It was the weather that did it, to tell you the truth. I was thinking about how glad I was that it's getting cooler here in New York, for many reasons (soup season! hot chocolate season! rustling leaf piles! knitted scarf weather! Thanksgiving!), not least of which was that it's just about cold enough for Dave and Josh to pull out my wedding gift, and curl up beneath it together and have a good snuggle. The thought of this was immeasurably pleasing to me.
But then I got to wondering what will happen on November 5th if, on November 4th, Californians do decide to amend their constitution. Josh and Dave traveled all the way to California in July just to get married, and came home to New York under the promise that their own state would fully recognize their marriage. And these two men are two of the kindest, gentlest, most wonderful people in the world, and it breaks my heart to think that their love for each other might soon be relegated once again, legally speaking, to a second-class kind of love.
It's heartbreaking enough to have to constantly fight discrimination in the first place, but to have finally won equality, only to have it snatched away again, is just something that no one should have to endure.
I gave $100 to Equality California last week, on the recommendation of an old friend of mine whose law firm did some pro bono work on S14799. I wish that I could give more, thousands upon thousands more, but was at least gratified to see yesterday that Ellen DeGeneres (whom I don't know much about, but whom I kind of adore) finally put her money where her mouth is, so to speak, with a donation of $100,000. And my own mother called today to say that she and her husband are giving $100 too, if only to not be outdone by her mostly straight, if bald-headed, daughter.
1 comment:
I sincerely hope PROP 8 fails miserably.
BUT - if it DOES passes, is everyone prepared to spend another ba-zillion dollars on PR and possibly wait 20-30 years to "win"
equality in CA?
AND - if it does NOT pass, which state will we focus on next so we can spend another ba-zillion dollars to purchase civil rights?
I know I am virtually alone here (except for Charles Merrill and his partner), but I think all of you are insane. Truly crazy....one step away from writing-on-the-wall-with-your-feces crazy.
Because if ALL of us truly believed we WERE equal, we would not be so patient as tax-payers and U.S. citizens. We'd simply KNOW we ARE equal, and refuse to pay into a system that not only denies our familes civil marriage but doesn't even acknowledge our
existence (wait for the 2010 census).
I'm 43, and I will NOT wait until I'm 73 for fair and equal treatment. It's OK for the country at large to be ignorant, bigoted, mid-guided, and mid-informed. But that's not my fault. So until people GROW UP and show my family the same "civil" respect heterosexually-identified families are given, I owe this country and the IRS nothing.
How many times do I need to say this?
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION AIN'T GWANNA HAPPEN!
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