Crazy Times
Crazy day today. For the most part, life is good. Just a few thoughts....
I got this today from Love Makes A Family about the Maryland ruling for gay marriage...
Dear Bill,
We have just learned that the Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled in the case of Conaway v. Deane and Polyak that same-sex couples do not have the right to marry under the Maryland state constitution. Read more about the decision at http://www.equalitymaryland.org/.
This is an extremely disappointing ruling for our colleagues at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Equality Maryland who have worked tirelessly on this case for the last three years. More significantly, however, it harms the tens of thousands of committed same-sex couples and their children in Maryland who have been told today that their families are not worth protecting and respecting.
Although Maryland’s high court has failed to end this discrimination against same-sex couples and their families, the fight isn’t over. Equality Maryland immediately urged their state legislature to do the right thing and pass a bill extending marriage to same-sex couples.
Here in Connecticut, we also expect a ruling soon from our state’s highest court in our marriage lawsuit, Kerrigan & Mock v. CT Department of Public Health.
God, I can’t even afford to emotionally get into this issue of gay marriage anymore. It just takes too much out of me. It’s like it drains the good and positive out of my life and it all becomes negative. I have to at least think in my mind that Kent and I have a marriage just as real as those who were married by the State. I know it’s not true, but it’s the only way I can deal with it. Does that make me a weak person?
Sometimes I think that people just have to try to deal with life’s issues the best way they can. That’s what I try to do... look at the life we have built together, and look at all the good things in our lives. And hopefully by the time one of us is ready to croak, we will be able to have the legal and financial protections that heterosexual married people have, so that whichever one of us survives, the other won’t have to deal with all the legal problems of not having the option of being seen as a “spouse”. ARGH!!!! See... more negativity. But if we don’t care about issues, who will? And what will make things get better?
On my way to work this morning, I listened to the audio recording of the student who was tasered this morning. I later watched the incident. Basically, the student was trying to ask John Kerry a few questions, which Kerry wouldn’t answer. Then they tried to escort him out. He said he didn’t resist, but I can see that he was resisting. Then, they tasered him. That’s disturbing enough to me. But what is more disturbing is the fact that if you say the wrong thing, or if someone doesn’t like what you are saying, that is grounds to be tasered by the police?
This headline says it all: Student Asks Kerry Tough Question, Kerry Watches Him Get Tasered; Free Speech Nowhere to be Seen.
And here’s the video.
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I agree with you about the student. I don't think he's as innocent as people are trying to make him out to be. He was trying to get attention. I do understand that. I think they shouldn't have tasered him either. I mean, there were four officers on top of him. He said he would leave. He was subdued. There was no reason to use further force.
The bigger issue for me is one of free speech. Trouble maker or not, he was taken down only after the substance of his questions were revealed (which Kerry didn't want to answer), and not when he skipped ahead in line. To me, that makes this an issue of the suppression of free speech. When we get to a point that anyone can be shut up for what they are saying, we go down a very dangerous path.
I'm with you on gay marriage. People don't realize that there is a LOT that they get from a marriage. They never think about it. If one of them dies, they just have all these rights and privileges, just BECAUSE they are married. Some of those rights simply cannot be drafted into a legal document. And while they love to say they are "protecting the sanctity of marriage"... if they really want to protect it, draft a constitutional amendment making divorce illegal! There's just such hypocrisy in this whole issue.
But, I've come to the same conclusion as you, sadly. I've basically given up this fight because I don't think I'll ever see myself getting married. That doesn't ruin what I have with Kent. It doesn't ruin my home life in any way. Life goes on, and I'm enjoying it to the best of my ability (which is a lot).
But, the very nature of our relationship does have a cloud over it covered with legal issues. And that I can't wish away. That is something that, aside from all the legal documents we have drafted, we will have to simply deal with the best we can when the time comes.
Bill,
Re: the tasered guy. I don't agree with the way they 'manhandled' him, but I did hear in one newscast that he had jumped ahead of a few people who also were asking questions and then he refused to get back in line. If it's true, that puts a different slant on things - but zapping him was plain wrong. Especially when Kerry was saying, "I'll answer his question." So this guy may not be as innocent as most news portrays him to be.
And re: gay marriage. I refuse to get caught up in all the anguish that the Repubs wrought on us in the first Scooter B election by making the election about gay marriage and not about the candidates qualifications (or lack thereof). I don't need a marriage license to validate my relationship. Having legal protections would be wonderful, but I can't spend my limited amount of energy playing with what has become a political football. Until we get full equality, I'll just keep on living an out and proud life, letting the world see a committed lesbian relationship, and hoping that they see through all the bull**** and hatred that have been foisted upon us (and the US) by the politicians. Karl Rove be damned...
Off my soapbox.
Ant Annie in Pittsburgh