Equality Post, Now with Music!

 The US Supreme Court has begun hearing oral arguments regarding California's discriminatory Prop 8 and the national embarrassment that is DOMA. (I don't know about you, but my marriage doesn't need "defending", thanksverymuch.) I can only imagine that I am  preaching to the choir here but that's okay. Here are a couple of songs that are all about equality and love. I hope you enjoy them.

Valentine's Day Celebration

There are many things I could say about Valentine's Day, and very few of them are positive. I'm simply not a fan of this so-called "holiday." But this year there is something genuinely worth celebrating. You see, my state, the Evergreen State, the great state of Washington has finally legalized same-sex marriage. Wheee! The governor, as she promised, signed the bill into law just yesterday. Of course, the haters will come out and try to gather signatures against so that we have to vote over it on November's ballot; that sucks, but it is just part of the process. I'm not complacent that they'll go down in flames, but I am hopeful. You see, just the other year we already had a vote on marriage equality, or more accurately marriage near-equality. We have a domestic partnership law that is marriage-in-all-but-name. (The new law replaces it, btw.) Well, guess what? When asked to vote on it in 2009, "Washington voted in favor ... becoming the first state to ratify an 'everything but marriage' domestic partner law." Haters may hate, but the majority here are big believers in "live and let live." It's too much to hope that the bigots won't get enough signatures to put a repeal vote on the ballot for November, but even cynical me wants to believe that my state's voters will again do the right thing.

So, not being a huge Valentine's Day fan, myself, I will instead celebrate equality today.

Pride

I saw a lot of people blogging and posting about how they spent their holiday weekend, so I decided to share my story. My wife and I went to a Gay Pride celebration. In addition to a few sweet little plot bunnies, I had had some other thoughts. At the parade, there were 185 floats plus more walking contingents than I could count. After watching for two and a half hours in the 90+ heat, we decided we'd rather be ashamed and cool in the hotel room than hot and proud on the street. We saw the rest on a cable news channel, with two hosts doing a their inane patter with so much enthusiasm that I felt like I was watching the Rose Bowl. A strange sensation stirred. This was pride.

It didn't stop there. Everywhere I looked there were signs of Pride celebration. The hotel lobby had rainbow flags and even a table display in the six colors to celebrate. Sears arranged its mannequins in same sex couples and made sure there were plenty of rainbow displays. A cookware store had its pots in a rainbow. That feeling welled up again. So what if they were after my money. They were standing with us.

I usually feel like an invisible lesbian. When I'm out with my wife, strangers talking to me refer to her as my sister or my friend. I correct them. I didn't have to. At breakfast our fun chatty waitress leaned in and said, "Happy Pride. Have a great time."

At the street festival, dozens of police kept the peace while draped with rainbow beads, laughing and chatting with people, posing for pictures with those in elaborate costumes. There were hundreds of booths hawking everything from dildoes and leather restraints to Jones soda, hot tubs, time shares and an opportunity for a law enforcement career or the opportunity to serve in the armed forces. Surprising, I know. Because I wasn't in the land of "liberty and justice for all" on the fourth of July, I was in Canada.

I grew up a fierce little patriot. I loved American history. In celebration of the bicentennial (yes, I'm that old), I had my bedroom done in red, white and blue, complete with a tricolored shag rug (I'll wait while you shudder in horror) and a stars and stripes sheet set. The site of the battle of Yorktown awed me as a fourteen year old. Yet on the day when we celebrate the signing of a document that begins "When in the course of human events" I had to find my pride, my sense of belonging, in another country.

Sure I could go to a Pride celebration closer to home. Like the one in Albany, NY where a guy was hospitalized afterward when three guys beat the crap out of him. The police are classifying it simple robbery. Who can forget last year's fun opening of the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, TX where the thirtieth anniversary of Stonewall was celebrated by law enforcement coming into the bar to break some skulls?

As I celebrated the birth of modern gay revolution in another country, I thought about the younger me who believed so fiercely in the power of our history to give us forward momentum to an amazing future. She would have sworn that these words would have been spoken by an American in a debate on gay marriage, "We would risk becoming a country in which the defence of rights is weighed, calculated and debated based on electoral or other considerations." But she'd have been wrong. That was Prime Minister Bill Martin of Canada. I'm afraid he was talking about the "land of the free" to the south of him. I have to thank the governor of Hawaii for proving my point in demonstrating how unworthy of equality gay people like me are.

This summer, I plan to paint my office the same shade of deep blue I once had in my bedroom. (Don't worry. I'm skipping the shag rug. And the sheets.) I wish it was as easy to regain my sense of pride.

Marriage Equality

There are a lot of political fights going on about something I think is a no-brainer: Marriage Equality. I mean, of course any pair of consenting adults should be able to marry each other whatever their gender and/or preference. We're fighting to retain our "everything-but-the-label-of-'marriage'" law here in Washington State. In Maine, where they already approved same-sex marriage, they're now having to fight to keep it. Here are a couple of vids of folks in Maine fighting the good fight. I especially like gentleman speaking in the second video: "A woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: "What do you think I fought at Omaha Beach for?""





For everyone with elections coming up, make sure you get out there and vote, or get your ballot out in the mail on time, or whatever it takes to make your voice heard.

Change is good.

I have such disparate things to think about today. On the one hand, I'm pleased with myself because I finished the first draft of the paranormal investigators novel I started this past NaNoWriMo. I want to toot my own horn about having accomplished one of my three stated goals for 2009. But at the same time my personal achievement is awfully small when compared to what I watched this morning on MSNBC. In fact, I'm still watching. America elected and has now sworn in the first African-American president. That's big, you know? (Okay, understatement of the century, but you get it.) His address was eloquent, intelligent, somber, thoughtful, and yet to my ears also very hopeful. There are too many brilliant things in the speech to comment on, so I'll comment on the one that made me most hopeful: "The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." Now, I am not an optimist, nor do I look at the world through Bono's rose-colored glasses. I know that neither Obama nor Biden spoke out in favor marriage equality during the campaign. Indeed, in the one VP debate I watched, Biden spoke against it. Part of me is still royally pissed off about that. The analytical part of me understands that you have to play your cards close to your chest--especially in a presidential campaign. You have win the job first. Only then can you accomplish any goal. I can only hope, based on what President Obama said, that marriage equality is one of his goals. "...all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." Damn right.

You can find the full transcript here, and undoubtedly a lot of other places. I recommend you go read it. Better yet, go watch the presidential address online if you missed it live. I'm sure there are oodles of places where you'll find it. It's more than worth the 19 minutes out of your day.