make friends and influence people

[waider]

Well, influence people, anyway. The most amusing part of this story about a gay couple being refused entry to the US is that they were on their way to a human rights conference. I do find this quote curious:

The US Embassy in Ottawa defended the action by US immigration officials at Toronto airport, saying that the 1996 US Defence of Marriage Act defined marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife".

...because I thought someone was recently pushing for some sort of declaration that a marriage is such a thing in order to ward off the evil memes from the Northern Wastes.