Senator Ellis, you may have been closeted, but you always bravely voted "right" on gay issues, rather than taking what would have been the less risky neutral or negative position more expected in such a "red state."  While I did not have to suffer as much in my private life as you did, I did have to be quiet about myself in my public service career, and I heard along with you (without being able to respond) all the vile things said about gays during floor debates and legislative committee meetings, and written in news columns and letters to the editor over the past decades, questioning our values and our worth as human beings.  And my children had to hear how their mothers were supposedly perverts, incapable of family values.  It was tough, to say the least.  My thanks to you for sticking it out for so long and always, always doing the intelligent, compassionate thing when push came to shove.