Last night, as I was cleaning my mother’s ashes out of the living room carpet—don’t ask—my mind turned to the very ephemeral nature of most things. Like fashion, nothing lasts forever.

We have the very real luxury of getting to take for granted living in what is, for the most part, a safe place in which to be an LGBT American. The existence of our little gay burgh—only two squares miles, believe it or not, plus the surrounding zip codes in Victoria Park, Coral Ridge, and further afield in Miami Shores and North Miami—is made even more astonishing when you consider it is surrounded by one of the most ruggedly-individualistic of all Red States, governed by Rick Scott, certainly no Friend of Dorothy he (or even Toto for that matter).

Dean Trantalis, a longtime Wilton Manors-based attorney and longtime Fort Lauderdale resident (who is in a March 12 run-off for that city’s District 2 commission seat) told me a couple of weeks ago that LGBT media outlets are dropping the ball in their coverage of matters of LGBT political importance, including his race against the latest holder of the commission seat, Charlotte Rodstrom (who herself had succeeded Dean; and people think the Gayborhood is a swap-a-thon).

In our defense, I pointed out that this publication had been diligent in our reporting of that race, and of profiling him for our readers as a community leader with a distinguished and laudable pedigree (including activism not least noted for his service in the mid-1990s as co-chair of Americans for Equality, and his work in successfully enacting and defending passage of Broward County’s Human Rights Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation).

Dean graciously acknowledged our coverage, but as I sit here listening to the poet-singer Paul Simon remind me that “the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away,” it occurs to me that he is right in a much larger sense (Dean, that is, although yes, I guess Paul Simon, is too).

Although we seem to have won numerous “big picture” victories—the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the President’s refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court, that egregious law’s “day in court” this spring before the black-robed Supremes, and numerous state house, judicial, and ballot box successes for marriage equality—each of which is justifiably a headline-grabber, the real war is being fought in a way I’m not so sure that we are winning.

In last week’s Agenda, although we covered with pride and (a degree of satisfaction) on the establishment of a legacy to the memory of Tyler Clementi, a victim of ignorance and homophobia (NATION, February 6, 2013: “Rutgers Announces Memorial for Gay Student who Committed Suicide”), in the immediately preceding column, we reported on the tragedy of a 15 year old gay Oregon student who was literally bullied to death (“Bullied Gay 15 Year Old Dies following Suicide Attempt”).

Clearly, no one had made that high school student, Jadin Bell, aware that he was living at the dawn of an “enlightened” age before he chose to hang himself in an elementary school playground.

Jadin Bell didn’t die after a lonely suicide attempt because the House Republican Conference has decided that his rights matter less than those of his straight peers, and have chosen to defend DOMA in court (at least until the coming Supreme Court decisions). But he must have surely found himself living in an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and an inability to see himself in a better tomorrow, all of which contributed to that final act of desperation.

I recall House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) making quite an appeal in the interest of Terry Schiavo; does Jadin Bell matter any less to the defenders of tradition, life, and wedded bliss, the GOP?

Here in Florida, State Rep. Joe Saunders, an Orlando Democrat and—with State. Rep. David Richardson (D-Miami Beach)—one of Florida’s first openly gay legislators, introduced the Florida Competitive Workforce Act last week, which would prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

It’s not an end in and of itself, but it’s definitely a start.