By Jennifer Vanasco

We like to say in the gay and lesbian community that knowing us makes a difference.

We say that when people know us, their minds will change. Their hearts will change. They will stop seeing us as an unknowable, frightening other, and instead see us as friends, cousins, brothers and daughters.

We say this, and then we are puzzled and angry when it doesn’t seem to be the case, especially in political life.

Alan Keyes, for example, the latest entry into the GOP presidential sweepstakes, has a lesbian daughter—but he’s rabidly anti-gay.

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and the guy who brought us the Contract with America, last year basically said that gays condone pedophilia—he has a lesbian sister.

Dick Cheney, we all know, has a lesbian daughter, and although that has seemed to mean that he himself isn’t anti-gay, it didn’t mean he reigned in his boss on the issue, either.

Then last week, there was that video of San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican. In it, we could see in front of us what we always hoped was true—someone’s heart made softer, someone’s mind changed, because someone he knew was gay.

Teary, choked up, stammering, Sanders explained to his city and the country why he was not going to veto a resolution to support same-sex marriage passed by the city council, even though he had sworn just days before that he would, even though he has been against gay marriage publicly since 2005.

He said, “The arrival of the resolution to sign or veto in my office late last night forced me to reflect and search my soul for the right thing to do. I’ve decided to lead with my heart, which is probably obvious at the moment, to do what I think is right and to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice.”

He continued, “I just could not bring myself to tell an entire group of our community they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than anyone else, simply because of their sexual orientation.”

These things he was saying—they weren’t spin. They weren’t crafted by someone on his staff to get votes. In fact, these things make it likely he will lose reelection. And San Diego insiders point out that the council would likely have overturned his veto anyway, making his speech unnecessary. He could have been quiet and both saved face and protected his daughter.

Except he had to say it, because he believed it. He had to say it because his lesbian daughter Lisa and gay members of his staff changed his heart, which changed his mind.

Others can debate (and are) over whether his speech to San Diego showed courage or just an urge to protect his family; whether Jerry Sanders is a hero or a flip-flopper who can’t stand on his convictions.

But it is clear from the video—and if you haven’t seen it, you should—that his words were coming from a deeply personal place beyond politics. And I think it always takes strength to reveal oneself in public like that.

What I think is amazing is the chance to witness an intensely personal moment brought to the public: The moment when someone makes the connection that loving someone who is gay means supporting the gay and lesbian civil rights movement.

Sanders said, “I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones. For each of them to find a mate, whom they love deeply and who loves them back. Someone who they can grow old together and share life’s experiences.”

He added, “In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships—their very lives—were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife, Rana.”

These are the words of someone who is speaking with a full, new heart. These are the words we hope for, that we look for, that we yearn for. When we say that each one of us makes a difference by coming out, this is the difference we mean.

It is not enough that people love us and take care of us privately. We also need them to stand up for us publicly, so that their conviction can change other minds, through other hearts.

Jerry Sanders did this. He did this. He took his private love for his daughter and made it into something bigger, something that tries to protect us all.

And in doing so, he restores our hope that—Keyes and Cheney and Gingrich to the contrary—knowing us does, indeed, make a difference.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist based in New York. Email her at jennifer.vanasco@gmail.com. She blogs daily at the political gay site VisibleVote08.com and keeps an occasional personal blog and column archives at jennivervanasco.com.