Two weeks ago Monday, I moved back to Washington, D.C. That Wednesday, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act -- which I had worked on when I lived in D.C. more than 10 years ago in the '90s -- became law.

A week later, the U.S. Senate held a hearing on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which had received a vote -- albeit an unsuccessful one -- in the Senate before I had left D.C. in 1998. There are hopes now that the House could soon vote on the bill, which now is inclusive of both gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination, and that the Senate could take up the bill early next year.

On Tuesday, D.C. City Council's Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary reported out of committee the marriage equality bill introduced by openly gay councilman David Catania -- who was first elected to the city council back in 1997 -- and take another step toward passing marriage equality in the District.

Of course, this past Tuesday -- despite successes in Washington state and Kalamazoo, Mich. -- ended with another defeat for marriage equality at the ballot box in Maine. I was reminded that night of another fight from the '90s, when Maine voters narrowly rejected a nondiscrimination measure. The nondiscrimination measure, defeated at the polls in 1998, became law in 2005.

Also on Tuesday, though, the country saw extraordinary successes for openly LGBT candidates, from Houston, Texas, to Canton, Ohio. As the Victory Fund noted, it was the most successful non-federal election year in history for LGBT candidates, with more than 60 winning their races and several others -- including Annise Parker in the Houston mayor's race -- advancing to run-off elections.

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