In which The Gay Recluse bemoans the state of the union.

For as long as we can remember, our mother has (like us) been a bleeding-heart liberal, while our father has been a Republican asshole.

They’ve been married almost 55 years.

But then a few months ago, she told us that he was supporting Obama.

We dared not ask him about it, because politics is not a subject we can ever discuss with him. (That’s a lesson we repeatedly learned the hard way.)

Still, we could hear the hope in our mother’s voice when she relayed the news, even though she was a Hillary supporter. (She’s now working for Obama.)

Except then last week he told her he was voting for McCain. Sigh.

And that he thought she should vote for him too, because of Sarah Palin.

My mother — who has only devoted the last four decades of her life to women’s equality and related issues of health and reproductive freedom — tried to explain why Sarah Palin was nothing like Hillary Clinton.

He told her she was “nitpicking.”

Omg, what an asshole!

Our father is a smart man in many ways — we could always respect his calls for fiscal responsibility — but somewhere along the line he became infected by a Rush-Limbaugh mentality.

So you see why we can’t talk to him about any of this: It’s too painful to acknowledge that he would vote for people who discriminate against his own son. We try to stick to three subjects: 1) weather, 2) sports and 3) gardening.

Once he confessed to us his belief that a gay relationship — and specifically, his son’s — didn’t deserve to be recognized by the law, no matter how long it had lasted. We were filled with hatred for him at that moment.

But that passed — obviously, some people will never be convinced — and we mostly think of our mother.

And try to follow her example of denial, resignation and forgiveness.