I haven't been updating here as much as I'd like to lately. To tell you the truth, the whole proposition 8 thing really disheartened me for a while. It made me angry that so many Americans would go so far out of their way just to hurt me and those like me. I like to think that I'm fair minded, and that I understand why some people disapprove of my sexual preference. But in reality, I don't. Not really. I mean, it doesn't bother me that they are heterosexual and even though I find that lifestyle distasteful, I wouldn't walk across the street to keep them from being able to be happy. I certainly wouldn't carry hateful posters, yell ugly remarks at them, and spend my hard earned money to make sure that they can't be together in same meaningful way that I could.
Maybe that's the problem for us. We aren't willing to attack their rights, as a means of asserting our own. Perhaps begging for table scraps off of their buffet isn't the answer. If equal protection under the law is the basis for our argument for equality, then maybe the strategy we need to employ is attacking those rights that they enjoy that we don't, instead of begging for them.
We can't marry and have the benefits of that union, then instead of this endless fight to marry why not just start demanding that the rights that they enjoy that we are denied be removed from the union of marriage? If you MUST be married to have survivor benefits of social security, then that benefit should no longer be given on the basis of marriage. If every American can't have it, then none should.
Perhaps by trying to take away those things that make marriage such a valuable and desirable institution, we can make them understand just how important marriage really is to every American. Not just to heterosexuals.
If they are going to use religion to continue this campaign of hate and prejudice, then I don't want to make spreading those views to another generation any easier for them. I don't want their religious views to be taught or respected in any venue or institution that my tax dollars support (especially since I have to pay more of those taxes than they do, as a "single" person). I've never voted to keep prayer out of schools, or to limit religious organizations tax free status' before. But my thinking on that issue is changing. The freedom to exercise one's faith is important, I believe that. But if your faith demands that you persecute and hurt others, then there must be limits.
I think I'm just getting tired of waiting. Tired of trying to be patient and hope that as time passes people will change. We keep pointing at the inequality that exists between us, and trying to change minds without being as brutal and hateful as those who oppose us. I doubt we ever could be. I don't think that my circle of gay friends even have it in them to mirror the mindset of the people who apparently hate and fear us more than anything else.
Christmas is right around the corner, and my partner of 7 years and I are still here. Still together. Still loving each other and trying to build a life and future together. I don't know what I'll get her this year, but I know what it won't be. It won't be that one thing that I've always wanted to give her, a wedding ring.
