Now, I know that these are really just words, and that especially in politics words don’t usually mean a thing until something actually gets done, but still… the sheer existence of this section, on a page called “Civil Rights,” on the website of the White House! The website that, to quote a line from one of the first blog posts under its new leadership, will “serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world.” The official electronic mouthpiece, in other words. The one-stop resource for all things related to the new presidential administration, its views, policies, and current plans.

And a resource that’s being used, at least in part, to talk about support for things like repealing the military”s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy… and support for repealing the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” and expanding the rights given to same-sex couples to include all of the more than 1,100 federal benefits as well… and even support for expanding adoption rights, in language that can’t get much plainer or more direct: “[President Obama] thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.”

… Wow. Just… wow. Talk about a turn-around from the previous administration, eh? Again, it may not be “real” in the political sense until the legislation’s drafted and things get changed and repealed and enacted in the proper way – and I’m sure that, even for Obama himself, there are plenty of hoops to jump through – but it’s still amazing, not to mention supremely uplifting, to know – hard as it may be to believe -  that on the actual website of the President of the United States, there is FINALLY direct, unequivocal support for LGBT people and their rights in words that don’t reek of two-faced, patronizing hypocrisy.

Change has come, indeed.