We’re still waiting on Maine and Washington as I get ready for bed. Washington state will expand the rights of domestic partners, but it looks like Maine will reject their same sex marriage law.
I am sick to death of people being able to vote on my marriage, my citizenship, my humanity.
I want the right to bring every heterosexual couple to the steps of the courthouse in Maine and have the rest of us vote on whether they should or can be married.
This is bullshit. It’s embarassing as an American that we are so far behind most of Europe on civil rights. We used to take the lead – with suffrage, with child labor, with all sorts of shit. And now… it’s just embarassing.
I want freedom from their religion, their stupidity, & their prejudice.
I have been on both sides of this issues – having been a legally married heterosexual, and in some ways, still being that – and it makes me fucking sick that people who don’t know me get to decide if I get to be married, and whether my legal marriage will be recognized or not.
I’m just fucking fed up.
I’m tired of spending Election Days worrying about my friends, their spouses, their families, their kids.
When do we get to vote on whether heterosexual marriage is acceptable? When do we get to apply some arbitrary and hypocrital set of moral standards to everyone else’s relationships?
Very well said. Someone posted on facebook: “For those of us that can see the future, time cannot move fast enough.”
Helen – yep. But — a little candle guttering in the dark — Referendum 71 (a.k.a. “everything but marriage”) passed in Washington (the state, not the little Washington out east). It was closer than we all would hope, but it passed. I think it’s probably about as high a level of equal rights as have been granted by popular vote anywhere in the country.
dear helen: I sent the following note to my students in Colby’s GLBT organization, which is called The Bridge:
Dear Colby Bridge members:
To quote Harvey Milk, “I know you’re angry. I’m angry!”
I awoke this morning to learn of the victory of Question One, and like you, the results are discouraging and disheartening, to anyone who believes in civil rights, in justice, in equality, and in love.
It’d be natural for many of us to want to bury our heads in our pillows this morning (as I did, briefly), to begin a time of turning away, of disengaging from the community, from Maine, from our country.
But I want, if I may, to take just a moment to encourage you all to stay in the game, and to have hope. You all did remarkable things this fall; I was so moved to hear such eloquence from so many of you, so moved to see people fighting for families like mine.
I hope you will all respond to this defeat with dignity, with forgiveness, and, after a time, with renewed determination and moxie to keep changing the world.
My older son, aged 15, who was part of a No On 1 contingent at his high school, took the news very hard this morning. To him I quoted Ted Kennedy at the 1980 Democratic convention: “The work goes on, the dream will never die.” I did this in my best Ted Kennedy voice.
Zach responded, without a pause, in his JFK imitation: “We choose to go to the moon! And do the other things! Not because they are easy, but because they are hard!” (pronounced “hahd.”)
I don’t know if we will go to the moon, you lovely, dear Bridge members, and allies– you and I. But I do know that we will continue to do the work, and continue to keep the dream alive.
Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart–and from the heart of my family. We love you.
with thanks, and with warm best wishes,
Jenny Boylan