We are worse off - all of us, including men and boys - if our society is not developing and empowering 100% of the resources of humanity, including women and girls.

What haven't I been called? Every antigay, misogynist, anti-Semitic, anti-liberal smear you can think of. I don't think I can transform those smears; I can't even repeat them! But I proudly embrace the identities beneath them.

Women are more than half of our globe, more than half of our promise and potential. And we have been not only underusing that resource but suppressing it.

I'm a woman and a lesbian and a feminist and a Jew and so many other things, and those identities are a source of pride and strength for me.

I'm so moved when I see everyday Americans standing together, against all odds, to make their lives and communities better - whether it's organizing against big factories polluting their air or against big banks corrupting our economy and political system.

We are worse off - all of us, including men and boys - if our society is not developing and empowering 100% of the resources of humanity, including women and girls.

But perhaps the next step isn't to, once again, expand the otherwise narrow definition of marriage but to altogether abolish the false distinction between married families and other equally valid but unrecognized partnerships.