At the outset of the 2004 presidential primaries, Howard Dean was considered a far-out radical, in large part because as Vermont governor he had signed a bill providing civil unions for gay couples. By the end of the election, however, all the Democratic candidates had come out in support of civil unions, and even George W. Bush said that if a state chose to have them, that was fine with him. Four years later, not much had changed the leading Democratic candidates all said they supported civil unions but still thought marriage should be between a man and a woman.

And Barack Obama has held to that standard, despite saying his views on marriage equality are "evolving." People on both the left and right take this to mean that he believes in marriage equality, but doesn't yet have the political courage to come out and say so publicly. His message to the gay community has essentially been: Look, I repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and my administration isn't defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, and on gay marriage, well, just be patient. The First Lady has implied that future Obama Supreme Court nominees will support marriage equality. But nobody really expects the President to do a public shift before election day. The gay community is, if not satisfied, then accepting of where he is, and Obama is too cautious to risk alienating independent voters (though whether he would is debateable). Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that Obama will be the last Democratic president who didn't support marriage equality...

In September 2010, Rutgers student Dharun Ravi used a webcam to spy on his roommate having sex with another man (he didn’t tape him or broadcast him; he just took a few quick peeps and tweeted about it, according to in-depth reporting by Ian Parker at The New Yorker). Three weeks later, that roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped off a bridge to his death. On Friday, a New Jersey jury convicted Ravi of 15 charges, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. Some of the charges carry possible sentences of ten years in prison. Because Ravi was born in India and arrived in the United States at the age of two, he could also be deported to a country he scarcely knows.

Here's a way to save time debating women's health. Rather than allow people to fight and debate the issues around birth control and access to healthcare, simply don't tell them key facts about contraception and sexual health. That way, rather than fighting, kids will be blissfully ignorant. Or, you know, rely on the wisdom of my sister's best friend's cousin who says you definitely can't get pregnant if it's a full moon. 

Legislatures in both Wisconsin and Utah have passed abstinence-only education bills. It's now up to governors in both states to determine whether or not to make the measures law.

Tigger and Eeyore are battling it out inside me this week. I can’t tell whether to be depressed over what Maureen Dowd calls “the attempt by Republican men to wrestle American women back into chastity belts” or invigorated by the myriad ways women are chronicling it and fighting back. Are women really gonna get dragged back to the scarlet-letter era—why not just repeal the 19th amendment!—or is all this going to set off a revitalized third feminist wave? 

Eeyore: In a surreal move, the Arizona Legislature’s Senate Judiciary committee has introduced a bill that would:

It's hard to overstate just how dire the situation is around women's health care in Texas. The state has the third highest rate of cervical cancer in the country and one in four women are uninsured. After cutting family-planning funding by around two-thirds last legislative session, conservative lawmakers are now standing by their decision to cut off Planned Parenthood from the state's Women's Health Program, a move that ended $35 million in federal funding.

To go back to The Washington Post poll for a moment, there is a little good news if the Obama administration is still fretting over its handling of the contraception mandate.

By a margin of 61 percent to 35 percent, Americans believe that health insurers should be required to cover the full cost of birth control for women. This even extends to religious-affiliated employers—like hospitals—which were the focal point of the controversy. According to the poll, 79 percent of those who support the birth-control mandate also support it for religious-affiliated employers.