S. Senate appearance of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which aims to enshrine antigay marriage discrimination in the U.S. Constitution. No one ever expected the amendment to pass, but in an election year the Republican Party needed to "energize its base." Translation: To distract from their dismal failures, the Bushies are again throwing the Christian right a hunk of flesh--ours.

What's worse is that many members of our own families don't raise their voices against it--and don't try to understand why that's a problem. That's where Thanksgiving comes in.

In many families no one brings up gay equality unless we do. And when we press them to take our side, fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers offer all kinds of reasons why they can't stand up for us: "I'm not a one-issue voter." "Don't worry, they'll never pass that amendment." "Things are tough for gay people, and you need to accept that." "Do you have to call it 'marriage'?" "I hate it when you get political."

In other words, we love you, but that gay thing isn't as important to us as, say, lower taxes. Anyway, it's something you ought to deal with in private, like athlete's foot.

We don't think our families' politics need to match ours. But whatever their party, they should be lobbying to take gay-baiting out of the political playbook. They should love us that much.

So before we book those fall plane tickets, we need to ask ourselves, Should we compromise our humanity in order to keep the family peace on Turkey Day? When do we draw the line and say, "If you can't support us, you need to know how much that hurts. We love you. You love us. Fine. But you need to own your own homophobia, and we're going to give you space to do just that."

No, we won't ruin Thanksgiving by bringing politics to the table. In our own spin on GLSEN's Day of Silence, we simply won't be there. Let someone else squirm or lie as they explain to Grandma and to our young nieces and nephews why our chairs sit empty.

We don't have to "cut off' our conservative loved ones to let them know their actions have real, harmful effects on our lives. We won't be nasty about it. We just won't be there. For one special day, well have dinner with our gay family, with people who know we deserve to have love and happiness and equality under the law.