So, how about it? Has it all come clear? Has the true horror been made absolutely and irrefutably real? Because know this for certain: There is no going back.

Behold, beautiful and confused children of Earth: The smoke has cleared, the glitter bomb has settled and finally, after years of deliciously imaginary back-room strategizing and decades -- if not centuries -- of secretly brainwashing millions of innocent children, punk-rock girls and repressed '50s dads ...

After panicking the religious right, inducing nightmares in the Pope and shamelessly luring countless congresspersons and church pastors, mayors and deeply shamed NFL players into the shimmery rainbow fold, the world-famous "homosexual agenda" has, once and for all, screamed itself alive.

Have you noticed? Have you read and felt and pored through, stifled a sniff and perhaps even let a few tears flow? Have you yet had your heart cracked open, just a little? Or maybe a lot?

I dare you. I dare you right now.

Especially you, over there on the convulsive and ever so baffled religious right. Especially you, bleak and loveless Mormon Church elders. Especially you from the aged, encrusted generations who are right now looking around in buzzing terror and not sure what to make of it all. Especially you up there on the pulpit, waving your arms and wielding your Bible like it was a dull switchblade, wailing that the fabric is coming undone and nothing will ever be the same again.

You know what, pastor? You are absolutely goddamn right. You know what else? Thank sweet Jesus for that. I mean, really.

To make it even easier to understand, to produce irrefutable evidence of the agenda's ultimate goals, to further confound (or perhaps finally enlighten?) those who still think homosexuality is a choice, who think it the devil's work and believe it morally repugnant, well, we have pictures. Lots and lots of pictures, all from New York, all from the first days of legal gay marriage in that fine state.

And lo, they are enough to shake you to the core, reignite the soul, reaffirm your simplest faith in this rough beast known as humanity. They are enough, if you look just right and open a bit wider, to make you forget the woes of the world and be reassured that the simplest truths remain, as ever, the most profound.

Or let's put it this way: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a photo of two people aswim in true and respected love is worth just about every book, poem and bible ever written in this messy and godsmacked little realm we call home.

Don't believe me? Click the gallery I've included in this column, or any other floating around the Web right now, and be amazed, refreshed, ignited, heartspun and soulwarmed, over and over again, as many times as you like, as many times as it takes. I've looked through all these pictures a dozen times, and take my word for it, it never fails.

Here it is, over and over, one stunning photo after another, an endless parade of people simply bursting at the seams with love and human potential, radiating and terrified and madly aglow with the possibility of it all.

Here they are, in an incredible array of shapes and sizes, ages and hair colors, backgrounds and melodramas, each and every one finally able, with the state's full blessing, to consecrate their vows. Hey, just like you! Imagine.

The good news is, there is almost no way your Republican dad, your deeply homophobic brother, your Puritanical grandma, or pretty much anyone with a functioning and extant heart can see these pictures and not suddenly be drained of all protest, all resistance, all ridiculous fear of what "the homosexual agenda" is really all about. It is, after all, about just one thing, and one thing only. And it always has been.

Perhaps it's too much to ask. Perhaps you believe there are many who will simply never be convinced. The fear is too deep, the religious indoctrination too harshly stamped, the heart too cold and locked down.

It's very possible. When I first posted a link to some of these photos in Twitter and on my Facebook page, amidst all the positive comments, the cheers and tears from all normal and vibrant souls, even then did a few scowls sneak through, some who were still disgusted at the thought, sickened by the images, grossed out by the very existence of gay people in the way only violently uptight, over-sheltered straight people can be.

Some reacted to the funny way some of the couples were dressed. Some hated how silly and identical some couples were to one another. Some were childishly indignant that gays should still not be allowed to be seen kissing in public.

To which you can too easily reply, Have you seen straight people lately? Bridezillas? Bridalplasty? The abject nightmare of deeply freaky straight people getting married in strip clubs, in full furry costume, at Star Wars conventions, as Klingons and Smurfs and Star Trek characters, at drunken monster truck rallies, Krispy Kreme donut shops, Guns 'R Us? I've been to many beautiful weddings in my life. But know this now: No one can top straight people when it comes to gross and ridiculous couplings.

But I won't say that. Because that would be tacky, and also beside the point. Besides, the protests have been relatively minor, tame. Note how there hasn't been a single GOP candidate who has dared to slam the New York weddings. The Prop 8-loving Mormons are nowhere to be found. Redneck dudes in baseball hats have retreated to the man cave en masse to sulk and watch gay porn in silent resentment.

Do you think they sense the writing on the wall? Do you think they intuit which way history is leaning? Which state will be next (note: all of them, eventually)? Or do you think they finally understood the true nature of the terrifying "homosexual agenda?"

Maybe, just maybe, they finally saw it, in blazing full color, in a devastatingly simple photo gallery somewhere, and finally had their fears laid to rest, their ideologies reconfigured, their hearts blasted open. Hey, it's possible.

Love can do that, you know. It always has.