focusing on hate instead of families

more and more young folks are turning away from religion.  that doesn’t mean that they have less morals than their forebears- it means that they have more.  take for example, the fact that more and more states are passing legislation that legalizes gay marriages.  that is causing some right wing heads to almost explode.  carrie prejean aside, many of the folks who are upset are predictably politicians in red states.  but my thought is this- perhaps they should sttart actually listening to their constituents rather than rush limbaugh.  perhaps they wouldn’t be tanking as a religion and as a political party.

despite the fact that a majority of americans actually support gay marriage legislation, many pols and preachers on the right are in denial.  they hope that by repeating untruths over and over- it will somehow make them come true.  it’s very sad.  they are fighting a battle that they cannot win- for the hearts and minds of americans- and the power that that brings.  those halcyon days for them- are over.

and i am proud to be one of the bloggers who scare them so.

dobson covers everything but the rapture

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An emotional meat grinder

That’s what it was Wednesday at the public hearing before the Maine Joint Legislative Judiciary Committee in Augusta. The bill in question is LD 1020, An Act To End Discrimination In Civil Marriage and Preserve Religious Freedom. Or something like that. You get the idea. It’s a bill that will allow L and I to get married.

The first part of the legislative process after a bill is submitted and printed is the public hearing. This is when any and all concerned citizens can comment about a bill if they so choose. With a topic as controversial as marriage equality, you can bet that emotions run high on both sides, and LOTS of people want to weigh in and be heard. Regrettably, not all of them are sane.

We’ll get to that part in a little bit. Because this story really has a couple of stories in it. Like many great battles, this one started with an epic journey. Unlike other epic journeys, ours started with a big yellow bus and a case of nervous insomnia.

The night before the hearing, I collected the bus from its home in Ellsworth and brought it here so it would be ready in the morning. Our first scheduled pick-up was at 4 a.m. at the Bar Harbor Town Pier. I backed the monstrosity into our yard over the protestations of our landlord and parked it. It was longer than our whole cottage. Lunches and bottled water were stored on the bus, an early supper was made and eaten and I was in bed by around 8 pm.

Only I couldn’t sleep. My alarm was set for 2:40 a.m. to allow me time for a good breakfast, a shower, plenty of time to get the bus warmed up and the heaters going and then be at the pier by 3:45. I tossed. I turned. I looked at the clock about every half hour. Until sometime after midnight, when I apparently fell asleep. Until I woke up at 3:35 and began screaming. After more screaming and rushing around, we got the bus started, coffee made, clothes on and were at the town pier by just a minute or two past the deadline to pick up passengers. A dozen or more got on and settled in. Next stop was at the local liberal college, where we picked up two bleary, damp young women (it was raining buckets) who likewise settled in and got comfy. Next stop was Ellsworth, where we picked up another batch of people and some donuts and coffee. We left there a little behind schedule, but still picked up two women in Belfast and made it to Augusta before 7:30 a.m. Our goal had been for 7, so we weren’t that far off the mark.

When we got there, the parking lot was already filling up. We pulled up to the front entrance of the Augusta Civic Center and Laura and the gal from the Hancock County Democrats piled out with the flag and the people began to disembark. Here’s what it looked like. (Laura is on the right.)

Thanks to my friend Darlene for providing this picture via facebook. I snagged it and will have to tell her about it soon, but here it is.

Organizers had told supporters to wear red. Take a look at this video, blurry and wobbly as it is, of what we saw.

If that did not work for you, take a look at these still shots. Honestly, the place looked like opening day at Fenway Park.

Can you believe this? More than one of us was moved to tears at this display. I had to leave the auditorium several times. It was more than I could handle emotionally. We outnumbered our opponents by something like 4 or 5 to 1. Here’s the bigger picture:

That’s an awful lot of red. And remember what I said about Fenway Park on opening day? Well, there were a few pockets of the crowd that were obviously Yankees fans. Here they are:

They just did not look happy. Take a look:

So there we all were, upwards of 3,000 people in an auditorium. For endless hours the two sides offered up speakers supporting their positions. Our side told countless stories of how we have been discriminated against in some pretty basic and pretty fundamental ways. Widowers who were not allowed to sign mortuary paperwork to have their partner’s bodies taken for burial. People denied access to loved ones in the hospital, people denied access to their partner’s funeral. It was a horror show of hurt followed by a horror show of hate. Opponents argued that to allow same sex couples to marry would allow us unfettered access to children to molest. Our love was compared to bestiality. One man asked if we might next be asking for permission to marry multiple partners, or perhaps our dogs.

No shit. People said this stuff out loud, and to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Judiciary. These were not the drunken musings of rednecks at deer camp. These were professional people in suits and ties, ministers wearing mixed fabric clothing. They said this stuff with all seriousness and earnestness. They believe it. They believe I want to fuck their children. They believe I want to have sex with animals. They believe that I am sick, that I need treatment and prayer. They believe that I deserve fewer and different rights than they enjoy. And they believe that they are right and I am wrong.

It felt like we were marching to Selma, in spirit if not in reality. We marched along, heads high, eyes forward, speaking our truth. We did not cat-call. We did not accuse our opponents of nasty things. When they were inaccurate, we offered legitimate, verifiable documentation to support our side. When they got nasty, we did not engage. When they got really nasty, we stood and turned our backs in silent protest. It was a powerful thing to see. Take a look:

The thing dragged on and on. Our side marched carefully, gently, truthfully on, their side grew more shrill and more crazy as the day wore on. It was difficult to sit through the things that they were saying about us. It always is. When I call it an emotional meat grinder, I am not kidding. Each side had a half hour for speakers. Each speaker was limited to three minutes of testimony. For 30 minutes we would hear our stories of discrimination and denied rights. Then for 30 minutes we would hear accusations of inhumanity. It makes for a very, very long day.

The hearing wore on into the evening. There was no lunch break. The committee took a dinner break at 5:45, which we took as our cue to head on home. Three of our members spoke before we left: dear and wonderful Diana and Kay:

And longtime civil rights and peace activist Dan Lourie. His granddaughter has two moms, he told the committee.

That’s the local UU minister over on the left in this image. She’s pretty cool.

But this report is not complete without some real disclosure of a personal nature. No, not that personal, but personal just the same. Until this time, I have kept my face out of my blog. I have identified my partner only as L and have never shown her face. But this is a fight that is very personal to me. We’d like to get married. My name is really Dawn. Her name is Laura. This is what we look like.

And we’d like to get married. I’m 43 at this writing, and she is 32. We’ve been together for 7 years. Our friends Diana and Kay have been together 20 years. They give us hope for our future. They are lively and wonderful and completely in love with life and each other. We’d like to be like that. We’d like to be happy in our senior years. We’d like the security that comes with marriage, to know that her family will not throw me out of the hospital if I have to visit her there. To know that doctors won’t deny me access, or that we’ll have to deal with any of the usual kinds of health care and bureaucratic bullshit that comes with being partnered but not married.

This fight is far from over. We’re in it to win, and we’re in it for the long haul. And that means stepping up and putting my face where my words are. This is us. This law will affect our lives. Not some nebulous, theoretical people somewhere. Us. It is important. This matters. It is very, very personal.

Crossposted at Weldable Cookies.

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Family Is as Family Does

Is this Ken Starr in one of his Latent Moments, or have I simply failed to see the dental floss between his fingers?

No matter. As I write this he is no doubt getting ready for another big day in court as he works to divorce 18,000 California couples who rushed to be wed before the LDS church and a host of allied bigots rushed to make sure that an oppressed minority would still live under the tyranny of the majority.

What sad business this family values stuff is. I grew up in a family that was, but didn’t. My mother worked her tail off to hold us together. My father wandered and rejected my brother who acted like a boy rejected by his dad. Both of them rejected me. We were well provided for materially but not emotionally.

When I was young, the saddest thing I could think about was being consigned to that model of family life. “If it was a job, I wouldn’t apply for it,” I used to say, full of lost bravado.

To me, happy families (and I do see them from my vantage point at the library–moms and dads taking toddlers to story time, entire broods showing up for family story night, during which time they write and illustrate their own adventures, volunteers telling me about the central place their families play in their lives) are an exotic breed. I gaze at them with the fascination of the outsider.

I remember when my mom, advanced in her Alzheimer’s disease here in Vermont, took the phone to talk to my long-abusive brother in California, listened for a minute or two, then quietly placed the phone on the table and turned away. She just couldn’t do it anymore, and now she had a disease that permitted her, after a lifetime of herculean efforts, to take her rest.

Sometimes I think that Mom needed that disease. She was an exceptional woman. She had a lot to forget.

In my adult life, having failed to fill in my application, I have nonetheless pulled together my familial impulses. They are hard to discard in their entirety. Here we are: two women who are each other’s very best friends and life companions, a dog, three cats, a modest host of cherished friends.

How naive the Ken Starrs and those they represent are to think that they can legislate away the myriad forms that families take. They are protecting the children?? That’s their excuse for this perfidy. As if you could, by eliminating a real option for people, force the straight ones among us to automatically become dedicated, functioning, creative, devoted family members. Sorry: outlawing one group does not ennoble another.

The willingness to surrender self to family isn’t about sexual orientation. There are plenty of non-functioning heterosexual units, with lots of dazed children whose best hope is to get the hell out of there at the age of reason and to do their best to be authentically themselves. You can’t force people to be devoted parents, doting spouses. What you can do is to create a society open enough to a variety of ways to be that we can all find ourselves in it in a positive way.

I don’t know what the next steps will be, after Ken Starr’s “victory” in the card game of the stacked deck, but I know that his courtroom “triumph” can’t last. The thirst for justice has been awakened, and those who have come after my generation are young enough, energetic enough, to see this very real cause through. If careless couples can receive the respect of the state and all the rights conferred thereby, why can’t they? Why should their unions be suspect? They are paying the dues with the everyday ups and downs of surrendering something of themselves to this stupefying idea of Us. Why shouldn’t they be recognized for what they are?

Why not, indeed?

Crossposted at Take Your Medicine.

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gay penguins? the best daddies of all

Sweet little waddling men, all dressed up in formal black and white and ready for fatherhood.

Money quotes from the Daily Mail:

‘We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they’ve turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,’ said one of the keepers. . . .

Wildlife experts at the park explain that despite being gay the three-year-old male birds are still driven by an urge to be fathers.

‘One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite the fact that they can’t have eggs naturally, it does not take away their biological drive to be a parent,’ said one.

One campaigner who did not want to be named welcomed the move and said: ‘It wasn’t fair to stop them becoming parents and keep them apart from all the other birds just because of the way nature has made them.’

But the best take of all is from Shakesville, where Miss Melissa astutely observed:

And all I could think when I was reading this story was how extraordinarily fucked up it is that, if you want to be a parent, you’re better off being a gay male penguin in China than a gay male human in Arkansas.

Indeed.

Crossposted at Big Ass Belle.

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hate wins out

I could never say this half as well. I am grateful for Digby’s ability to put into words what the victory of hate over love means in California:

How people can vote for the first African American president in American history, with all that implies, while simultaneously voting to discriminate against gays is testament to the incoherence of American politics and the lack of clear cut philosophy guiding people’s choices. Everyone says there’s too much ideology in our politics but I’d say there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough common sense either. Discrimination against others just because you don’t like how they live their lives is against the very essence of the two pillars of America — liberty and equality. To fail to see that even as you vote for an historic, important first African American is incoherent.

I keep hearing about how this will right itself in the long run, that it’s just a matter of waiting until this new generation gets old enough and then gay rights will magically be “granted.” I hope that’s true. But to paraphrase a saying that’s been overused lately — in the long run all of today’s gay partners and gay parents will be dead. These soothing tones of “patience” and “don’t worry” don’t mean much when you consider that you only have one life to live.

It’s terrific that we are seeing a decline in racism to the extent that we are able to elect a black president. We’ve come a long way and there’s no taking anything away from those who waged the struggle over all these centuries. But our society is not truly changed if it’s still writing discrimination into law.

It’s as if we just can’t be America unless we are taking active steps to marginalize somebody.

Go read. My joy over the rejection of right wing ideology by the majority of people in this country is profoundly tempered by the sickening triumph of hate in California.

Crossposted at Big Ass Belle.

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10 homophobic AG’s weigh in.

I call them homophobic because, well….why the hell else would they get involved in Cali’s legal system? Huh? Come on, do you have another reason to cite?

Also, these 10 homophobic assholes are in states that don’t allow gay marriage because they have implemented laws against it. So, I rest my case. From Jurist:

Ten US state attorneys general have petitioned the Supreme Court of California to postpone implementation of its May 15 decision legalizing same-sex marriages until after state elections in November. California is slated to allow all same-sex couples, regardless of state citizenship, to wed in California, but each of the 10 petitioning states bans recognition of same-sex marriages. The attorneys general – from Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah – wrote Thursday that if California starts issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on June 17 as announced, many same-sex couples in their states would become “marriage tourists” in California and the states’ courts would then face unfair, extensive and burdensome litigation on whether to recognize the marriages. The AGs also joined conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defense Fund’s recent petition in saying that deciding the issue before California citizens vote in November on a likely proposed amendment to the California state constitution banning same-sex marriage could lead to legal havoc. Attorneys for the city and county of San Francisco have responded that a stay would mingle judicial and political processes and would deny rights based on a merely proposed state constitutional amendment. The New York Times has more. The San Francisco Chronicle has local coverage.

Recognition of California same-sex marriages is not universally opposed in other US jurisdictions. Earlier this month, one day before the California ruling, New York Governor David Paterson ordered that state agencies recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages as legal marriages in New York.

Friggin homophobes….I find this bullshit extremely unsettling. Hatred is never positive…its always negative and the rationale for this type of behavior is never ever logical.

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a standing ovation for california

“Social change takes time, but it does not mean we have to wait for hearts and minds to change. Given the naked racism we’ve seen this election cycle, you best believe that anti-miscegenation laws would still be on the books in some states if we were going to wait until everyone was on board with interracial marriage. And that will be the case for same-sex marriage.

We have to lead, not follow; we have to educate allies — and push the civil rights envelope through legal channels. Both are necessary. It’s why it’s important to parse the statements of the presidential candidates in reaction to yesterday’s ruling — will they lead, or follow?”

pam, at pam’s house blend

do you think rosie will move to cali?

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CA Supreme Court shoots down gay marriage ban.

The haters have also started a petition to change the State Constitution to view marriage as only between opposite sexes.

MSNBC has this:

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.

The decision can be viewed here.

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THE BENEFITS OF GAY MARRIAGE

The Marriage Protection Amendment is one of the most asinine ideas to come down the pike in at least fifty years. In the first place it’s a misnomer. It doesn’t protect heterosexual marriage at all. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but whenever you ask the proponents of the Marriage Protections exactly how it protects heterosexual marriage, they never quite manage to muster a proper response. They go into convoluted Biblical arguments about how the primary purpose of marriage is reproduction, or how God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, or how gay marriage will open the doors on incestuous relationships or bestiality, but they never directly answer the question. How is gay marriage harmful to heterosexual couples? Do the Bible-thumpers in this world really believe that a straight couple will one day encounter a gay couple and that one of the heterosexuals will turn to his partner and quip, “Jeeze dear, that looks kind of neat, I think I’d like to try that?” I wouldn’t be surprised. As for the idea that gay marriage will promote incest and bestiality, I don’t suppose it ever dawned on the Bible-thumpers that they might want to pass Constitutional Amendments against those abnormal practices and leave the GLBT community the hell alone. But when the truth is told the fact of the matter is that gay marriage will have no ill effect other than denying gay couples what heterosexual couples already enjoy.

Read more

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love and marriage

with the recent fight between the two democratic frontrunners for the lgbt vote- gary at declarations of pride has laid out the best post i have seen on the subject of ‘gay marriage.’

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