Late Night Musings

I was a devoted Tonight Show watcher since the Steve Allen days, up through Carson's last show, and then into the Leno years, at least for "headlines" until the business with Conan O'Brien, where Leno decided to take his show back and leave O'Brien out in the cold.  I couldn't bring myself to watch the Tonight Show ever again after that.  Jimmy Fallon seems like a nice guy and the show is entertaining, but I don't see myself ever watching it with the devotion that I gave to The Tonight Show for decades, mostly because I don't know most of today's "celebrities," especially not today's music.  Call me a fuddy duddy.

I was neither a Letterman fan (nothing against him, I just never watched his show because I was loyal to The Tonight Show) or a Colbert fan (just couldn't get into his vain Conservative shtik, though I liked him as a comedian just fine), but I was interested to see his first show, taking over for Letterman.  The jury is still out.  Some funny bits, some "why did they do that?" bits, a band that I liked better than any of the other late night bands, and I will watch again.

BUT...in the years when I zoned out on late night talk shows have they all been like this, or was this one special?  There were NINE commercials (totaling nearly 5 minutes) between the George Clooney interview and the show's return and eight commercials (nearly as long) between the end of the Jeb Bush interview and the return to the show.  I didn't count the commercials in the other breaks, but I had the feeling that I was watching an hour of commercials sponsored by Colbert interviews.  I'm thinking that if I decide to watch Colbert for awhile to see if I like the show, I will just record it and zip thru the commercials, rather than watching live.

It's like going to the movies (which I also rarely do) and watching 20 minutes or so of previews before the actual feature film that you have come to see.

And while I'm complaining about commercials, I hate two other things--first those "funny" mini-movie commercials that run across the bottom of the TV screen about upcoming shows, which are not only distracting, but sometimes cover up something on the current show that you want to see.  And the new thing on the internet where you click on a link to read an article and before you read the article you must watch a commercial and then as you are reading the article, a video suddenly starts playing in the right hand column and you have to search to find out where to turn it off.  It's all very annoying and has at least saved me money because I wouldn't buy any of those products that annoy me so much, whether I liked them or not.

And then there is Kentucky, the "united we stand, divided we fall" state whose state dance is, appropriately, "clogging."

Along with Rachel Maddow, I will not name the County Clerk who has been in all the news because she is getting enough personal publicity everywhere else, but it's been great media fun.  Her checkered past, her latter day holier than thou stance.  What people forget in all the hype, is that it was never an "attack on Christianity" which Mike Huckabee, in wonderful campaign photo ops tries to promote.  This is a woman who took an oath to carry out all legal transactions of her business.  Like it or not, marriage is a legal right of all American citizens, gay and straight.  She took it upon herself to ignore the law and that got her jailed.

As someone pointed out, she put her hand on the bible and swore to upload the constitution, not put her hand on the constitution and swore to uphold the bible.

True, the Kentucky clerk had no reason to believe that her duties would eventually disagree with her religious beliefs, but if she feels that strongly about her beliefs, the answer is not to ignore the law of the land, but to make a big show about resigning her position.

The sight of sanctimonious Huckabee supporting her stand against a law with which he also disagrees is stomach turning.  Have we become a country where the law is irrelevant?  If you don't agree with a law, just ignore it and sue anyone who tries to hold you accountable for it?

If you are Muslim, don't become a flight attendant and then refuse to serve alcohol because it's against your religion (another case of religious freedom currently in the courts).

I thought we were a country of checks and balances, where we had a judiciary to legislate the legality of issues.  When they make a decision with which one side disagrees there are claims of "legislating from the bench."  If the court had upheld all those challenges to Obamacare, you can be certain nobody would be crying foul, but there would have been cheering that the Supremes saw things the right way.

The Rapture

Quote from George Takei:  "Well this is a bit of a circus. So let us be clear: This woman is no hero to be celebrated. She broke her oath to uphold the Constitution and defied a court order so she could deny government services to couples who are legally entitled to be married. She is entitled to hold her religious beliefs, but not to impose those beliefs on others. If she had denied marriage certificates to an interracial couple, would people cheer her? Would presidential candidates flock to her side? In our society, we obey civil laws, not religious ones. To suggest otherwise is, simply put, entirely un-American."

Blessed Are...

We went to a funeral today at our local Catholic church.  It was a woman who performed a zillion years ago with the long-defunct Davis Comic Opera Company and I expected to see a lot of old DCOC people there, but there were only 3, besides us, scattered throughout the congregation.

When I walked in the church, I realized how long it had been since I was last in that building, which was where I decided to become a "recovering Catholic."  Years ago, they painted the inside of the building.  There was lots of talk about it at the time.  They painted it all white and I remember Paul being upset about how much money they spent on remodeling the church when there are so many poor people in Davis who could have used that money.  In fact, he went to the pastor and voiced his complaint.  (Naturally the comments fell on deaf ears).

I never saw the paint job because I had stopped going to church before they began the remodel.  And Paul has been dead 14 years, which kind of puts it in perspective!

I left the church for many reasons, but the straw that broke the camel's back was when a priest and nun in San Francisco, who ran a ministry to the gay community there, were ordered by the Vatican to stop doing it.  I stood in church after that reciting the Apostles Creed, in which we professed to believe all the things that Catholic Church teaches and I realized that as I recited it, I was lying.  I didn't believe any more.  I never went back.

At the funeral today the gospel included the beatitudes...

Blessed is the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven....Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied, Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy...Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.  Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.   Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be in heaven.

Then they sang a song which included the lyrics

Open my eyes, Lord.  Help me to see your face
Open my ears, Lord. Help me hear your voice.
Open my heart, Lord. Help me to love like you...
And the first shall be last
And our eyes are opened
And we'll hear like never before
And we'll speak in new ways
And we'll see God's face
in places we've never known before

And then I thought of my friends

Ellen and Shelly have been working to feed the hungry in Davis for as long as I've known them.  They are the first ones to show up when a friend is ill or in need of moral support.  They have raised four children together and yet they, and thousands...millions...of others like them are shut out of the Catholic church and many other churches simply because they have lived together in a loving, committed relationship for more than 40 years.

When the goveernment finally said it was OK to marry in 2008, they were the first ones to be married in Yolo County, and they have continued to work tirelessly to get that same privilege for other same gender couples who love each other and want their committed relationships to be legalized.

I thought about the Vatican shutting down any outreach to the gay community.  I thought about my friend Steve, who joined a group that was invited to visit Jerry Falwell's compound in Virginia, to sit and eat lunch and discuss matters of mutual importance--only to be turned away because Falwell refused to eat with "sinners." I think of Pastor Martin Ssempa in Kenya, working to get the government to pass a "kill the gays" bill, which would require all homosexuals to be executed and all supporters to be imprisoned."  I think of the look of hate on the faces of the Russian demonstrators I have seen at Gay Rights marches in Sacramento. I think of the phalanx we made to protect gay teens who wanted to march to the Capitol to express their concerns and at the hate messsages that were screamed at them from so-called religious on the streets. I think of John Boehner who just yesterday said he would not bring a Senate-passed bill protecting the rights of gay people from being fired for being gay...or for being thought of as being gay...to the floor of the house for a vote.

And I ask the question, which has been asked many times before...if he were here, what would Jesus (who never said one word about homosexuality) say about the hatred, persecution and exclusion of his gay children going on in his name.

Somehow I think he'd rather be at a Gay Rights event.

What an Awesome Day!

Yesterday was awesome from start to finish and my heart was so full as I tumbled onto couch at 1 a.m.

First, I bought my new camera.  It does neat stuff like this:

It also has a 16x zoom which, when used in a moving car still gives clear pictures (no way would I have gotten this picture with my Panasonic)

On the freeway there was a kerfuffle going east (we were going west).   A helicopter landed on the freeway and traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see.  That was kind of exciting (until later that night we learned there had been a shooting, a bad guy was killed and people were stuck for as long as 2 hours in the sweltering heat.  One woman wrote that her car got up to 121 degrees!)

Walt turned on the radio to get traffic reports and instead heard that a California appeals court had lifted the ban on gay marriages (instead of waiting the expected 25 days) and that marriages were starting to be performed at San Francisco City Hall now.  We listened to the first marriage ceremony, when Sandy Stier and Kristin Perry (one of the two couples which brought the action challenging Prop 8) were married by California Attorney General Kamala Harris.  I listened to the ceremony with tears running down my cheeks.  I don't know either woman, but I remember the emotion surrounding Ellen and Shelly's wedding 5 years ago and was just so happy that after fighting so hard all these years these two women were finally legally married.

When we got to San Francisco's City Hall, there was a rainbow flag flying from one of the balconies.

We parked the car and took our Groupon to Canto do Brasil, a restaurant where I have wanted to eat for many, many years. 

At first they weren't going to seat us because it's a small place and we had no reservation, but the guy finally took pity on me and told us that if we promised to leave by 7 p.m., he would serve us.  Since we had tickets for a concert at 8, I told him that would be no problem.  In fact, I had been concerned because we had been told service there was very slow.  This would ensure that we would be out on time.

We both ordered caiparinia, that Brasilian drink with tons of limes and cachaca, a kind of Brasilian rum.  I hadn't had one of those in decades and it was as delicious as I remember it being.

Walt had feijoada, the national dish of Brasil, but I decided to order a shrimp dish because I can make feijoada myself and I remember some really good shrimp dishes.  We were disappointed that there was no pao de queijo, a really good little cheese bread that I have made and love, as an appetizer, but we had a cheese croquette, which was delicious and a new taste sensation.

As promised, we left the restaurant promptly at 7 and walked to the Nourse Theatre for a concert by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, called Harvey Milk 2013.  The reason we had tickets was that our friend Steve Schalchlin had written a number that was being performed.  They offered him comp tickets, but since he's in New York and couldn't fly out, he offered them to us.

When we got to the theater, they had no tickets for us at will-call, so they called their Management Director to see what he could do about it.  To our delight, the Management Director was John Alecca, former General Manger of the Lamplighters and a long-time friend, someone Alison and I had interviewed for the book a few months ago.  John got tickets for us.  Great seats...reviewer quality seats. 

I wish I could express adequately the emotion I felt sitting there in San Francisco on Gay Pride Eve, just after the first same sex marriages had been conducted and celebrating the very first gay man in the country to ever be elected to public office.

At the start of the program, two of the organizers said that they knew that they would be celebrating Harvey Milk on the 35th anniversary of his assassination, and on the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Gay Men's Chorus, but there was no way when they planned this that they could have anticipated they would also be celebrating the wins in the Supreme Court and the weddings that were about to take place.  There was a long sustained applause and cheers that rolled through the auditorium and I suspect there were a lot of tears.

The show started with a recording Milk had made to be played only in the event of his assassination.  He had a premonition of what was inevitably to happen, but probaby would not have guessed that Mayor George Moscone would be killed by Supervisor Dan White as well.  At intermission, Cleve Jones, who started the AIDS quilt so many years ago, said that as he stared down to the floor at the newly murdered Milk on that fateful night, all he could think of was "It's over. It's all over."  He went on to say that later that night as hundreds of people, and then thousands of people and then tens of thousands of people marched from the Castro District to City Hall carrying candles and as a small group of men got up and sang on the steps of City Hall (the first performance of the newly formed Gay Men's Chorus), he thought "No...it's not all over...it's just beginning."

And was it ever.  Certainly nobody 35 years ago could have predicted how far the gay community has come in its fight for equal rights, and definitely not the actions of the Supreme Court this week.  Harvey Milk started it all.  I wonder if the United States will ever put his face on a postage stamp (probably not!)

The concert was in two parts.  Part 1, "I am the Legacy," four musical numbers which were chosen from hundreds that had been submitted from all over the world from the "Post-Harvey generation" who are today benefiting from and living his legacy.  Steve's "I met a boy" was second and struck a nice tone between pathos and humor as three groups of men sang about meeting their partners in different decades and what a difference it was (I asked him for lyrics, but he hasn't sent them yet.  In some places, audience reaction covered up what the chorus was singing).  It got loud, sustained applause and appropriate laughter throughout the performance.

There was also an amazing dance number and a poignant song written by a young man about growing up gay in Altoona, PA. ("I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power — it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope. You gotta give them hope." -- Harvey Milk).  

Part 1 ended with a song called "Give Them Hope" with visuals by the chorus that are indescribable, but amazing.  From the program:  "The selected dance, video, art, original music, and new choral pieces weave together a testimony of how Harvey Milk has changed the world for the better."  (The technicians must have been working overtime because one of the video clips included video from the wedding that had taken place that afternoon!)

Part Two was the meat of the concert, a monumental song cycle by Andrew Lippa (who also played Harvey Milk in the piece) called "I am Harvey Milk."  It combined video, choral work, solos by Lippa, by Noah Marlow, a kid with a great set of pipes and an impressive resume for one so young, as the young Harvey Milk, and Laura Benanti as "Soprano."

As an evening's entertainment, it was emotionally exhausting and I cried more than once throughout.  But then it was back out into the world again.   We took a detour and went to look at city hall, lit up in rainbow colors.   There were lots of people taking pictures.

 My heart was full and so happy for all of the gay people in California and across the nation whose equality with heterosexual people has just been acknowledged by the Supreme Court and the Obama Administration.  I thought of the 1950s, which I remember, growing up in San Francisco, where I would see photos in the paper of gay men being loaded into paddy wagons and taken off to the police station, just because they were in a bar together.  I remember the 60s, when people began coming out of the closet, when the Castro became the "gay neighborhood."  I remember the 70s and 80s when AIDS began to decimate the gay community and nobody knew what it was, and President Reagan refused to even acknowledge that there was a problem.   And I remember standing with Ellen and Shelly at Equality rallies, writing endless letters, signing endless petitions, culminating in the jubilation of their legal wedding, only to watch that dreaded Proposition 8 deny that legal right to other gay couples in love.  And I thought of last week when the Supreme Court finally admitted that DOMA was unconstitutional and struck down Proposition 8.  I thought how far this determined population has come and what an amazing feeling it must be today.  And how much more work there is to do.

The drive home was OK to a point and then we ended up stopped dead.   It was exactly in the spot where the morning's back-up had been, though I have not been able to find any reason for it, and the reports of the accident say that it was cleaned up within 4 hours.  But since we couldn't see an end to the stop and go traffic, Walt turned around and took a back way into Davis.  Still it was after midnight before we got home and the dogs were very hungry.

But what a day!  Absolutely amazing and I'm so grateful (and yeah, even proud) to be Steve Schalchlin's friend and have him think to offer these tickets to us!

One Little Word: Married

When Walt and I married, 48 years ago today (happy anniversary, dear!), Ellen and Shelly had not yet met each other.  Nobody ever even thought in terms of the concept of "same sex marriage" and certainly nobody could have predicted that some day it would be legal anywhere in this country.

Today, as I sat with tears rolling down my eyes, the Supreme Court said that the federal government must extend equal rights to everyone married in states which allow same sex marriage and, though they did not make same sex marriage the law of the land, they upheld the decision of Justice Walker in California and marriage is now once again legal in the state of California.

The news cameras which were covering the reading of the decisions flittedback and forth between gatherings outside the Supreme Court and the gathering inside the California State Capitol, so I was able to instantly watch Shelly and Ellen rejoycing in the decision for which they have worked so hard for so many years.  For Shelly and Ellen, the Prop 8 decision was irrelevant because no matter how it was decided, their marriage (and the other 1800 marriages which took place during that window when it was legal) were not being challenged (though if Prop 8 stood, it is possible their marriage could have been nullified by another court decision), but now every gay couple in love in California has the possibility to marry again.

Though some of the decisions coming out of the Supreme Court this week were a bit depressing and I was very dubious about what would happen in the decisions today, the Supreme Court did the right thing. They understood the humanity of all people, they said that gay people have equality with straight people and this is a huge decision.   I have been crying happy tears since the decisions were read.

Walt and I celebrate 48 years today and we are celebrating in a way normal for us.  Walt is going to San Francisco to go to the opera; I am going to a memory class with my mother and spending time with her until Walt's sister drops by for a visit.

This doesn't mean we won't be celebrating our anniversary.  We exchanged cards, Walt gave me some beautiful flowers, and we will go out to dinner tomorrow night.  

Forty-eight years.  My lord...where did the time go? 

Ellen and Shelly have been together 40 years, married since 2008.   Today is a huge day for them.

Congratulations to all of my gayfriends on an historic ruling today.

Now this is just silly!

I was very moved watching Andrew Sullivan on one of the Sunday talk shows.  Sullivan, who is the former editor of The New Repubic and five books and is currently known most for his bog, The Daily Beast, which focuses primarily on political issues.  He appears frequently on talk shows.  He is also gay, and is often the go-to spokesperson for gay issues, especially with regard to the Catholic church, since he considers himself a Catholic.

On Sunday, he was talking, as was just about everybody else, about President Obama's announcement that he feels gay couples deserve the same rights and privileges that heterosexual couples enjoy. 

As Sullivan began to speak, he got very choked up.  He said he had not realized how emotional this action on the part of our president was going to make him. 

Imagine you are Andrew Sullivan.  Imagine that for your entire life you were made to feel that you aren't as worthy as everyone else, that your church told you you were going to hell, that you were denied many of the Constitutional rights that all of your straight peers didn't even give a second thought to.  

Imagine that all of a sudden the President of the United States says that gays and lesbians deserve equal rights under the law.  Suddenly, the most powerful man in the world has announced to the world that you are OK.  That you deserve everything that other people enjoy.  Can you imagine how emotional it would be to know that the president thought you were just like everybody else after so many years?

The reaction to President Obama's announcement has been predictable.  Did he commit political suicide or not?  We'll know in November, but the media is certainly having a field day trying to spin this, like the Newsweek cover calling him "the first gay president."  I'm sure Michelle Obama will be very surprised to learn that, as will his daughters.

If all it takes to be "gay" is to admit that you think all people are deserving of equal rights, then the ranks of the United States' gay population just increased astronomically.  I'm sure there are a lot of straight husbands and wives who will be surprised to learn that suddenly they are gay.

While this is a monumental and amazing announcement on the part of the president, it hardly accomplishes much on a practical level.  Though he says he personally believes that gay couples deserve equal treatment, he still says that he feels that those decisions, though, should be left to individual states.  That's hardly equal treatment.  

I watched GuessWho's Coming to Dinner the other night, where Sidney Poitier plans to marry the daughter of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.   The movie was made in the early 1960s and as Poitier's character's father points out, their marriage would be illegal in 17 states and they could be arrested just for passing through those states as a married couple (as would Obama's parents) .  That ended in 1967 with the Loving v. Virginia case, where the Supreme Court declared any anti-micegenation statutes unconstitutional.  

Now we think nothing of mixed race marriages.  I hope that when my granddaughters are grown, they will think about gay marriages the way we now think about mixed-race marriages.  What was the big deal?

Obama's stating of his personal views, but leaving final decision up to individual states doesn't come close to solving the problem.  Even if every state in the union finally abolished anti-gay marriage statutes (highly unlikely...actually laughingly unlikely!), it still does not make gay couples equal according to federal laws. 

I hope I live long enough to see my friend Kathy's son and his lifetime partner, who is the citizen of another country, able to live in the United States legally.  They have not been able to come home for ten years now because the partner can't get a green card since their union is not recognized in this country.  There are a legion of couples in similar situations who may be able to be legally married in a couple of states, but can't get residency status because of federal laws.  There are also 1,138 federal rights that will be denied gay couples even if gay marriage is approved by individual states.

Despite all these problems, I salute President Obama (and Vice President Biden) for possibly risking his re-election by speaking from his heart.   If only all politicians were so honest.

Momentous Day

Gay couples have been getting married in New York for nearly 12 hours now. More than 800 people were married in NYC alone, tons more at Niagara Falls, and who knows how many more across the state.

As far as I can tell, there has been no sign of fire and/or brimstone, horses have not dropped dead in the streets, and children have not been terrified (nor has there been a rise in pre-pubescent declaration of homosexuality by virtue of the fact that marriage is now legal).

But thousands of people in that state now have moved one step closer to full equality with their married neighbors. Except, of course, that if they travel to most other states they will be legal strangers to each other, their marriages having no legal standing whatsoever, and if one of them is a citizen of another country s/he will not be permitted to stay past his/her visa period by virtue of the fact that his/her spouse is an American citizen. (Also, despite the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, married same sex couples still cannot get equal benefits in the military).

But let's not cavil on this happy day. It's a huge step forward.

New York is the 6th, and largest state to legalize same sex marriage.

Of course not everyone loves gay marriage and the abominationists were out in force too. Members of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) were there with their signs.

Their supporters chanted "Let the people vote! Let the people vote!" Why should people who are not involved in the issue get to decide the rules for people who are. Would you like the country to take a vote on whether or not you can marry the person you love? They are so keen on sanctity of marriage and marriage for procreation. I think we should vote on whether infertile people, older people, or people who have decided not to have children should be allowed to marry.

In interview with Christiane Amanpour, Mayor Michael Bloomberg reminded the viewers that when the country was first founded, it was legal in some areas to put homosexuals to death, black people were bought and sold like animals, and women were unable to vote, but over the years we have righted these wrongs and it's time to right this wrong.

When dogs can speak up and ask themselves for permission to marry their owners, I'll take this sign seriously.

But for now, I will just rejoice with those people who have waited so long and who have finally climbed up one more rung of the ladder toward full equality.

She's Alive

Well neither illness or bad guys killed her, which is very good news. But I was very happy that Jeri called her yesterday afternoon.

When I arrived at the house, she was lying on the couch, with a bouquet of orchids at her head and another at her feet, as well as a potted flower plant next to her. If she hadn't been talking to Jeri, I might have thought she was laid out for her funeral!

We had a couple of hours before her appointment, so we sat around chatting. I had not realized that when she said that the police had come out to talk with her about Faux Tom that an officer had been in the house when the scam artist called for the last time. She didn't know Faux Tom's phone number because it showed as "blocked call" on her caller I.D., so the officer asked her to keep the guy on the line so they could trace the call, which I guess they did. She told him what a bad guy he was for trying to cheat an old lady out of so much money and how he should be ashamed of himself. I'm sure he is drowning in remorse!

She has an image of the guy "quaking in his boots" since she told him that the police know about him. Somehow, I doubt it! But hopefully she has heard the last of this--and that she's learned a bit about latter day scams from all of this.

At the appointed time, we went to the doctor's office and it was really clearly evident that while she can go for lab work or eye appointments by herself, she just can't go to the internist alone. She just can't remember anything. She was also very pleased with herself for getting away with not taking one of her prescribed medications when it ran out, but then the doctor explained that it was to keep her from having heart problems.

Once a long time ago, the doctor told her she was not really a candidate for a heart attack. My mother has taken that to mean that she has no chance of having a heart attack and she can do whatever she wants and not worry. The doctor explained that that wasn't quite right. She relutantly agreed to take the medication again.

But she can't remember any of the after care instructions. She went into the lab for blood work and told them she was there to pick up her medication. And she must have asked me a dozen times why she had to take Motrin, if she had to see the doctor again, if she had to have an x-ray. I finally wrote it all out for her and hope she can remember where she put the piece of paper.

After dinner we watched a Criminal Minds marathon (like me, she likes the show). When the second show ended, I asked her if there was anything she wanted to see. She picked up the newspaper, looked at the TV section, said "Criminal Minds is on. Do you like that?" and when I said I did, she told me what channel it was on (the one we'd been watching Criminal Minds on for the past two hours!)

I think there is a bit of "sundowners" about all of this since this morning she was just fine and her memory much more sharp than it had been last night. We talked politics, we talked about faux Tom, we talked about my father. She even told me a story I'd never heard before, about the early days of her marriage to my father when she and my grandmother used to take horse back riding lessons and take horses through Golden Gate Park out to the beach for a barbeque. I vaguely remember her riding a horse once, but I had no idea it had been such a big deal.

Bottom line -- she's feeling better, her memory is shot, but no more shot than previously and she's still just fine about living independently.

She has suggested that we both read a book called "A Bittersweet Season: Caring for our Aging Parents." She felt that she could learn something about getting old, in case she started having those symptoms and that I could learn how to deal with those symptoms in case she ever developed them.

Sigh.

I sent this note to Facebook via cell phone last night:
What a terrible nite to be without internet.
Congratulations New York. Go get married Jasons!!

Where's the Protest?

I drove to the Woodland County Courthouse and got there early, in time to mail a package at the post office across the street. I thought it odd that there were no protest trucks in front of the courthouse. I'd been to the Valentine Day actions before and there were always big trucks with big signs talking about abomination and sin and people going to hell and quoting scripture. One year there was a gang of what can only be described as Russian thugs--mean, strong looking guys with abomination signs who glared at us and who had to be removed by security. One year a guy ran through the building shouting "abomination" and had to be taken out by security.

I went into the courthouse to greet the group of same gender couples that was starting to assemble in the lobby. I asked someone about the protesters and she said that it was probably too early and they would probably be there later. It was a stranger group than the last time I attended because some of these couples were legally married, but many were not.

Reporters started to show up, with their cameras and their notebooks and began to interview Shelly and Ellen. I loved it that the Fox reporter was wearing a Marriage Equality sticker on his jacket.

When Yolo County Recorder, Freddie Oakley, appeared, they interviewed her too.

Freddie has always been very supportive of same gender marriages and made all the news a couple of years ago when she handed out apologies to couples who came on Valentine's Day asking for marriage licenses. Today she handed out IOUs and explained to reporters that it was for not being able to give them the 1,138 rights and responsibilites enjoyed by opposite-sex couples but not available for same-sex couples.

She expained that only a few of those rights included a survivor being able to collect Social Security benefits , workers' compensation or public assistance benefits; spousal insurance benefits through one's employer; Veterans benefits (dependency and indemnity compensation, monthly pension, medical care) when one's spouse is in the Armed forces. Same sex couples can't get spousal benefits through Medicare or have medical decision-making power or hospital visitation rights. There is no protection for families of crime victims. Same sex spouses cannot immigrate to the US. There is no family reunification for asylum seekers.

The list goes on and on. There was one young lesbian couple there who had never heard of some of these rights that are denied to them by virtue of their being unable to be married....or if they are able to be married in some states, the federal government does not recognize the marriages.

The event was dedicated to Linda Waite, a tireless fighter for LGBT causes, who died last month after a lengthy battle with brain cancer.

Linda's wife, Judy St. George (they were legally married in Massachusetts, and again in California) was at the gathering and said that this event had been described as an event to demonstrate the gay community's frustration, but she said that she wasn't frustrated, she was furious about the way she was treated for so many years before she and Linda were allowed to be married. Her speech was very moving and I was upset that my video card filled up before she had finished, though I was able to record most of it.

Several couples presented themselves to the office asking for marriage licenses. Freddie politely apologized to each one and gave them her IOUs.

When it was over, there was cake for all.

There were still no protestors outside when I left but then I saw a lone woman across the street holding a poster-sized cardboard. With my bad eyes, I couldn't read what was written on it, so I crossed the street and approached her.

It was a flattened special delivery box she had just purchased at the post office.

There was no protest at all.

I hope that's a good sign. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Man's Inhumanity

It's been a very emotional afternoon and I don't even know if I can put into words what I'm feeling.

It started with Facebook.

Gay and Lesbian couples posting notes saying that they had papers to file or that they were waiting outside of a registrar's office, hoping that Judge Walker will lift the stay and allow couples to marry.

If you are planning to attain your marriage license at the 8th Street Clerks Office please email Rachel H. (Volunteer Coordinator) . Also if there is a specific time you are reserving please mention that also.

Blogs are passing on our plans for when the stay is lifted. You go boys and girls!

Good Karma is mounting the the Judge will deny the stay - still waiting for his decision - still time today but window of time is closing - last moment they issue at the Clerk's Office is 4:30pm - still could be tomorrow - get a bag of bird seed please, not rice.

We just cancelled our 3:20pm appt for today, but have one for tomorrow and now making one for Wednesday...the Clerk's office is gonna get sick of us...oh well

I'm at SF City Hall waiting. 8-9-10 sound like a beautiful day to get married. :-)

I thought about what it must be like to be sitting by a telephone waiting to find out if a Judge will let you get married to your partner of 5, 10, 20 or more years, knowing that in another year or so the right might be revoked yet again.

Or fly to another state to get married because it's legal, knowing that when you get home from your honeymoon, you'll no longer be considered married in the state where you actually live.

Then there was the story in Huffington Post about a 17 month old baby boy beaten to death because the mother's boyfriend thought he was "acting like a girl" and wanted to make a man of him. His tiny body had been repeatedly punched with closed fists and grabbed by the neck. By the time 911 had been called at dusk, he was already in cardiac arrest from the sheer brutality of the assault and it was too late to save his life, the article reports.

The murderer is quoted as saying: I was trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl. I never struck that kid that hard before. A one-time mistake, and I am going to do 20 years.

I dunno. I just find it difficult to find much sympathy for his "20 years."

So I was already feeling pretty emotional about how cruel human beings can be to other human beings. I went out to the family room and sat down, so Polly could have lap time (she only needs about 23 hours of it a day). I turned on the TV and saw the last half of a movie called Beyond the Gates which stars John Hurt and is about the genocide in Rwanda. Every bit as emotional as Hotel Rwanda.

And as I frequently do, while watching the movie I was also reading. I'm taking a break from the murder and mayhem of the fictional Lisabeth Salander and am reading a book called "Flying Carpet of Small Miracles," written by Hala Jaber, a Lebanese-British correspondent reporting for London's Sunday Times, which is about the attempt to save a couple of orphans in Baghdad. Three-year-old Zahra was burned over most of her body and in dire need of sophisticated emergency attention, while her baby sister, Hawra, tossed from a car window, survived unscathed. The rest of their family of seven were killed.

I haven't gotten into the meat of the book yet, as where I am is just as "shock and awe" is happening. Jaber and her photographer husband chose not to evacuate Baghdad and wanted to report on what things were really like, not the sanitized version those of us on the outside world were receiving. She tells it like it is and how stupid those "smart bombs" really were, as she explores the hospitals which are taking care of the wounded and housing the dead.

A mother, who sits with two children while two other children lie in the morgue, their bodies torn apart, says, "My tears are strangled in my eyes. They will not gush. They are burning my soul. They will stay inside me as an everlasting reminder of my anger with the Americans and British who did this to my babies."

The author then describes what happened. "She had just finished giving breakfast to her own children and her brother's in the house where they all lived together. One minute she could hear the children singing, laughing and playing as she washed the breakfast dishes in the kitchen. The next minute came the explosion. She did not know what caused it.

"'All I could see was blood spattered against the walls,' she said as her daughter Sujud moaned beside us.

"She rushed out of the kitchen, calling the children's names and peering desperately through the smoke. As soon as she saw Sara and Karar, she knew they were dead. Their younger brother and sister were lying in the pool of blood with a fourteen year old cousin, who had also been injured.

"'Tell Bush and Blair that their end is near,' she concluded, with a coolness that chilled me. 'Tell them that the scalding tears of Iraq's mothers will burn them and send them to hell.'"

As I was reading of the horrors of children killed and horrifically wounded by our "smart bombs" ("collateral damage," I'm sure the administration would call it), in the movie the UN was pulling its troops out of a village in Rwanda because all was lost. In a previous scene, I watched the rebels chasing women and children with machetes, chopping them to pieces as they tried to escape. As the UN trucks are leaving, the villagers realize that there is no way the UN can save them and that they are being deserted (all except for John Hurt, of course, who would never leave the villagers alone, and who is later murdered).

They send a village elder to the retreating army to ask one favor. As they leave, will they please shoot the villagers to save them the pain of being hacked to death by machete. When the soldier says he can't do that, the man begs him to just kill the children, please, to save them the pain.

Here I was sitting in my nice house, with my nice dogs and my nice marriage and beyond these walls are people hoping a judge will let them marry. There are children maimed and orphaned in the Middle East, a part of this endless war that we rarely hear about, of course. Over 800,000 were murdered in Rwanda 50 years after World War II when we vowed to never again allow genocide to happen.

I cried for the capacity of humans to be so terribly cruel to other human beings and for the often overwhelming nature of the pain and suffering we see around us in the world, and for our complacency (mine included) at merely reading or watching it with varying degrees of emotion, from boredom to outrage, without doing anything about it.

Do the Right Thing

Judge Vaughn Walker did the right thing today.

He overturned California's Proposition 8, stating that it was unconstitutional under both the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution. He said the proposition "fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license." He then added "...the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same sex couples."

Judge Walker's historic decision doesn't really change anything. The pro-8 people will file an immediate appeal and nothing will be settled completely until the issue is heard by the Supreme Court, but what an air of jubilation permeated all the social media web sites, news shows, and streets of cities across the state this afternoon.

There were jubilant posts to Facebook all afternoon.

My friend Jennifer wrote, Seriously, truly, so excited I can't see straight! After going through the process of fingerprinting and an FBI criminal search to *start* the months-long process of getting a name change that would be a simple 2-step process if we were recognized legally, this excites me no end!

Holly wrote: a pre-planned dinner w/Sar and Kym turned into a celebration of love and the occasional triumph of reason in the American judiciary. In an adult life full mostly of political and judicial disappointments, this has been one of the few occasions on which I feel celebration is fully in order.

My friend John wrote, My partner and I (of 30+ years) were married in California on June 17, 2008.

Proposition 8 made it illegal for any further gay marriages to be performed in California. Even though my marriage was grandfathered in, you cannot imagine how it felt.

I know this is just part of an ongoing battle to get gay marriage accepted, and it is STILL not legal in my own home state, but emotionally it is definitely a VERY big deal.

John had his own very personal examples of that "sanctity of marriage" business that Prop 8 supporters are so fond of spouting:

I remember when my sister had her first marriage. She got all her brothers together to let all of us know that SHE had picked the perfect man for the perfect marriage. HER marriage was going to be perfect in every way and was going to last forever because SHE had taken the time to find the PERFECT person, unlike all of us who so clearly had never made any good choices in our lives.

That marriage lasted a bit over a year before falling apart. She now is in her 2nd marriage with a physically abusive husband and two dysfunctional kids.

She invited me to both of her marriages, but never invited my partner (now 34 years together). I guess that was because our relationship was so inferior to her absolutely perfect one(s).

When the police threatened to take her kids away from her if they had to be called to her home one more time for domestic violence reports, she moved to California.

There she was naturally a supporter of Proposition 8. She has always been a firm believer that marriage has to be "saved" by destroying the marriages of gays.

Perhaps if she destroys my marriage the police will stop coming to her house. Maybe her husband will stop beating her. Who knows, perhaps her kids will stop mimicking the violence they have been exposed to all their lives if she succeeds in destroying my marriage.

Somehow I don't think so.

But even if it did, she should have enough morality to realize that one's own happiness is not worth destroying the happiness of others, and destroying the lives of others will not REALLY make her own life any better.

The issue is going to drag on through the courts for probably years. Right now there is a 3 day moratorium on marriage. The pro-8s are hoping to keep the moratorium in place until a decision is finally rendered by the Supreme Court, which merely adds insult to injury. Let's hope the ban on marriage will be lifted this week.

It's only another step toward the full recognition of same sex unions in this country, but every step forward feels like a huge leap toward eventual equality for every tax-paying citizen in this country, no matter what their sexual orientation.

Good going, Judge Walker!!

Being Who You Are

It's the second Thursday and that means it was time for my next luncheon with my friend Kathy. You may recall that we reinstated these lunches at The Olive Garden in Sacramento last month and are slated for our next one on April 8. It's nice to get back together with her and to pick up where we left off, after our period of getting to know you again.

We talked about a lot of things today, but eventually got around to the note that was left on this journal on my "WWJD?" entry.

The entry said, in part,

we need for gay people everywhere to stop expecting everyone to accept and like them.
And we need for gays to STOP feeling the need to wear their sexuality on their sleeves.
Being in the closet? No
But there is an element of privacy and intimacy to anyone's sexual orientation that I don't feel the need to know.
Just be who you are and let me like you for that.
I don't care about your sexual preference.

On the surface this sounds like a nice, accepting way to live, but if you think about it, it's not possible.

If the writer walks hand in hand with her husband, is she wearing her sexuality on her sleeve? If Ellen and Sherry walk hand in hand, that's what they are accused of doing.

If the writer meets her husband at the airport and the two share a welcome home embrace and quick kiss, are they wearing their sexuality on their sleeves? If Adam and Steve do the same thing, are they?

If the writer goes on a vacation with her husband and some friends and comes back to work and shows everybody her pictures of the good time they had, is she wearing her sexuality on her sleeve? If Steve brings his pictures of his fun time with friends, is he? If he's in the military, he's in danger of being dismissed if he talks about the nice vacation he just had with his friends.

The writer may not "feel the need to know" about Adam and Steve's orientation and yet somehow feels they don't need to be in the closet, but that's what this whole thing is about--the ability to be who they are without someone accusing them of "wearing their sexuality on their sleeve."

Kathy and I were talking about the reaction of men to the idea of homosexuality (somehow women don't generally seem to have the same reaction). If two straight women check into a motel and their room only has one bed, they think nothing of sleeping in the same bed together. If two straight men check into the same room, one of them will probably sleep on the floor. They will go to great lengths to prove that they aren't "like that." Even entertainers whom I admire get that "ooo icky" tone to their voice when they discuss two men having any sort of affectionate relationship. They feel the need to pretend to be effeminate, raise their voices several octaves, and laugh about it. Even people I know to strongly support gay equality. But there is that need to prove that "I'm not that icky kind of person."

[Interestingly, though, Kathy pointed out, if you take two men into the wood to camp, they'll stand side by side and pee on the same tree, where two women will each seek their own private bush to pee on!]

And there is the whole "murder thing." Straight people who are murdered generally (not always, of course) are shot or blown up. Something that can be done at some distance from the victim. Gay people who are murdered generally (not always, of course) are killed in close up and personal attacks--stabbings, choking, beatings. There is some sort of visceral reaction in people who get angry with gay people. They have to touch them and make it as personal as possible. A gay man was stabbed in a robbery in Sacramento, Kathy told me, and when the police said it was a hate crime, someone questioned that...but the man was stabbed sixty seven times. That's not your random act of violence committed during a robbery.

The thing about just being who you are is that gay people can't do that. If one woman is the biological mother of a child, her partner can't go pick that kid up at school, because the school doesn't recognize her as a parent. If one person in a gay couple is injured in most states in this country, the hospital has the legal right to prevent the spouse from being with him/her, with making decisions about care, or making decisions about disposal of remains, if the person should die. If the patient is unable to communicate, her family (mother, father, siblings) have the right to remove her from the hospital, take her to another states, and not let her partner of many years know where she is (this has happened).

The horror stories about people who are "just trying to be who they are" are legion and one reason why gay people are fighting for marriage is to be able to say to the straight community: we just want to live our lives and not bother you, but you won't let us!

I'd also love to hear what the writer of my comment would say if someone showed up at her door and told her that a vote had been taken of all the citizens in the state and it was decided that she and her husband can no longer be legally married.

Gay people don't necessarily want her to LIKE them, but they do want to be respected for who they are -- and why the heck shouldn't they be respected?

---

Just as I went to post this, I read of a school in Mississippi which has canceled the senior prom rather than allow a lesbian girl to come and bring her girlfriend. Is bringing your girlfriend or boyfriend forcing your sexual identity on someone? Should she lie and come with someone she doesn't care about on what is arguable the most imortant social date of a student's high school career?

Not only does the girl not get to go to her prom, but NOBODY IN HER CLASS gets a prom...how much hatred against her do you think that is going to create?

Psychic Woman

I've mentioned before that over on Flickr, I've been doing this "take a photo a day" project, which I'm now continuing into year 3. After 2+ years of taking your own photo every day, you are desperate for new ideas. In September I discovered that there are actually holidays to be celebrated in this country every single day of the year. Wonderful holidays like National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend Day (January 11), National Garlic Day (April 19), Wiggle Your Toes Day (August 6), etc. It's wonderful reading.

So I've been using my daily photograph to celebrate that day's holiday. Many of them have been fun to work on, with the help of PhotoShop, like this one for "World Smile Day" (October 3)

A couple of days ago was "Increase Your Psychic Powers" Day and I did my best to represent that.

It was the next night when I had the dream I talked about yesterday, which began with my being so depressed that I drove off the road and into a body of water. This morning I'm thinking that maybe I actually did increase my psychic powers, 'cause I sure am depressed this morning.

Maine joins the host of other states where gay marriage has lost by only a few percentage points. How would you like to have only 5% of the population of your state decide whether you can be married or not? Think it can't happen to a nice heterosexual couple like you? How about that judge who decided that he shouldn't marry an interracial couple. Who is next? Maybe some day they'll decide that since the bible refers to left-haned people as "evil," only right-handed people should marry...and my nearly 45 years with Walt will be dissolved. Civil rights should not be up for a vote, or be decided at the whim of someone else.

(Someone is collecting signatures to get a petition on the ballot to outlaw divorce in California. Let's see how serious those right wingers really are about preserving the sanctity of marriage!!)

I'm not listening to the news today. It's all too depressing. I'm one of those who had the audacity to hope and I haven't given up hope yet that Obama can be viewed by history as one of the great presidents, if he manages to follow through on his promises. But we live in an instant gratification society and everyone expected him to "fix everything" overnight. ("it's been a whole week since the inauguration and he hasn't done anything yet!") Remember the Patriot Act? And how aghast we were to discover that this sweeping intrusion into our cherished freedoms was passed without anybody having the opportunity to read it? It is my fervent hope that the slowness with which Obama seems to be doing everything comes from his wanting to get it right. I continue to hope, but talking heads make it difficult.

Then I watched Al Gore on Letterman last night and heard about the continuing erosion of our earth, the probable irreversible death of coral, the animals species which are on the brink of extinction, the island of garbage twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific ocean, the sinking of the entire country of Bangladesh, and most of humankind's indifference to it all.

One of my blogging students from the other night has started a blog about the conditions in Congo right now. Reading that is also enough to make you depressed. I have friends from Congo who have family there now.

This morning I listened to NBC's financial expert talking about the astronomical rise in interest rates and annual fees that banks have decided to charge and how we are essentially helpless to do anything. Call the banks and protest, but if they ask you for information, don't give any or it can be used against you. Don't start a new charge account because it can show up as a negative on your credit report. Don't stop using credit cards because that can show up as a negative on your credit report. It's the ultimate Catch 22 situation.

No good news ever comes out of the Middle East.

Sometimes it just seems like there is nothing good to live for...and maybe that drive out into the wilderness and into the body of water was prophetic.

I Can't Even Imagine

As will come as no surprise to anybody who has read this journal for any length of time, I've been on the edges of the fight for equality for gay people for many years. During the periods of fights in California for gay couples to win equality under the law, I was out there at rallies and demonstrations. I handed out literature and actually talked with (some) voters.

I suppose I should be ashamed to say that since Ellen and Shelly and a host of other people got (legally) married here in California and since the courts upheld their right to be married (while denying everybody else in the state of California that same right), my involvement in the continuing fight has diminished somewhat.

Partly this is due to the absolute deluge of material from the folks who are continuing the fight. For awhile there I would get requests for money once or twice a day from various Equality groups. I eventually put most of them on my spam filter and I don't even read them any more.

This is really bad of me because there are still so many couples who are working so hard to be granted the same rights that Walt and I ... and Ellen and Shelly ... now have.

This point was brought home to me this morning when I read the shocking story of Janice and Lisa and their four children.

Janice and Lisa met in 1989 and were united in a ceremony in Washington State in 1991 (not a marriage, of course, because Washington does not recognize gay marriage). They became foster parents for the state of Washington and fostered some 25 children, many with special needs, and eventually adopted four of them. There were plans to open their home to more foster children in the summer of 2007 because "there's always room for one more."

In February of 2007, the family decided to take a cruise and flew to Miami to board their cruise ship. Before the ship left port, Lisa collapsed. Janice, who has been a medical social worker for many years, knew her partner was in trouble and so she called for help and Lisa was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to a Jackson Memorial Hospital in Dade County. As she was being loaded into the ambulance, she flashed the "I love you" sign to her family. They had no way of knowing that would be their last sight of her.

Janice and Lisa had taken all the proper precautions for their family, which included the proper paperwork allowing each to have medical power of attorney for each other, yet when Janice arrived at the hospital she was denied permission to enter the room with her partner of 18 years. She was told, “you are in an anti-gay city and state. And without a health care proxy you will not see Lisa nor know of her condition."

Janice got on the phone and had her health care proxy faxed to the hospital.

Janice describes what was happening:

I never imagined as I paced that tiny waiting room that I would not see Lisa’s bright blue eyes again or hold her warm, loving hands. Feeling helpless as I continued to wait, I attempted to sneak back into the trauma bay but all the doors to the trauma area had key codes, preventing me from entering. Sitting alone with our luggage, our children and my thoughts, I watched numbly as other families were invited back into the trauma center to visit with loved ones. I was still waiting to hear what was happening with Lisa, realizing as the time passed that I was not being allowed to see her and if the social worker’s words were any indication it was because we were gay.

Hours later a surgeon came to tell her that Lisa had suffered massive bleeding from a brain aneurysm.

A short while later, two more surgeons appeared and explained the massive bleed in Lisa’s brain gave her little chance to survive and if she did it would be in a persistent vegetative state. Lisa had made me promise to her over and over in our 18 years together to never allow this to happen to her. I let the surgeons know Lisa wishes, which were also spelled out in her Living Wills and Advance Directive. I was then promised by the doctors that I would be brought to see Lisa as “soon as she was cleaned up”. At that point all life saving measures ceased and I asked that she be prepared for organ donation.

More hours passed. Janice showed the children's birth certificates to the admitting clerk begging that if they wouldn't let her be with her partner, that at least the children be permitted to say goodbye to their mother. She was told the children were too young.

In nearly eight hours, Lisa lay at Ryder Trauma Center moving toward brain death – completely alone and I continue to this day to feel like a failure for not being there to hold her hand to tell her how much we loved her, to comfort her and to sign in her hand “I love you”. All my pleas fell on deaf ears.

Janice was not given any say in her partners care or permitted to see her until the transplant coordinator showed up to ask which organs she wanted to be donated. I can't even imagine the pain that the family went through during those long hours when a door separated them from the woman they loved, who was dying without her loving family around her.

Janice brought charges against the hospital and last week Judge Adalberto Jordan dismissed the case, essentially finding that the Jackson Memorial Hospital was within its rights to leave a dying woman alone while denying her present and immediate family to visit her, be updated on her condition, or even to provide the hospital with medically necessary information.

In the article about this case, the writer, ends by saying, "Explain to me again how a straight couple would have been split like this even for five minutes, let alone hours. Explain to me how three children would have been kept from their straight mother’s side, how a dying straight person would be treated in such an cruel, vicious, I-don’t-have-enough-words way.

"Tell me again why the word “marriage” doesn’t matter. Tell me again that we should just be patient and not rock the boat.

"Better yet, tell it to Lisa Pond’s partner and children.

"Yesterday a judge shrugged his shoulders and left LGBT victims unprotected. When will Americans demand better? Will Americans demand better?"

Maybe it's time to un-spam some of those Equality mailings again...

Op-Ed

Op/Ed: We're resilient, we're stronger

By Alan Brownstein | Special to The Davis Enterprise | May 28, 2009 08:18

Tuesday was a tragic day for California. For the first time, we have enshrined in our constitution a provision that rejects our state's historical commitment to equality and denies a specific group the right to exercise a fundamental right - the right to marry.

While other states in New England and the Midwest are advancing the cause of equality and human rights, to our shame, we have turned our backs on gay and lesbian members of our community. Under the constitutional regime mandated by Proposition 8, our neighbors down the street, our colleagues at work, congregants who worship with us, and close friends and family members whom we love are now branded as second-class citizens solely because they are gay or lesbian.

The wrong that was done on Election Day last November and upheld by the Supreme Court this week does not only stigmatize gays and lesbians. It transformed our understanding of the California Constitution.

Proposition 8 demonstrates that our constitutional emperor has no clothes. We now know that while our constitution declares that Californians have inalienable rights, in reality those rights can be denied by a bare majority of the voters. But rights that are subject to the approval of the majority aren't rights in any meaningful sense. They are privileges that can be abridged or withdrawn at the state's discretion.

Proposition 8 also fundamentally distorted the very purpose of constitutional law. Instead of serving as a shield to protect minorities against the tyranny of the majority, our constitution now serves as sword that requires the state to practice discrimination.

After Proposition 8, our constitution mocks the very idea of rights.

The Supreme Court is not to blame for its decision to uphold Proposition 8. We are all responsible for this stain on the integrity of our state.

We should have known better, but we allowed ourselves to be manipulated by fear and prejudice.

We now know if we did not know it before November, that the proponents of Proposition 8 misled the voters of California with groundless and exaggerated claims about the consequences of recognizing same-sex marriages. We were told again and again that if Proposition 8 was defeated, churches and clergy would be required to officiate over the weddings of same-sex couples - even if doing so violated their religious beliefs.

Yet today, when laws recognizing same-sex marriages are being considered in several states, opponents of marriage equality demean provisions in those laws that explicitly protect churches and clergy against any such requirement. Now they argue that such protections are unnecessary distractions, because the First Amendment prohibits any attempts to coerce or penalize clergy who refuse to perform same-sex marriages or any other religious ceremony.

Yet today's tragic affirmation of discrimination does not have to stand as law for long. Since this was a self-inflicted wound, we have the power in our own hands to remedy the harm we have caused. It is up to all of us to roll up our sleeves and work together to change our constitution back to one that affirms fundamental rights of liberty and equality.

Efforts are already under way to restore the right to marry to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Those efforts can be successful if people join together to offer a helping heart and hand.

This is a sad time. But those of us who fought against Proposition 8 are more resilient and stronger than our opponents realize. The sadness we feel today can and will be channeled into the energy we need to erase Proposition 8 from our laws and our lives tomorrow.

- Alan Brownstein is a professor of law at the UC Davis School of Law and submitted this piece on behalf of the Davis-based Gay-Straight Alliance for Equality. For more information, visit http://www.gsafeweb.org

The Death of Equality

The California Supreme Court announced its decision about Proposition 8 this morning. The decision was not what so many had hoped. Prop. 8 has been upheld, but the 18,000 marriages performed already stand.

Comments were instantaneous on Facebook and Twitter:

-- Disappointed in the Supreme Court Decision.

-- deeply disappointed in the CA supreme court, and glad to be going home where people don't vote to take away my rights [this woman is about to move back to Canada]

-- Marriage is between a man and a woman...except for 18,000 of them. [this from Ned]

-- Yay! The CA Supreme Court held up Prop 8! Thank god gays won't get divorced at the same rate as the rest of the population!

-- I'm so ashamed to be from a state that has now officially legalized discrimination. I feel like I've been forcefully thrown five steps backwards from being an equal citizen.

-- annoyed that the slippery slope doesn't seem to slip beyond heterosexuals. At this rate, I'm never going to be able to legally marry my cousins and their dogs.

-- California annually caps the number of marriage licenses. Every gay marriage prevents a straight one.

-- this is an extremely sad day for our country, California, civil rights, and...I could go on and on.

-- ashamed of my state. SHAME ON YOU!

-- The one comforting thing about the outcome is the collective outrage of good-thinking people.

-- California, as a lifelong native, I am disappointed in you. At least my BIL's marriage stands. but anti-marriage? really?

-- California, you totally let Iowa out-awesome you. Just sayin'

-- Defend traditional marriage? Why not ban interracial marriages? Why not declare women as property? Why not re-enslave blacks?

-- I want to curl up and hide until the U.S. lives up to its promise to treat all people equally.

-- Separation of Church and State? Not in California.

-- So, let's see. What other basic rights can we in CA vote people out of? It only takes 51% to take away the right of women to vote, or blacks to ride anywhere in the bus, or 51% to say we should start up the internment camps again. Heck, 51% of Californians could make it illegal to practice Christianity or Islam or Mormonism. Or for people over 6' tall to drive. Of course, it takes a 2/3 vote to raise taxes...

-- I won't be a second-class citizen forever. Even the California Supreme Court can't steal my hope for this country

-- Odd... My marriage doesn't feel any stronger this afternoon than it did this morning.

-- California, I love you so much, and yet you keep disappointing me.

-- Oh, California, you make me sad. You are going to become the Texas of the West if you're not careful. Except, you know, with crappy BBQ.

-- Sigh. Supremely disappointed in the injustice of the CA Supreme Court decision this morning.

-- You know what destroys marriage? DIVORCE. We're gonna outlaw that next, right?

-- Hey 2nd-class CA citizens: Come to MA & bring your higher income brackets, education & high-tech skills with ya!

-- Most of us who got the chance to marry in California find little solace in today's Prop 8 decision. The fight is not over.

-- My new favorite protest sign: "Jesus had two dads. Why can't I?"

It is, I guess, important to understand that the previous decision by the court was that depriving gay couples from marriage was unconstitutional, and this decision was whether or not the voters had the right to change the consitution by a simple majority vote (tho it takes a 2/3 majority to raise taxes, as noted above). They were deciding whether the majority had the right to make decisions concerning the life of the minority. And the justices, 6-1, decided that they did. So if the majority was to decide that interracial marriage is not a good thing, that would stand too and people of different races would no longer be permitted to marry.

The one good thing is that they did not invalidate the ~18,000 marriages which have already taken place. This now sets up two classes of gay people in California, those who are legally married and those who can never legally marry. This at a time when other states are starting to recognize the right of gay people to marry the partner they love. It's hard to imagine that this is "constitutional" anywhere!

Same-sex marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since November 18, 2003; in Connecticut since October 10, 2008; and in Iowa since April 27, 2009. It will become legal in Vermont starting September 1, 2009 and in Maine starting September 14, 2009.

California is obviously no longer the most progressive state in the union.

I am deeply disappointed in the Supreme Court today, but the fight is not over and it's time to go back to the initiative process and keep the eye set on 2010 for a proposition to overturn Prop 8. I think that a lot of people had their eyes opened about what Prop 8 really meant and one can only hope that if the subject is brought up yet again, the people of California will finally do the right thing. At least if a proposition permitting same sex marriage in California passes, the other side won't have anywhere to protest, because the court has already ruled that the people have the right to make that decision.