The Big News

At last I have permission to discuss The Big Secret.

No, Tom and Laurel's baby hasn't been born yet, but the news is just as good.

Walt went off to Home Depot the other day and while he was out, I had a phone call from Jeri. She said she and Phil were walking in the arboretum near her house and it was a lovely spring day and they thought the would call me.

Then she asked me if I had any plans for August. I said I didn't think so. So she invited me to their WEDDING, which will take place on the beach in Santa Barbara (where we have Tom's annual 4th of July barbeque) in late August.

Apparently while Walt was at Home Depot, Phil had called HIM to ask for Jeri's hand. At least that's what they told me. Walt says they had actually asked for his blessing, not his permission (that's from "Fiddler on the Roof"). He gave both. They had picked up a ring at a thrift shop and he presented it to her at the arboretum.

We could not be more happy. We LOVE Phil. We've loved Phil ever since he first showed up at the Sunshine Children's Theatre when Jeri was in junior high and his sister Vickie was performing with our kids. Phil was the guy who worked backstage for all the shows.

Later, during the Lawsuit years, Phil was the "roadie" (along with Jon and Greg) who helped set up the shows, run the lights, load out after a show, and hang out with the group. It was more than a "band" during those years, but a big social group as well.

Phil gave wonderfully heartfelt speeches at both David's and Paul's memorial services. He walked my mother down the aisle at Ned & Marta's wedding.

Through it all, Phil and Jeri were always good friends. She dated, he dated, and they were friends. As the Lawsuit group began to find mates and marry, they always joked that Jeri and Phil would end up together.

Something happened a few years ago. Suddenly that friendship began to blossom into something deeper. We had our suspicions. They seemed to be doing stuff together that they hadn't done before (such as making plans for big trips together). I'd never seen Jeri look so happy. Or Phil either, for that matter.

Phil started coming to family events and then he decided to make a trip to Boston. When he returned to Sacramento, he sold everything in his apartment that didn't fit into his car and moved to Boston, where he has been living with Jeri for about a year and a half. I love looking at the two of them because they positively glow when they look at each other.

Phil is the perfect partner for Jeri because he understands her lifestyle. Jeri teaches music at Berklee College of Music. She teaches junior high music students privately. She works with a junior high near Boston to design lights for their theatrical productions (and teach the kids as well), and she plays in pit bands for various musicals in and around the Boston area, so she has this very strange schedule, very strange lifestyle.

Phil has been a professional theatre technician for many years, a profession easily transferrable to Boston, though it's a field where one must pay one's dues, so he has to prove himself, which he has been doing for the past year and a half. He understand Jeri's life--has always understood it.

As I said at the outset, we have loved Phil for what seems like forever, and now that he is going to be part of our family, we just could not be more pleased. Phil's the real deal and they are so much in love.

It's still in the early planning stages, but it will be a simple, casual wedding, with Marta performing the ceremony (she's getting quite good at it; she officiated at the ceremony of her mother and stepfather last summer) and me making the cake. I'm thrilled to be doing the cake, since I made both Ned's and Paul's wedding cakes. (Given the nature, timing and distance for Tom's wedding, Laurel got the cake done by a bakery.) I'll have to see if I remember how to make a wedding cake! LOL.

So anyway, that's my big news and I am SO thrilled to be able to finally share it with you all!

(Of course, Phil had to get past having his life spread out all over the internet as I am wont to do...but, thank goodness he has become resigned to it.)

Speaking Out for Gay Marriage

I went to an ACLU informational meeting about gay marriage yesterday. Obviously this was "preaching to the choir" for me, but Ellen and Shelly were going to be speaking and asked me to come along.

It was a small group of people gathered around a meeting area in a local bookstore and I was sitting in front, so I don't really know what the makeup of the group was. People were, like me, there alone, there were some same sex couples and some heterosexual couples, so what the gay:straight ratio was was not possible to judge. It was also not possible to judge whether there was anybody there who was not supportive of gay marriage.

But even though I have been supporting and campaigning for gay marriage for years, having hard facts and figures at my fingertips was enlightening. The guy from the ACLU had put together a questionnaire that even Ellen and Shelly weren't able to answer 100% accurately. We all learned something. And it was nice to hear a married couple ask about having a smaller meeting in their home to pass along the information.

At the conclusion of the meeting we were all encouraged to "get the word out" and so that's what I'm going to do here, with some facts and figures that you might surprising or enlightening. Facts and figures don't give you emotion, though, and I only captured on video a small part of Ellen and Shelly's impassioned description of why it's "different" when you are married than when you are just legal domestic partners.

There are 20 questions on the list and I'm not going to go through all of them, but will just pick and choose a few.

In case you were wondering, there are six countries recognize gay marriage: The Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, South Africa, Canada and the list says England, but I think Ellen & Shelly said they have something that is "like" marriage, but is called something else, making it separate and unequal.

In the U.S. only one state recognizes marriage: Massachusetts. Connecticut, Vermont, California, Main, Hawaii, Washington DC, New York and New Jersey have some form of legal status, but not marriage. Marriage is prohibited by statutory law in 18 states and in constitutional amendments in 27.

Shelly talked about how when Vermont made domestic partnerships legal, she and Ellen flew to Vermont and registered. She smiled as she recalled their newfound status as they walked around buying souvenirs. But when they drove across the state line into New Hampshire, they were once again legal strangers to each other.

Many Americans think of "marriage" as both a legal and a religious institution, but in legal terms it is simply a legal contract and being denied this legal contract deprives gay couples of more than 1,100 rights that married couples enjoy. These include such things as hospital visitation, death benefits, spousal support, visitation rights with children if a couple splits, inheritance rights, the right to make decisions about the disposition of a dead partner's body, etc. Some of these can be taken care of with the help of an expensive attorney which many cannot afford. They come automatically with marriage. (Shelly points out that 40% of marriages in this country are civil marriages only, and do not involve the blessing of a church, which does remove the "religious" issue, don't you think?)

In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriage was legal throughout the United States (it was legal in California in 1948). At that time 80% (8 out of 10 people) of the population of the United States were against it.

The Catholic Church performed union ceremonies for same sex couples from the 5th through the 14th century. It always amuses (and frustrates) me that the Pope is supposed to be infallible when he speaks ex cathedra, and yet up until the 14th century the Pope apparently felt that it was OK for gay couples to marry but after the 14th century some pope decided it was not OK. Surely SOMEBODY wasn't infallible!!

It was not until the 18th century that people began to marry for love. Before that, people married to strengthen family alliances, to be socially acceptable, and for procreation. But since the 18th century, most people have been marrying for love. Gay couples just ask for the same right.

The Bible. Ah yes. The Bible. It's fair to say that few of us have the language ability to read the Bible in its original format and all of us rely on translations. "Leviticus 18:22" is the standard argument used by opponents of gay marriage. Here are some interesting English translations:

English Standard Bible: You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is abomination.

King James Bible: Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.

Living Bible: Homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, for it is an enormous sin.

Net Bible: You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; it is a detestable act.

New International Version: Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

New Living Translation: Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin.

Revised Standard Version: You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

(by the way, relations between women are not mentioned in the bible at all, so lesbianism must be OK.)

In California there are more than 90,000 same sex couples who have been together more than 5 years (some much longer. Ellen and Shelly have been together 34 years; Steve and Jimmy have been together more than 20 years, for example). California couples are raising some 70,000 children. Nationwide, according to the 2000 US Census, 33% of female same-sex couple households and 22% of male same-sex couple households reported at least one child under the age of 18 living in the home.

Isn't it time to admit that gay couples are here to stay, that they are living in stable, monogamous relationships and raising children together and that they and their children should be afforded the same rights that straight families have?

Let's all just pretend it's somewhere between the 5th and the 14th century (but with indoor plumbing and Internet access) and follow the example of the Catholic Church.

Click To Play