I have lots of friends and, like me, they're not married. So my kids have lots of godparents - men and women, gay and straight. My loft is always filled with people helping me out with them and loving them.
If we don't believe in Americans, who will? I do believe. I've seen it in the people of our very typical corner of the nation.
Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer.