Thankful for A Place to Call Home

Thanksgiving is a time of reflection for me. It’s a time that most Americans most likely look upon as a time to kill themselves cooking, eat way too much, then follow-up with the next few days with a combination of watching football and shopping. Most will never once stop to think of all the things that they have to be thankful for.

I know it sounds like a cliché from childhood where we are told in grade school that this is the “time to be thankful of all the things we have”, specifically, material things. When I was a child, the things I was thankful for was trying to get through Thanksgiving without there being some huge family fight originating from my step-father, or one of my siblings. I really had very little in the way of material things. I worked and scraped for everything I ever had. Yes, as a musician, I had to work two summer jobs and after school to be able to afford my violin - my very own violin, not a rental from school.

So to me, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks to the things you have, because they enrich your life. And to me, it is also a time to give thanks that those who hate us have not been able to gain as much headway in our legal system to marginalize us. I’m thankful that I live in a state that has some hope of affording Kent and me state-sanctioned legal protections through full marriage, and a public recognition through a marriage license that we are more than acquaintances, or “legal strangers” -- that we are a unit, a couple.

I’m thankful that I still have hope that a little less than half my country (23 states) still refuses to demean and diminish what we are in their state constitutions. To us, that means that there are still 23 states in this great free country of ours that we can travel to and visit, without feeling so much that we are giving our money to the devil, just by staying there and spending money. I’m sure the list of 23 states will get smaller over time. But for today, I am hopeful that some Americans do value us just as we are. I am hopeful that when people in those 23 states finally get around to destroying our equality (and they will), that they will see us a people, and as equals, unlike the other 27 states have viewed us.

We are going to Arizona in a few months. Arizona voted down their state amendment that would outlaw marriage equality for gays, and outlaw civil unions as well. It would have made it illegal for any state organization to extend any legal privileges or benefits to people like us. But let’s not think that Arizona is a beacon of light here. It would happily have joined the other states had it not been for the somewhat twisted way this amendment was defeated. It was defeated because advocates for marriage equality convinced 51% of Arizonans that this amendment would also kill the civil arrangements of unmarried heterosexual couples living together as well, if they didn’t enter into “marriage”. The amendment was worded in such a way that it didn’t directly target gay couples as the Colorado Amendment 2 did years ago (which was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, specifically because it targeted a single and specific group of people), but everyone knows that the intended target was gay couples. So, the anti-amendment campaign appealed to heterosexual people, telling them that they were about to lose their rights, unless they entered into civil marriage. Arizona already has a law on the books barring gay couples from marriage. We won, but not on the merits of equality.

So, we will go to Arizona because that is where our parents will be. We will spend our money there, but I will keep everything in perspective. I would never live there, along with the other 27 states that have told us loud and clear that if we move to their state, we will be drinking from the black water fountain and sitting in the back of the bus.

So the great migration has begun. People are moving to more hospitable states where their families can have some order of protection and the dignity of recognition.

Last month, of course, New Jersey’s Supreme Court paved the way for giving same-sex partners equal rights, giving lawmakers 180 days to rewrite marriage laws to either include same-sex couples or create a new system of civil unions for them.

This will be a big deal - not just for same-sex couples, but for New Jersey’s economy.

Why? Because, despite some rumblings in Albany, New York is likely to be years away from allowing same-sex marriage or civil unions. That will give Jersey a serious competitive advantage in attracting gay couples and the economic benefits associated with their calling a place home.

A forthcoming study by UCLA’s Williams Institute finds that revenue from weddings and wedding tourism alone (if the Jersey legislature approves marriage, not civil unions) would add nearly $103 million per year in business to the state for at least the next few years.

But the economic impact could go way beyond that. Our research on what makes cities and regions grow shows that urban economic vitality today turns on openness to new ideas, new people and different lifestyles. Artistic, technological and cultural innovators and the more than 40 million workers who are part of what we call “the creative class” are drawn to places that are diverse and tolerant. (source)

I’m thankful that I don’t have to deal with that, for now. And it would be nice if we could achieve equality on it’s merits, and not because it was the fiscally smart thing to do. People use the arguments that marriage equality will “attract the smartest and most creative people.” Is that true? Perhaps, to an extent. But that description also separates us. We are Americans, like everyone else, and we want what everyone else wants, to be treated no better or no worse than anyone else.

Finally, I’m thankful for what I have now. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was quiet and relaxed, and just the two of us. We usually go out to dinner, but this year, we decided to cook a full course dinner.

This included a turkey (pictured right), our homemade sausage/chestnut stuffing, sweet potato pumpkin rolls, butternut squash, complimented by my orange cranberry relish and home made turkey gravy. Accompanying this was a rather extraordinary great white burgundy wine, that we happen to have in our basement (pictured left). It was a Louis Latour, 1989 Corton-Charlemagne. There was not a sharp edge on this wine. It had a very buttery finish with a sophisticated after taste. It was simply quite wonderful and completely matched the wonderful food.

For desert, we had pumpkin pie upstairs in front of the TV. It was a nice day. I’ve noticed that when you don’t have a bunch of people coming to dinner, cooking all this food becomes fun and less of a race to a frantic finish line. Somehow, I think that’s what Thanksgiving ought to be.