Proposition 8 in California

Oh my. I forgot for a moment that last night was not just about a new president for our nation. Not just about the house & senate and does the republican party still have the numbers for a filibuster. Not just about local elections or the IL proposition to recall our gov.

Last night was also about love an autonomy and civil rights. Although Gregg and I got married in a church, married by my father, a minister, we didn't have to. We could have gone to city hall, or like my sister, Vegas. In the United States today, 50% of all "hetero" marriages end in divorce. Gregg and I didn't get married because we wanted a piece of paper, or to announced "to death do us part" to our friends and family, or because we thought the institution was somehow sacred because I have breasts and he doesn't. No, we got married because we want to raise a family and knew that marriage would guarentee certain legal rights for each other and our children. I don't love Gregg more because we are married. He doesn't love me more because we are married. I love Gregg more each day I know him because of 1 thing: the extraordinary man that he is. That's all. End of story. If someone said that Gregg and I couldn't have the legal rights of marriage because I have green eyes or a "bum" reproductive system, I don't know what I would do.

But in California last night, the majority of voters said just that. No matter how much you love your partner, no matter how long you've been together, committed to each other, no matter whether or not you have raised children together, if you are not of the opposite gender, then you cannot enjoy the same legal rights of marriage that hetero couples can. This angers me to the core and saddens me to no end. With Vegas-style drive-thru marriage, and a staggering divorce rate, Americans have proven over the last 50 years that there is nothing inherently sacred about hetero marriage. It is messy and hard and often fails. But it fails 50% of the time not because of ones gender, or ability to conceive children, or anything else that "defines" one as heterosexual, it fails because we are human and will fail, inevitably, at many relationships we have. There is nothing magical that says hetero relationships last and others are not as strong.

People are scared of the unknown, of the different. For hundreds of years in America that has resulted in racism. I feel we are finally turning the tide on that painful subject.

Why should it matter if Mary love Johnny or Mary loves Jenny? You know what? IT DOESN'T. I greive for all loving couples who are directly effected by Prop 8. I will pray for healing and understanding and a new proposition and/or court action overturning Prop 8 in the very near future. Just as I don't want my children to live in a nation where racism is alive and well, I don't want my children to live in a nation where they are judged, and prohibited from legal rights, based upon who they love.