rivka | Entries tagged with marriage equality

It's bedtime. I tuck Alex in and reach for last night's bed companions: a stuffed mermaid and a doll named Everest.

"I don't want to sleep with them," Alex says. "They don't think a girl can get married to a girl. They think a girl can only marry a boy and a boy can only marry a girl." She picks up a tiny stuffed loon. "But Ducky believes that civil marriage is a civil right, so I'm letting him sleep here to honor him."

"...Okay," I said. "But I hope that Mermaid and Everest change their minds."

"They change their minds every day."

"Good."

...Tell me again where we draw the line between raising children with a strong sense of justice, and pushing our political opinions on our kids.

Alex knows our position on marriage equality. We have a sign in our window that says Civil Marriage is a Civil Right, and after she asked us to explain the sign a couple of times she started to be able to explain it on her own.

"Some people think that boys should only marry girls and girls should only marry boys. But we don't believe that, right, Mom?"

Sometimes she will add a bit of her own, suggesting that maybe people who think that boys should only marry girls will come past our house, see our sign, and change their minds. I like her optimism.

A month or two ago, she asked me, "How come Zoe's mother and father have the same last name?" I explained, thinking how cool it was that, to Alex, that isn't the default.

But it turns out that when you're four years old it's hard to really get a grasp on the concept of marriage. Today, in the car coming home from the grocery store, Alex's little voice piped up:

"Some people think that you can only get married if you have the same last name. But we don't believe that, right, Mom?"

I just cried and cried when I watched this video

joedecker posted. Tears streaming down my face.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

At least some of the strength of my emotional reaction may be hormonal, I guess. But I see the love and joy and bliss on these couples' faces in their wedding pictures and know that they are truly married in every way that matters. There is no difference between their marriage and mine... except that there are people out there who want to rip their families apart and destroy their lives in service to some imaginary ideal.

This. Is. Wrong.

I love this anti-prop-8 ad narrated by Samuel L. Jackson:

And in case there was any doubt: Post this on your blog if you're in an opposite-sex marriage and you don't want it to be "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage cheapens or hurts it somehow.

Yes, of course. Unquestionably. Absolutely.

We have lesbian friends who are expecting a baby six weeks before we're expecting the Niblet. There is no difference between their family and ours. Their son ought to have the exact same right to be born into a stable, legally protected, societally-recognized marriage that our son will have. And the same obviously goes for our GLBT friends who don't have kids, as well. Love is love. Marriage is marriage. Families are families. Sexual orientation should have nothing to do with it.

Yesterday, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that gays and lesbians have no right to marry. Their justification: gays are too successful and powerful to need protection from the courts.

No, really. ( quotes from the ruling under the cut ) The ruling also made some kind of twisted argument that the existence of permanently childless heterosexual relationships and gay and lesbian families with children didn't have any bearing on the state's assertion that marriage is for procreation. Straight couples apparently need the right to marry because they might procreate accidentally. (No, really! That was in the ruling. What a fucking joke.)

Last Sunday, our ministers let us know that the ruling was expected any moment and that, whatever happened, we would be rallying on the steps of the church. So last night we made our way down there - not to celebrate as we'd hoped, but to mourn, comfort each other, and strengthen our resolve.

Maybe 60 people showed up - a mix of church and community. The one that hit me hardest was a forlorn little boy holding a sign that said, "But WHY can't my moms get married?" I was proud to recognize every member of our staff, to see our full Board of Trustees (including Michael) standing on the portico, and to have our ministers, John and Phyllis, be the opening speakers. John encouraged us with a quote from eminent early Unitarian Theodore Parker: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Phyllis said that, as the ruling approached, she and John received multiple calls from couples who wanted to start planning their marriages... and that the most heartbreaking thing she had to do yesterday was call them all back. In the middle of her speech a car slowed down and someone shouted out the window, "Heeeelll, no! Heeeelll, no!" Without missing a beat, she shouted back, "Hell, YES!"

We heard from some of the plaintiffs in the case, from an adult daughter of two gay dads, from a PFLAG mother, from the ACLU and the Equality Maryland lawyers and from a straight married member of the Maryland House of Delegates who wanted to be the first legislator to go on record as supporting a legislative solution. An older African-American woman who described herself as "the wife of a Baptist preacher" led us in a stirring chorus of "We Shall Not Be Moved." The rally closed with a fiery sermon from the minister of the Presbyterian Church which houses Alex's nursery school (I didn't know that Presbyterians did fiery), in which he reminded us that we hadn't come to bury the movement but to resurrect it.

It was a great rally, but in such a bitter cause. I'm so deeply disappointed. Come January, I expect I'll be spending a fair amount of time fighting with the forces in Annapolis.

I realize, at this point, that I am not going to make any headway in this discussion. But it's been useful to me to articulate my positions on these issues, so I'm continuing to hold onto my comments here.

Other person: If what we truly want is civil recognition of gay marraige for the purposes of property, beneficiary, taxes, power of attorney, etc. then why isn't Civil Union enough of a legal option? To many it is, but to some it isn't. Why? Civil ceremonies are what many straight couples choose with no religious attachment.

Me: Are you really under the misapprehension that "civil union" laws produce the same status as a civil marriage ceremony - all the legal and civil benefits of marriage, only just without the religious bits?

In the first place, that betrays a stunning ignorance about the position you are arguing. (And yes, yes, I know, this is all about rhetoric and you haven't stated your position about anything, at all, ever.) Civil unions, where they are legal, represent a separate and unequal legal status which does NOT carry the more than 1000 civil and legal benefits of marriage. The only thing they have in common with the "civil ceremony" that heterosexual couples use is the word "civil."

In the second place, you're continuing to completely ignore the question of religions which permit, and even embrace, same-sex marriage. Why should a gay couple who belongs to, say, the United Church of Christ content themselves with a legal status that has "no religious attachment," if their minister and their denomination would be delighted to perform their religious union?

The religious freedom issue is significant. For example: what would be wrong with a federal law that prohibited the ordination of women? Many religions, including Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention, and most conservative evangelical denominations, believe that ordination is a sacred status that pertains only to men.

Why shouldn't their religious convictions be respected by enshrining that status in federal law? Denominations which do ordain women could use a secondary status, maybe called a "lay worship leader." Those women could still do all the same parts of their job, but it would be clear that ordination is something sacred and different that women cannot be part of, and historically have never been part of. After all, liberals like the Episcopalians, United Methodists, Presbyterians, American Baptists, and so on can't expect to get to shove their modern, inclusive definition of who gets to receive a sacrament down everyone else's throat.

...If that seems like an obvious example of the federal government infringing on some people's religious rights in order to enforce other people's religious rights - and I hope that it does - you are left with the need to explain why some religious denominations' opposition to gay marriage trumps other denominations' support.

I wanted to hold onto an exchange I'm participating in, in someone else's journal. (I will let that person decide whether to provide a link, because they might not want an influx of my friends piling on.)

( reposted gay marriage discussion )

I just found out that one of the local TV news programs ran a story about our church's marriage equality banner dedication. (Video at the link, and also a text summary.) What's especially interesting to me is that they apparently felt no need to provide "balance" by interviewing someone who opposes our position.

Yesterday after work we went to the state capitol in Annapolis to lobby for GLBT rights with Equality Maryland. The two major issues on their agenda are marriage equality (particularly, defeating a proposed "Defense of Marriage" constitutional amendment) and adding transgendered people to the state anti-discrimination law. The crowd mostly seemed focused on the marriage issue, perhaps because Maryland has a right-to-marry lawsuit that has made it through the first round of the courts and gotten everyone fired up.

( more, including more pictures, below the cut )

...in part because I just came across this announcement on our webpage:

Mark your calendars for this landmark event!
Sunday Feb. 11th, join Interweave, the choir, and our ministers before worship, when we will unfurl a Marriage Equality banner on the front of our very visible church. In honor of Founder’s Day, we will continue our founders’ rich legacy of social justice in Baltimore by this act of prophetic witness. Dress warmly and be prepared to sing and dedicate your commitment to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community of First Unitarian Church of Baltimore.

Media will be present.

I've seen the banner design - it says "First Unitarian Church of Baltimore: Civil Marriage is a Civil Right." It's very nice... and very bold. And when they say our church is "very visible," they're not joking. (Among other things? We're less than a block away from the big Catholic Basilica.)

All three of us will be there. If any other locals want to meet up beforehand, I'll spring for the coffee.

A few weeks back, the Baltimore Sun published a long profile of a member of my church. I missed it when it first came out, but of course it was plastered all over the bulletin board in the Parish Hall, so I got to read it yesterday. It's inspiring.

On his first trip as a civil rights activist, Charles Blackburn already knew the rules: Disconnect the lights in your car so you're not an easy target for snipers. Drive down the center of the road to make it harder to be run off the side. Stick to the black neighborhoods whenever possible.

A white Unitarian minister, he was headed from his home in Huntsville, Ala., to McComb, Miss., where a string of bombings had devastated black homes and churches. It was October 1964. Nine white men arrested in the bombings had just been released.

"I knew what the violence was and that these people were out on the street," Blackburn says. But he made the lonely trip all the same, arriving at a bus station where he was met with a sea of white faces. "I knew what was in my heart, and I knew what I believed. And if they had known this, my life would have been worth very little to them."

He carried another secret in that bus station, and in his years fighting for civil rights in the South: He was gay. It was a secret he would keep for 10 more years, until 1974, when he separated from his wife and moved to Baltimore.

Now, four decades after risking his life in a civil rights struggle for others, Blackburn, 73, says it is time to fight for himself. Along with his partner of 28 years, Glen Dehn, he is a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to expand marriage to gay and lesbian couples in Maryland. Blackburn is a bridge between the two movements, a man with a creased face and thinning hair who knows what it means to stand up, and why it is essential.

I knew that Charles had been involved in the Civil Rights movement as a young minister in Huntsville, Alabama, but I didn't know how extensive his involvement was: jailed, threatened, church windows shot out. I know him as an elderly man who sings in the choir, makes stained glass, and keeps up an exquisite showpiece of a Victorian home. And of course, I know him as a genteel, dignified gay marriage activist. Our whole church is behind him.

Read the whole profile. You'll need bugmenot to get past the first page, but it's worth it. Really.

There's a new family at our church - two women and their sons, ages 8 and 18 months. They moved to Maryland because it allows second-parent adoptions for GLBT couples, and because the laws in general are dramatically more queer-friendly than they are in Virginia.

This week they went to court to complete their adoptions. The 8-year-old's nonbiological mother told me how it went:

"I was there thinking of it as a joyous occasion, and my son was furious. He was really, really angry. He told me, 'Mom, you're my Mom! We don't have to go to court.' He crawled under the bench and didn't want to have anything to do with it. And I thought, '...you know, he's right.' I let the judge know what he said, and she told him he was a very smart boy."

It's funny how sometimes kids, lacking the background information that adults have, can put their finger right on the heart of an issue. My first impulse, hearing that they'd completed the adoptions, was to give them my happy congratulations. But their little boy is right: there's nothing to celebrate about it taking eight years and a legal action for his government to recognize who his mothers are.

On Monday,

curiousangel and I celebrated Valentine's Day by going to Annapolis for an Equality Maryland lobby day and rally in support of GLBT rights. It didn't work out quite the way we planned, but we had a good time anyway.

The schedule called for a 45-minute assembly and briefing followed by a 1-hour rally, after which we would split up into legislative districts and lobby our state senators and delegates. There's a "Defense of Marriage" bill that's introduced every year (and doesn't have much hope of passing), but there are also some bills before the legislature that could make a positive difference - such as the Medical Decision Making Act, a fairly well-thought-out bill which confers hospital visitation rights and medical decisionmaking powers on couples who register with the state as partners. Equality Maryland made appointments with legislators and provided bill summaries, voting records, and other supporting materials on their website. It was a well-planned action...

...until we arrived in Annapolis and saw, driving towards the center of town, that one of the traffic lights was out. We thought nothing of it until the next traffic light was out as well. Downtown Annapolis had no power. Including the hotel where we gathered for the briefing - although it did have an atrium, at least, so there was daylight in the main hall. (But not the bathrooms, each of which was eerily lit by a flashlight balanced on end.) There was no PA system. We spent most of the briefing hour milling around aimlessly, looking for members of our church and periodically asking if anyone else could hear the speaker. (No.)

We marched several blocks to the statehouse with about a dozen people from our church, behind a banner that said "Equal Rights in the Free State" and had the Unitarian-Universalists for Social Justice logo. It had been raining all day, but the rain slacked off to nothing as we left the hotel and held off until we were in the car again at the end of the day - a clear sign that God supports gay rights. But it was cold, and I was wearing nice clothes - a dress, in fact - in preparation for lobbying my legislators. Yes, this is foreshadowing.

The rally was great. Somehow they'd managed to get generators in on short notice, so the rally speakers were amplified. Alan Keyes' daughter, Maya Marcel-Keyes, gave a great speech about how the amount of support that poured in when her father kicked her out for being a lesbian wasn't at all the typical fate of gay teenagers rejected by their parents. She told a moving story about a friend from a similarly conservative family who wound up living on the streets, and recently died. A 14-year-old boy with lesbian parents talked about his family life and why he wanted his moms to be able to marry. Matthew Shepherd's mother spoke about the need for hate crimes legislation. We hung out in the cold and the mud, clapping and cheering, and

curiousangel took turns helping to hold up the church banner using umbrellas as improvised poles. (We weren't allowed to have signs on sticks.) I was grateful that he had brought a lawn chair for me to sit in, because just the walk from the hotel to the statehouse wore me out.

As the rally drew to a close, we got bad news: the power still wasn't on in the legislative office buildings, and the fire marshal wasn't willing to let us into the building as long as only had emergency lights. Some people's legislators apparently did come out to meet briefly with their constituents in the square, but all the scheduled meetings were cancelled. We were disappointed. Our delegates had voted the Equality Maryland party line on all relevant bills, so we just would've gone by to say "thank you," but I still think that's an important thing to do.

So instead we headed back to the hotel, which now had power. We spent a few minutes at the reception - damn, you'd think that the Log Cabin Republicans could afford to provide better food - and then, once we'd warmed up enough to be able to feel our toes again, we went home. We were so worn out from the cold, and from several long walks in the wind, that

curiousangel fell asleep in our Chinese restaurant while we were waiting for takeout. But I'm glad we went. And I saved a sticker from the rally - I DO in Maryland - for the Li'l Critter's baby book. Her first political action.

I really want to do this action for GLBT civil rights:

If you do one thing in 2005 to stand up for equal rights, please make a date with the state! Join Equality Maryland on Monday, February 14, 2005 for our annual Lobby Day in Annapolis to fight these bills, work towards equal rights, and rally for justice.

Once you sign up, we’ll schedule your meeting with your elected officials, pair you with other constituents in your district to accompany you on your visits, and provide you with legislators’ voting records, talking points, and other important information before the date. We will also conduct a training on the lobbying process and the issues on the actual Lobby Day.

Our church is organizing to send a large contingent under the Unitarian-Universalists for Social Justice banner.

curiousangel has already signed up. I'm waiting to hear back from the Equality Maryland people about whether there will be any seating at the rally for people with disabilities. (The organizer for our church didn't know, but I'm hopeful - in my experience, GLBT groups are generally pretty good with accessibility.) There's just no way that I could stand for two hours or more.

Organizers of an anti-gay marriage rally and lobby day scheduled for last Thursday bragged that they expected more than 100,000 people. (Actual turnout, only 1,000 - but they're still calling it a major victory, heh.) I think numbers do make a difference, and if our side can muster more than a thousand (which I'm sure we can), it will really help the cause. I want to be part of that.