The death of anti-gay hate speech is no doubt being hastened by the head-spinning speed with which gays as a group - to say nothing of gay marriage - are becoming an unremarkable and even quite traditional parts of American life.

Our birth is nothing but our death begun, As tapers waste the moment they take fire.

Virtue alone has majesty in death.

Less base the fear of death than fear of life.

Life is the desert, life the solitude, death joins us to the great majority.