"This is Not Rosa Parks on The Bus"
Ohhh, my friends yes it is!! I promise I will eventually get back to gardening, landscaping, table top decorations & celebrities, but for the moment, Marriage Equality is all I got! “No More Mr. Nice Gay!” as a t-shirt I saw at a rally read.
The headline quote is from some Manhattan socialite in reaction to that dust-up a few years back when OPRAH WINFREY was pissed that HERMES in PARIS wouldn’t stay open late so she could buy a gift for TINA TURNER. Oprah felt the French were being racists & not everyone agreed.
Speaking of whom; where is OPRAH’s Statement on PROP 8? I know BARACK OBAMA gave that tepid little non-endorsement the week before the election, but where are all the great liberal minds of our generation? Where the hell is ROSIE O’DONNELL? I mean she has been legally married to her wife, Kelly, in every state that would allow it. She said last week that she would like to “have a beer with SARAH PALIN!” but CRICKETS regarding the passage of PROP 8.
Today, November 15th, there were hundreds of protests against PROP 8 in major cities & towns across the country. Sadly the fact that the state of CALIFORNIA is basically ABLAZE, will be the major story from the West, as it should be. But as the song used to say: “There’s Something Happening Here!”
The best take on today’s activities comes from THE ATLANTIC’S ANDREW SULLIVAN. He has been posting all day with stories from around the country, sent in by readers who have attended rallys & sent in their observations & photos. Herewith:
"Marriage means something," said one of the speakers. This speaker then told of the sudden death of his partner of thirty-four years. They had a trust; they had papers of all kinds; they had planned and prepared for every contingency - except for a lack of respect and regard for their 34 year commitment to each other. The funeral home insisted they could not cremate this man on the word of his partner of three plus decades; they needed an OK from a family member. No document, however legal, mattered on that loss and shock filled day after the unexpected death of this speaker's partner of 34 years - thirty-four years.
Think about that when you next hear that contracts and papers are enough and marriage isn't sacred or right for these people.
We are so often told by opponents of marriage equality that they do not oppose our right to have basic legal protections. What they do not understand, because they have never had to understand, is that without legal marriage, gay couples are always subject to the veto of family members who have more say over our spouses under the law than we do.
I remember a story told me during the AIDS epidemic. A man was visiting a friend dying in hospital. It was a grim scene, as it often was in those days. The next bed in the ward had a curtain drawn around it. And from behind that curtain, you could hear someone quietly singing. The man told his friend, "Well, at least that dude is keeping his spirits up, however sick he is." And the friend replied:
"Oh, that's not the patient singing. He died this morning. And his family came to collect the body. That voice you hear is the man's partner. The family didn't approve of his relationship and they have barred him from coming to the funeral and kicked him out of their shared home. That song he's singing is the song they called their own. It was playing when they met. He used to sing it to him all the time when he was dying."
"He's still singing it even though they've taken the body away. He's singing it to an empty bed. I guess it's the last time he feels he'll ever be close to the man he loved. They were together twenty years. The hospital staff don't have the heart to ask him to leave yet."
Until you have been treated as sub-human, it's hard to appreciate how it feels. We will not give up. And we will win in part for the sake of those who never made it to see this day.
This is what my faith teaches me, whatever the Vatican insists. Our love really is stronger than their fear.
For more from Andrew go to:
Andrew Sullivan
The photo above is from Friday’s LOS ANGELES TIMES. The guy in blue with his hand cupped around his mouth to amplify the BOOOO! Is ME. Thank God I look thin. The lovely blonde lezzie to my left is my friend CHRISTIAN CAPOBIANCO. I have already taken crap from friends (???) and others who question the morality (???????) of a boycott & other means of protest. I would refer you to just two (2) of the stories in ONE of the Sullivan Posts above.
“EVIL triumphs when good men do nothing!” – EDMUND BURKE
Labels: Andrew Sullivan, Barack Obama, EL COYOTE, Oprah Winfrey, Prop 8
posted by Charlie Trainer @ 10:58 PM
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