The New Year begins. While we celebrate a new beginning, a new order, we sing of Auld Lang Syne, while auld sins and prejudices live on.

While we celebrate our liberation from the political death watch of leaders who drank too deeply of power, and slap ourselves on our collective backs for having elected the first ever African American president, hard truths persist.

I write this piece this morning to auld acquaintances who fill the leisure hours of my days, who sit beside me in the coffee shop and the barber chair. I write particularly to Harry and Loretta, loving pseudonyms I've given to five or six day chatters on my radar.

Harry and Loretta are brothers and sisters to millions of Americans across the frigid terrain, who still stumble over the vision of two men, or two women standing at the altar of their choice, be it in a judge's chamber or at a real altar surrounded by families and friends.

My Harry and Loretta are kind folks, good Christians who chafe at the idea of wedlock between same-sex couples. They don't actually subscribe to the musings of the Christian leader Rick Warren, who compares same-sex marriage to incest, or adults marrying children, but they persist, one and all, in the fear that such marriages will somehow destroy the "sacred" meaning of marriage, represented by those two separate-sex wax figures on the wedding cake.

Despite all the terrible news that pours from these pages each day, Harry and Loretta return again and again to the "disaster" that will result from such bondings.

So today, once again, I read them the news.

On Christmas Eve, a smiling little girl in Covina, Calif., answered a knock at her door. It was Santa. Santa was the last thing she saw as the spirit of Christmas shot her in the face and killed at least eight others and orphaned 17 children. And still, Harry and Loretta, the idea of Jack and Joe at the altar haunts your dreams.

As Harry and Loretta sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, terrorists armed with grenades and automatic weapons struck Mumbai, India, killing hundreds of people and wounding hundreds more, including a room full of Jews to whom they gave special murderous attention. Meanwhile, Harry and Loretta remain upset over Jane and Julia sharing rings and a public kiss.

While America this year lost over 533,000 jobs and by the way, some of them were people you know, Harry, you remained obsessed over gay marriage.

While 1,800 homes burned to the ground in California in the last big fire of the year, and while top AIG performers took a $440,000 "spa trip" a week after you gave them an $85 billion bailout with your tax money, you still argue with me about the basic human rights of our gay and lesbian children to share a sacrament.

While you, Loretta, sat in the coffee shop and argued about too much publicity given to gay marriage, Bristol Palin, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's unwed daughter and her "not ready for marriage" lover were paid $300,000 by People Magazine for the first photos of their baby.

While the Harrys and Lorettas of California were marching in the streets, hoisting signs and frothing at the mouth and chanting against gay-marriage rights, nearly 102,000 homeowners, some of them the marchers themselves, lost their properties to foreclosure -- in August alone. And isn't it amazing that an overwhelming and frightening number of black and Hispanic Americans, who chanted "free at last" at the victory over bigotry in the election of Barack Obama, voted against their gay brothers and sisters on Prop 8, denying them the same rights fought so long for?

Ain't it always the way?

J.P. Devine is a freelance writer

living in Waterville.