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Spirits were high Monday at the fifth annual Berkeley Brunch—the city’s gay community gathering. Locals came to socialize and have a good time, but many who filled the upstairs ballroom of Hs Lordship’s Restaurant couldn’t help but reflect on a year of unprecedented legal triumphs. 

“I’m very optimistic for gay rights,” said Berkeley resident Aditya Advani. “We have the momentum, the stigma has been taken out.” 

Guests celebrated the landmark Supreme Court ruling in June that enshrined the right to sexual privacy, as well as last month’s California Supreme Court ruling upholding gay adoptions and Canada’s recent legalization of gay marriage. 

“We’re at an upbeat time. There have been some real advances,” said Johhny Symons. 

While everyone agreed the struggle for gay rights enjoyed a banner year, participants differed on how the victories would shape the community mindset. 

“I think the Texas case was a lesson to the community,” said Stan Stansbury. “People woke up and said, hey, politics can be important.” 

His partner had a different take. “I’m less political now,” Jaime Ballesteros said. “When the Texas case went down the bubble in my head of deep visceral fear of the Republican Right popped because my basic rights are now assured.” 

Not everyone at the brunch assumed future gains were inevitable. “I think we’re on the brink of a huge explosion of opposing forces,” said Tom Pyun who feared that conservatives were gearing up to block passage of domestic partnership laws. “I think in Berkeley we are so comfortable and so isolated from right wing money that we lose perspective and underestimate the power of the right.” 

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), who received an award for her efforts to secure worldwide funding for AIDS treatment, pledged to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage backed by congressional Republicans and the Bush Administration.  

“We’re going to stop this thing dead in its tracks,” she told the audience. 

A poll conducted by the Associated Press last month showed 54 percent of respondents favored the amendment, 40 percent of whom identified themselves as Democrats. 

California is on the brink of passing a domestic partnership law that would put it on par with Vermont as the most extensive in the country. The law—awaiting Senate approval—would grant gay partners the same tax, property and health insurance rights as married couples. A constitutional amendment would nullify the law. 

Most people at the brunch discounted the constitutional amendment as a political ploy to rev up conservative voters, but said they didn’t need to stray far from home for evidence that their fight was far from over. 

Several people recalled the grisly murder of Edward “Gwen” Arroyo, a 17-year-old transgender student at Newark High School slain at a party last October. “As far as we have to go with gay rights, we have so much further to go with transgender issues,” said Travis Hottes, a recent UC Berkeley grad who said he fears for the safety of his friends at high schools in San Leandro and Hayward. 

Although most participants were quick to talk politics, health care was the theme for this year’s brunch. City Health Department Official William Rogers was honored for his management of a Berkeley program offering residents free HIV testing. The program tests abut 3,000 people annually and operates mobile testing vans in areas known as hot spots for public sex. 

City funding cuts imperiled the program, but Rogers said an influx of federal grants will keep the $1 million program operating at full strength this year. 

Rogers and his partner Symons, the fathers of two adopted sons, both cheered an August ruling by the California Supreme Court upholding unmarried couples’ right to adopt, effectively validating the roughly 20,000 adoptions by same-sex couples in the state. 

Symons said he looked forward to the day when he and Rogers could marry officially, and not have to rely on the courts. “After ten years with a partner, I would like to have the legal protections and social recognition,” he said. I’d like to be able to use a term like husband and have people respect that.”