Looking forward
Aside from my home state of Idaho approving a state constitutional amendment against gay couples being able to obtain marriage, my week has been ok. Not the best week, but I decided last night that I’m not going to dwell on it anymore. The amendment will go before the Idaho voters in November. What will happen, will happen. I’m moving on.
And part of doing that is to think about the future. We may not have marriage, but hopefully we have protections in place that will hold up to challenges. Kent and I talked about this last night after we went to bed. You know, one of those conversations that you have after the lights go out and it’s so very quiet. I reminded Kent about the story of the couple in Oklahoma who had been together for 25 years. They had a farm together. In their years together, they raised four children, and 50 head of cattle. It was a dairy farm.
Then one day, one of them passed away. That was the beginning of their nightmare. They each had a will, leaving the surviving partner everything. But when a distant cousin challenged the will, the court invalidated the will, and the surviving partner lost everything.
That is what scares me because I’ve been told that there are members of my family who have a desire to do this. I won’t name names. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is my fear of lack of protection. So, the conversation that Kent and I had last night was just that - how safe are we, given that we are unable to obtain marriage, and that we do each have wills leaving each other everything we have.
He said that the will was overturned because it happened in Oklahoma, a very conservative state. His opinion is that this would never happen in liberal Connecticut. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m basically in a position of trusting a judge that I don’t even know, and who doesn’t know me. Our wills are very clear, but will they be honored? Whoever challenges the will would have to come to Connecticut to make such a challenge.
I don’t know if I am over worrying or not. I suppose it’s a mute point. If it becomes a problem for Kent, I will be dead. I don’t believe I would have the same problem with anyone from Kent’s side of the family. I hate the fact that I even have to spend time worrying about this. But, I’ve heard so many horrible things that have happened to people. I was even worried while being in the hospital. I was worried that if anything happened, would Kent be able to make decisions for me. As it turned out, the nurse in charge was very open minded to our relationship, but she could just as easily have been homophobic and made it difficult for us.
Anyway, this is all old news. It’s what we talked about last night. But I’m tired of worrying about things that I have no control over. I can’t control that we can’t have the protections of marriage. I can’t control if some judge will completely disregard our wishes. I can’t control some homophobic hospital administrator denying us visitation rights. God, you can spend all your time worrying about this. I don’t want to do that anymore.
So today, we went to the bookstore and bought the Barron’s Mastering French course. It’s the same course used to train diplomatic personnel of the U.S. Government. We are going to France, and I’m using this opportunity to learn French. I want to eventually become fluent in the language. I have a feeling that we will be traveling to Montreal and Quebec more on our vacations in the future.
After that, I also want to learn Spanish. I took Spanish in high school. I can understand it somewhat. But with more Spanish speaking people in the U.S. today, I thought that it would be a good thing to learn. It will undoubtedly be easier for me to grasp than French. Some of the French sounds are peculiar for me to pronounce, but I’ll get there.
Tonight we are going to Azul in West Hartford. I went a few weeks ago and had a good time. The food is fabulous (so are the martinis)!
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"I read articles everyday on 365gay.com about all of the initiatives that are underway in the states to block gay rights and I can't help but wonder what the difference is between the Taliban and your christian extremists." - James
James, the answer is... there is no difference.
They love to say that we have an agenda we are trying to push - they call it the gay agenda. I'm still trying to figure out what is in this "gay agenda" they keep talking about.
To me, they (religious fundamentalists) are the ones with the agenda. Take this as an example:
"Now that we've defined what marriage is, we need to take that further and say children deserve to be in that relationship," says Greg Quinlan of Ohio's Pro-Family Network, a conservative Christian group. (source)
They are trying now to ban gay couples from adopting children. I guess that will be our next battle. I keep thinking that eventually the more fair-minded people of this country will stand up and finally say, "Leave the gays alone already!", but I'm still waiting.
Maybe it will change if we get a decent President in office that is a true uniter who will represent ALL the people of the United States. As long as he keeps giving his ear to these right-wing Christian groups, nothing is going to get better.
It's good that I'm learning French and Spanish. You never know when we may some day decide to leave the United States. I guess that would make us "refugees". We used to be so great because we could talk our way through things. Now, this country is less than it used to be. It's very sad.
Hi,
I just wanted to say that I really feel for you guys in the U.S.
I live in Montreal with my partner of 6 years and we have the right to marry. Even if we chose not to marry, we are legally commom law partners after 12 months of co-habitation. No family can interfere in our domestic situation in the case of death, even if we have no will.
I read articles everyday on 365gay.com about all of the initiatives that are underway in the states to block gay rights and I can't help but wonder what the difference is between the Taliban and your christian extemists.
I wish you all the best of luck in your struggles
You may want to check out Rosetta Stone software:
http://www2.rosettastone.com/en
I'm using it to learn German at the moment.
I may have written in the past about my horrible experience when my partner died from injuries he suffered in a car accident in 1989.
He was out of town at the time and the police contacted his parents. They rushed to the hospital where he died later that evening.
No one even called me until the next day -- almost noon! I could have been there to hold his hand when he died. But, the family didn't want me there.
I was permitted to attend the funeral, but not the burial. None of our friends were included in the services. We had to have our own separate memorial in a public park.
A few days after the funeral, my late partner's parents showed up at my front door with the sheriff. I was forced to allow them into our home to take everything they claimed belonged to their son. They took all of his clothes, our music collection, pieces of furniture we'd purchased together, and all of his artwork (he was a talented artist). The artwork is the biggest loss. Some of the pieces were intimate charcoal drawings of me -- they couldn't even let me have those. They also took the car I bought for him (even though the title was in both our names).
They actually forged my name on the title and sold the car. The police refused to charge them with theft and told me to handle it in Civil Court.
So, I sued them. The judge scolded me for bringing a grief-stricken mother to court and tossed out my suit.
The worst was yet to come. The family didn't like that I was placing flowers on the grave. So, they had the body moved and instructed the cemetary not to tell me where they'd moved him.
I had to bribe a groundskeeper to show me where he was. I couldn't visit the grave until just a few years ago -- after both parents had died. I have to admit that I did a little dance on their graves. I still can't believe that I didn't buy a gun ans shoot them all. No one has ever hurt me that much.
That experience is probably why I am so reluctant to enter into a monogamous relationship. I just couldn't live through something like that again.
Hi Bill,
Glad you are OK. You seem to be making possible plans for your futures, so all I can say is 'good luck', or in the vernacular where you might be headed 'bon courage et bonne chance'! :)
I'm currently learning Spanish, although I speak French pretty fluently. However, I've decided to by a holiday home in Spain, rather than France, because the winter temperatures there are not to my liking, whereas the part of Spain my house will be in is rather warmer. Obviously that is not a major consideration for the two of you, both from where you live now and where you might be headed.
The resource I use for learning Spanish is a CD course by a man called Michel Thomas - there are 8 CDs in the main course, 4 in the advanced course and a further 2 CDs for additional vocab. He is (was - I think he died a while back) of Polish/French origin and was a Holocaust survivor; he moved to California after WWII where he developed his language teaching methods, which are quite remarkable and effective - the reviews say so, and I agree. He is a Professor of Psychology in addition to being a language teacher and that is highly relevant to his methods.
Anyway, why all this story? Well, he also does a course in French (and German and Italian). You can check it out if you like on Amazon - that's where I got part of the course here. The full retail price in our local bookstore (Borders) for the course is probably around 130 pounds (maybe 200 or so dollars), but it is much cheaper on Amazon, maybe around 90 or 100 pounds in all.
Prior to learning Spanish the last time I tried seriously to learn a language was in my mid-30s when I was studying Arabic, but that was a pretty intensive university course, used by our Foreign Office for diplomats and the company I worked for. However, the others on my course, mainly from the Foreign Office, were mostly younger than me so picked up vocab. rather more easily, although I managed. However, when you get older (as we both are, sadly) the ability to absorb new vocabulary readily drops off - that's where I find Michel Thomas's methods so good - it is insidious, you find yourself just 'knowing' things.
Anyway, after that sales pitch (and I'm not on a retainer ;) ) I wish you luck.