America elects its first black president, Rotterdam its first Moroccan mayor, and now a small town in Oregon elects the nation's first openly transvestite mayor!
I don't know about you, but this fills me with wamr fuzzy feelings. The world is slowly turning into the one I want to live in.
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Hey Sahand
It's just so super. It gives me such a warm and amazing feeling.... but then.... you think.
Of all the people that voted for Barak in California who also voted away Californians' rights to gay marriage.
It's so important to recognize and celebrate the victories we have made, but also we shouldn't forget that the struggle's still on in earnest.
xxH
ps. hope you're well
Indeed, revoking the rights of marriage for the gay community in California is something to be concerned about. So now, after rejoicing it's time to campaign!
Still, the grassroots support for gay marriage that has bloomed because of the vote in California should give you hope.
With no central organization, people have been marching is support of the right of gays to marry. My own 14-year old niece went to Sacramento as part of a group of religious leaders protesting prop 8 (she's not a religious leader, but traveled with her Rabbi.) The good news is that this is no longer a gay issue, but has leaked out into the general society. My friends (who married in California last year) told me that they were moved by the many older hetero couples who joined them when they were protesting. One man, who had been married 40 years when his wife died last year, told them that he would never deny anyone the right that he had enjoyed.
I think many see this as an emotional issue w/o realizing that there are so many legal protections that come with marriage: the right to inherit, the right to visit a loved one in the hospital, the right to pay a higher rate of taxes (it's true!). Marriage is not for the good times, but for the desperate ones.
Indeed, revoking the rights of marriage for the gay community in California is something to be concerned about. So now, after rejoicing it's time to campaign!
This will not stand. The court will strike it down - in their ruling earlier this year, they not only overturned the ban on gay marriage, but they also proclaimed gays to be a "suspect class", which, counterintuitively, means that they are deserving of extra scrutiny in civil rights cases. This proposition has as much chance of surviving as one that bans catholics from driving on freeways or one that bans Asians from opening bank accounts.
Daikiki, thanks again for informing us!
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