BOSTON – While many of the 255 GLBT delegates to the Democratic National Convention held here July 26-29 expressed disappointment over presidential candidate John Kerry’s opposition to same-sex marriage and his support for amending Massachusetts’ constitution to ban it, they were nonetheless united in their conviction that four more years of George W. Bush will be a disaster for GLBT people.

And they said that Kerry has taken the right position on nearly every other issue of concern to the GLBT community. He supports enactment of same-sex civil-union laws that grant the rights of marriage, and opposes amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

“I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush,” Kerry said in his nomination acceptance speech. “In the weeks ahead, let’s be optimists not just opponents. Let’s build unity in the American family not angry division. Let’s honor this nation’s diversity. Let’s respect one another. And let’s never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history: the Constitution of the United States.”

That reference to the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) elicited the second-loudest outburst of cheering of Kerry’s 47-minute speech.

Outside of the convention hall, GLBT Caucus meetings were addressed by a cavalcade of politicians and celebrities who proclaimed their support for GLBT Americans.

“The gay and lesbian community is no longer put on the sidelines,” said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. “You are an essential part of the Democratic Party.”

“There will be a time,” said actor-activist Rob Reiner, “and it won’t be so long in the distant future, where gays and lesbians will have all the rights that every American has. And we’ll look back at this time as being… what was the issue? What were we even thinking about?”

The loudest welcome at the GLBT Caucus meetings was reserved for Teresa Heinz Kerry, John Kerry’s wife.

“I am grateful to you because you symbolize family, you symbolize strength and hope, you symbolize persistence,” she said. “Because things sometimes are difficult doesn’t mean that they’re not going to happen. They will.”

She continued: “If my [male] child ever came to me and told me, ‘Mom, this is who we are and this is what I’m going to do,’ then I would feel, as a mother, free to share my joy, my pride, with all my friends, no matter the circumstances or religion or their understanding or their culture, in the same way that I would if my son said, ‘I’m marrying this wonderful girl.’ You know what? What we owe one another is respect, dignity, civil rights and the generosity of spirit that always has been a great American trait.

“Two months ago,” Heinz Kerry said, “I was in Sonoma for a fundraiser and after I spoke, a guy came up to me and said, ‘I wish you were my mom.’ … At least if nothing else, you will have a mom in the White House. ... I will always have an ear, I will always have a heart and I will always respect and want you to be loved. …You can call me Mama T anytime.”

The caucuses also were addressed by Maine Gov. John Baldacci; U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.; Congressmember Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.; U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif.; U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.; U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Tex.; U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; ’70s pop singer Carole King; “Queer As Folk” actor Robert Gant; and “Sopranos” actor Steve Buscemi.

“As far as I’m concerned, you will not be without friends,” Boxer said. “This hurtful politics is not going away. They’ve just begun. Now they’re going to tell the courts that the courts have no right to have an opinion on whether gays and lesbians should have equality. What country are we turning into?”

The official Democratic Party platform weighed in with a host of pro-gay positions.

It says: “We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families. In our country, marriage has been defined at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there. We repudiate President Bush’s divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing a ‘Federal Marriage Amendment.’ Our goal is to bring Americans together, not drive them apart.”

The platform continues: “We will enact the bipartisan legislation barring workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. We are committed to equal treatment of all service members and believe all patriotic Americans should be allowed to serve our country without discrimination, persecution or violence. We support the appointment of judges who will uphold our laws and constitutional rights, not their own narrow agendas.”

Activist Roberta Achtenberg explained: “This was the most inclusive, egalitarian message that we thought we could put forward that will neither hinder our litigators nor our activists, and commit our party to full equality. Obviously there are certain bumps that have to be gotten around [such as same-sex marriage] but this is an expansive statement beyond where we were in 2000.”

The platform failed to support transgender issues, to the distress of the convention’s seven known transgender delegates.

Achtenberg – a longtime California activist and an openly lesbian official in the Clinton administration – spoke from the convention podium as well, but outside of prime time.

“We Democrats call for gay and lesbian families to be fully included in the life of America, and will seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families,” she said.

Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques also addressed the convention, again outside of prime time.

Jacques’ speech apparently contained the only scripted reference to same-sex marriage that was allowed from the podium, as the Democratic Party seemed keen not to alienate swing voters or give Republicans any new ammunition.

Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., addressed the convention at 6:14 p.m. the final night. Frank did not give the speech that was on the TelePrompTer, which did not reference same-sex marriage. Instead, he winged it, and talked extensively about marriage.

“I am sorry that the thought of two women who are in love seeking in Florida to solemnize that love in a marriage so disorganized my Republican colleagues that they decided to put aside the business of America, that they decided a couple of weeks ago that we couldn’t deal with homeland security or a highway bill or education or health care, and they had to try and knock a big hole in the U.S. Constitution,” Frank said.

He continued: “I guess I want to try to calm them down. So I’m going to come clean. You hear them talk about the gay agenda, and I’m going to be honest with you now, the fact is, we who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered, we do have an agenda. And here it is: We think we should be able to fight for our country like John Kerry and serve in the military. We believe, revolutionary as it may sound to Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay and Jerry Falwell, we believe people ought to be able to be hired for a job and be judged solely on how well they do the work and not on what somebody else thinks about who they are. We go so far as to believe that a 15-year-old who is different in a lot of ways sexually from others ought to be able to go to high school without being beaten up. I admit it, we believe that. And we even believe, it’s true, that when two people are in love and they are willing to be morally and legally committed to each other and financially responsible to each other, that if they are prepared to get married, it’s a good thing for the stability of society. We believe that.

“It is the Democratic Party as opposed to our very right-wing Republican opponents who support that agenda of allowing us to fight, of allowing us to marry, of allowing us to go forward as human beings with the rights of everyone else. And it is the Republican Party that opposes us,” Frank said.

Apart from same-sex marriage, the only other gay conflict at the convention concerned the Human Rights Campaign’s decision to uninvite comedian Margaret Cho from headlining the weeks’ biggest gay party, a fundraiser and delegate reception called Unity 2004, at a nightclub.

HRC’s Steven Fisher said Cho was dumped because “we were apprised to expect an incendiary and controversial performance.”

HRC’s action caused NGLTF to withdraw as a sponsor of the event and gave 17 members of DontAmend.com a second reason to picket it. The group also demonstrated outside the party to highlight Kerry’s antigay position on marriage.