It was well within living memory that you couldn’t be out of the closet as gay or lesbian and hold most middle-class jobs - or any government job at all. It was less than 25 years ago that we couldn’t get an ambassador to Luxembourg confirmed. I had recently come out at the time.

The nominee, James Hormel, had funded the gay and lesbian room at the San Francisco Public Library, at a time when there was virtually no foundation funding for anything gay or LGBTQ.

Antigay activists - not understanding the idea of a library, but also very much understanding their own tremendous power to hurt us - sent three-ring binders with photocopied materials from the SFPL’s Hormel collection to every senator.

The Republican majority leader blocked Hormel’s confirmation because he said homosexuality is sinful.