...yet it feels so hollow.
Two straight friends have called this morning, to offer their congratulations and their reassurances. Congratulations? I guess that I'm still married is something of an achievement.
Don't get me wrong. That I'm still legally married is something I am relieved about. There was a gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach for the past month, that my marriage and our legal protections as a married couples would simply go *poof* this morning. However, that no other same gender couples who had not already done so prior to the election last November, can go ahead and marry leaves me heartsick.
I thought I had equal protection under the law of this state, yet our civil rights can be put up to a majority vote. Religious groups can fill the airwaves with hateful lies about me and other gay people, and yet our community has no recourse?
This is just plain wrong. It needs to change. But how?
So we go back to the ballot box in 2010 or 2012, and perhaps the next time around we win. Great. I will work to see that it happens.
But, won't that be just another popular vote? It we can legislate this stuff in or out based on it's popularity, how will we ever know with certainty it will not get changed again? Hemlines go up, then they go down again. Societies have been accepting of minorities in their midst in the past, then scapegoated them when it was socially expedient. (Just ask any Nisei or Sansei who lived in the US thru WWII.)
My heart remains very heavy today. Very heavy indeed.
Two straight friends have called this morning, to offer their congratulations and their reassurances. Congratulations? I guess that I'm still married is something of an achievement.
Don't get me wrong. That I'm still legally married is something I am relieved about. There was a gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach for the past month, that my marriage and our legal protections as a married couples would simply go *poof* this morning. However, that no other same gender couples who had not already done so prior to the election last November, can go ahead and marry leaves me heartsick.
I thought I had equal protection under the law of this state, yet our civil rights can be put up to a majority vote. Religious groups can fill the airwaves with hateful lies about me and other gay people, and yet our community has no recourse?
This is just plain wrong. It needs to change. But how?
So we go back to the ballot box in 2010 or 2012, and perhaps the next time around we win. Great. I will work to see that it happens.
But, won't that be just another popular vote? It we can legislate this stuff in or out based on it's popularity, how will we ever know with certainty it will not get changed again? Hemlines go up, then they go down again. Societies have been accepting of minorities in their midst in the past, then scapegoated them when it was socially expedient. (Just ask any Nisei or Sansei who lived in the US thru WWII.)
My heart remains very heavy today. Very heavy indeed.