Guess who's coming to dinner?

The polls are very clear that one of the best predictors for support of LGBT equality is actually knowing LGBT people.  The opponents of equality succeed in demonizing gay people only as long as those to whom they preach have no evidence against it.

Recently, two marriage advocates have made offers to address this.  Dan Savage, noted sex columnist and pro-equality campaigner, has invited Brian Brown, the president of anti-gay NOM, to dinner to discuss the religious view of marriage.  Dan says,

We can fill a room with my screaming partisans and your screaming partisans and we’ll both play to our respective peanut galleries and I think both of us have a little bit of grandstander in souls and we will work that and I think that will create more heat than light. And so what I’d like to do is challenge you to come to my house for dinner. Bring the wife. My husband will be there. and I will hire a video crew and we will videotape sort of an after dinner debate. 

The trick here is you have to knowledge my humanity by accepting my hospitality and I have to acknowledge yours by extending my hospitality to you. And I’m willing to do that.

And Family Equality Council Executive Director Jennifer Chrisler   has invited notorious anti-gay Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, to dinner at her house:

I would like to extend an open invitation for you and your family to visit my home and have dinner with my spouse and children with the full hope that you will witness the love that exists in our families. While I recognize it may not change your mind, I hope that it might soften your heart. As Christians, I think we can both agree that ours is not to judge and that we must live by the golden rule. I open my table to you and invite you to get to know me and my family. 

Even if nothing comes of the experience, at least you can say you spent time with our families and knew us and still deny us our equality. But I know you will find that our families have much in common and share the same hopes and dreams for our children.

Both men have accepted the invitations in principle, although their wives will not be attending.

Stay tuned....