I think all of the Episcopalian priests I know are lesbians. But they all took the collar after Gene Robinson, I'd assume. I still don't think he was the first openly gay priest.

Also, I just had lunch with an old friend I haven't seen in a million years, and he reminded me of the most hilarious thing that's happened to anyone we went to high school with (and that's including Ben and J-Lo): we went to school with Michelle NdegeOcello's wife!

This is pretty interesting--a photographer was doing a photo project on couples in America back in 1996, and included a young African-American couple in Chicago.

There is a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a political career, although it’s unclear. There is a little tension with that. I’m very wary of politics. I think he’s too much of a good guy for the kind of brutality, the skepticism.

Robinson wasn't ordained bishop all that long ago -- 2004. At that time I knew several openly gay Episcopal priests.

I suppose Robinson could have been openly gay before they were... Robinson was ordained a priest in '73 (but not an openly gay one -- he was married) and got together with his current partner in '87. So it was some time in the eighties that he began or joined the ranks of openly gay Episcopal priests.

Kathy - how funny is that?

I wonder what led her to them.

What a lovely portrait, Kathy!

This whole bit got me all swoony:

Michelle is a tremendously strong person, and has a very strong sense of herself and who she is and where she comes from. But I also think in her eyes you can see a trace of vulnerability that most people don’t know, because when she’s walking through the world she is this tall, beautiful, confident woman. There is a part of her that is vulnerable and young and sometimes frightened, and I think seeing both of those things is what attracted me to her. And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

Yeah, that woke up my shippy all over again.

Can we clone him?

Wow. That is...wow. Teary now.

I wonder what led her to them.

Don't forget that he had been featured in the NYTimes when he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, so he already had some national exposure.