A brand-new gay rights campaign is launching itself in California, as anybody could have predicted it would. To me this resembles a theater of masochism. A constitutional amendment passed after a long, highly publicized campaign and an election with exceptionally high voter turnout, subsequently ratified by the state Supreme Court, is not going to be repealed electorally in my lifetime. That's a pipe dream of populists who cannot tolerate the fact that the majority of my fellow citizens genuinely wish to deny me and people like me the same rights everybody else can take for granted. And it wasn't just Orange County and the boondocks. In a city as progressive as San Francisco SEVENTY PERCENT of African Americans voted against civil rights for gays. That unpalatable fact may change in the future, but it won't change in the near future.