“We all bear responsibility for the choices we make, especially when one chooses to improve one’s own life at the expense of others. Mehlman’s plea for understanding that it was ‘very hard, personally,’ rings hollow when compared to the lives of those who chose to live their lives honestly, even when that choice ended careers or divided families.

“Choices have consequences. The consequences of Mehlman’s choices are enshrined in the constitutions of multiple states — including my own home state of Kentucky — a web of treachery that will take decades to undo (absent a Supreme Court decision for marriage equality, which no one should hold their breath for).

“Where some may see in Mehlman a pragmatic tool for the hardball political arena, I see a political blood diamond, a commodity so tainted by its past that it’s odious to employ in the present. The fight for LGBT equality has to be about more than political warfare, more than collecting checks from rich benefactors. Pragmatism has its place, yet so does principle. Mehlman may someday find redemption enough to cleanse the taint of his past, but that redemption should be earned, not bought.”

Sean Bugg – Long-time writer, journalist and editor in Washington, D.C. via Metro Weekly