This is our final issue of 2007—as is our usual practice, CFP will not publish an issue the last week of the year. Our next issue comes out Jan. 2, 2008.

As we close the books on another year, we look back on a year that brought some milestones but also included its share of disappointments.

Certainly the failure of the Illinois Legislature to pass civil unions legislation is at the top of the list of disappointments. While our ultimate goal is equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, passage of the civil unions bill sponsored by Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) would bring welcome relief for those couples, providing them with many of the economic benefits and privileges enjoyed by their straight peers.

We had hopes at the beginning of the year that the Legislature would act to pass Harris’ bill. Instead, like so many other worthwhile measures, the civil unions bill became a casualty of the inability of Illinois’ feuding Democrats to pass much of anything substantial in Springfield. We can hope that things might be different in the coming year but there’s not much reason for such hopes so long as the governor continues to pick fights with legislative leaders instead of looking for ways to move forward on issues they can agree on.

We were also disappointed with politics in Washington, where Congress failed to pass the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, despite approval by majorities in both houses. Congressional leaders also let the community down when they needlessly dropped transgenders from a rewritten, weakened version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. That bill passed the House but will not become law, ensuring that its only legacy will be the ramifications of a bitter divide between most GLBT groups on the one side and the Human Rights Campaign on the other.

Locally we were also disappointed that another summer passed with the needs of GLBT youths on Halsted unanswered. Despite much talk, those youths, many of them black and from the South and West Sides, still have nothing to do at night on Halsted except to wander the sidewalks, leaving them subject to harassment by pimps, drug dealers and others who would prey on them. Our community can do a better job of welcoming them to our premier GLBT neighborhood and it’s shameful that we don’t.

On a positive note, though, despite the slow progress in Illinois, we saw the rights of gay and lesbian couples advance across the country and around the world. Civil unions moved forward in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut and elsewhere, while other states advanced or passed legislation to give gay and lesbian couples some rights and recognition.

And that progress was not just limited to the U.S. and Europe—in Mexico, gay and lesbian couples won civil unions in two states, and as the year draws to a close Uruguay is poised to pass a nationwide civil unions bill.

Here at home we also saw the realization of a dream when the Center on Halsted opened last summer. It is a magnificent building that holds great promise for our community. It is up to us to make the most of that promise and turn the building into a laboratory for creativity, unity and diversity.

Some have speculated in the past year on the future of GLBTs as a “community.” Perhaps that may be a question for future generations but for us it is clear that we still have much to accomplish before we can say that the movement launched by the GLBT community decades ago has achieved its goals of equality and inclusion.

So let us celebrate 2007, build on its successes, rectify its disappointments and move forward with a renewed sense of mission in 2008. Happy holidays. We’ll see you again after the first of the year.