Strategically speaking, it would be "barking" of the LGBT community in the US to take, with anything less than a shovel-full of salt, overtures of compromise from a political and religious right which has never conceded it any advantage. Would a runner quit a race when he was leading the field and just a stride or two short of the finish line? Possibly, if he were making a Sillitoan protest. But I'm sure this community has matured beyond protest politics, so effective has been its equality drive in recent years. LGBT people in the States have, legally speaking, been tasting finer food and have developed an appetite for more.

The political and religious right knows this (hence Trump's conceding defeat on same-sex marriage), but some are subborn enough to think compromise on others' rights still possible. A delusion, really, since the intellectual and moral advantage they once had has tilted on its axis and is pointing, decidedly, the other way.