Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Waiting for the World to Change

On Saturday, Steve and I, along with 14,000 or so other disgruntled folks, collected near City Hall in downtown L.A. to protest the passage of Proposition 8. (Included in this blog are signs from rallys all over the nation: Seattle, Washington, D.C., New York and here in L.A. Some of them are pretty funny, if you ask me.)

Wisely, we chose to take the Gold Line into town rather than driving in. We got at the rally location about 10:20, 10 minutes before the rally was to begin. Almost immediately, we ran into Lesley, a coworker who has been gently encouraging me to get involved in the demonstrations which have been taking place almost daily since November 4.

We had a pretty good place right near the stage up against the barricade. Not only did we get good views of the speakers, but a couple of them came right through the crowd in front of us, including out esteemed chief of police, William Bratton. The best speaker, however, was Mayor Villaregosa, a person who has been behind the gay community from the very first. Here's our first Hispanic president, in my mind.

It felt really good to be out there yelling with thousands of other people, knowing that hundreds of rallies like this were being held at the very same time all over the country and in foreign cities as well. But in a lot of ways, it was like preaching to the choir. The minds we needed to change had already voted, and the next and nearest hope was the overturning of the proposition by the state Supreme Court.

So after the high of people together to make action happen, I feel as though I'm sitting around, watching and waiting to see what will happen next.

On Sunday, CBS had an hourlong interview with Barack and Michelle Obama and I had a chance to feel good all over again about his win over McCain. But there, too, we're sitting around waiting for him to take office, for the real change to begin.

And that's what it's boiling down to for me now, waiting. Waiting for the Supreme Court to make a move. Waiting to see what direction needs to be taken. Waiting to see if our marriage, only a few months old now, is going to be wiped out. Waiting to see if we're going to be robbed of that very special moment when we felt a respect and dignity anointing out joining together. That's really what the proponents of 8 want to rob us of; being able to feel like complete people whose love is honored and cherished as much as anyone else's.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

We Can All Join In

You have probably seen the daily demonstrations that have been taking place in and around Los Angeles since the passage of Proposition 8. It's good to see this kind of groundswell occurring spontaneously. All of this has been organized on the Internet, with times and locations being generated daily. Well, now's your chance to get involved on a national level. No matter where you live, there will be rallies and protests organized in every state in the union.

The protests will be held on Saturday, November 15 at 1:30 East Coast, 12:30 Central, 11:30 Mountain and 10:30 West Coast time. Check out the Join the Impact Web site for a site near you. They also list public transit alternatives for getting to the rallies.

So everyone who can, join in and let the nation hear that it's about time for equal rights; acceptance, not merely tolerance.

It's about time for another groovy revolution.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Jubilation and Devastation

On Tuesday, America made it clear that race was no longer the issue it used to be. In an overwhelming electoral majority, the people of this land elected their first African-America president. In that moment, every black American realized that they could be anything they wanted; that the doors were no longer closed. Racially, the millennium had arrived for the descendants of American slaves. Blacks were no longer niggers. They had pride and hope as their personal possessions. When I saw their reactions on the television coverage of this historical event, I cried with them, recalling the struggles and sacrifices of the equal rights movements of the 1960s.

In the same moment, here in California, the electorate passed a constitutional amendment that eliminated the newly born right of gays and lesbians to marry the people they love. Here in California, by embedding it into the very Constitution that guides the state and its citizens, Californians created a new class of niggers: Fags and dykes. The words are all interchangeable and all define a separate and less equal class of citizens. And the 18,000 same-sex couples who were married during those four and a half months of equality (including yours truly) now have licenses and vows that are in legal limbo.

When I got up this morning and heard the results (52% yes, 48% no), I was devastated. I was angry. I was depressed. I was resentful. I had a mild urge to go out and firebomb a Mormon temple or a Catholic church or some such edifice of Bible-driven bigotry. I was going to call into work and take a day off because I was so upset. But then, I realized I would just sit at home and stew, making myself more miserable and not achieving anything. So I went to work.

On the train in, I looked at the people riding with me: Did she vote yes? Did he vote yes? Does he look like the type? And it was frustrating because you just can't tell. The one thing that did infect me, though, was the high spirits of so many of the black people on the train and subway. They were smiling. They were making eye contact and nodding hello. You could tell they felt like whole, complete people. And though I was still depressed about my own situation, their energy helped me continue into the day.

Finally, I realized what was happening: I had lost the feeling they had achieved. When I took my vows and married Steve, I felt whole and, for the first time in my life, my heart was completely full. My relationship was being acknowledged with the honor and dignity it deserved: the state of marriage. I was able to share that with very special people. With Tuesday's vote results, my heart had hemorrhaged and I felt less than a whole, complete person. I had become the nigger of the Religious Right.

But there are already court documents being filed. This is not the end, but the beginning of another long round of court cases, judgments and appeals to re-establish the simple right that the California Supreme Court so eloquently conferred back in May: every citizen's right to marry the person of his or her own choosing. It's just that I was hoping this one struggle would be over and the concept of elemental personal rights would start spreading beyond our borders. Guess not. But Steve and I still have our rings. We still have our valid marriage license. We still have one another. And all the good people interested enough to check in on us here on this blog.