Fighting the good fight

Nothing like having the state Supreme Court affirm your rights as a second-class citizen to get the old blood pumping again, is there?  One thing can certainly be said about having been bitch-slapped again by the decision regarding Prop 8 which snatched away the right to marry from same-sex couples in California, is that it makes everything else seem so trivial.

So yesterday, I hobbled together a sign, jumped in a car with a couple of my buddies and we took the streets of West Hollywood and banded together with our similarly minded brethren and listened to a bevy of civil rights, gay activists, and celebrities to spread the word.

When it all comes down to it, it’s really not very complicated. The theoretical goes along the likes of:

I love him, he loves me, we are committed to each other and we want to get married. But we can’t. Why?

Well, I don’t need to state the obvious.  It all comes down to fairness, to equality, to the clear distinction between what’s right and what’s wrong, and drawing an even deeper line between the haves and the have-nots.

I want to fall in love, I want an English Setter, I want to live in a home and watch Conan with my beloved, and go shopping at Crate and Barrel for ramekins, and have my friends over for dinner and read comic books with my feet up on the deck and comfort my husband when he’s under the weather. What I want in life isn’t very different from what many people want, and what millions of people here in California currently possess. I don’t want your civil union. I don’t want your asterisk next to my name. I want what my parents and their parents had. I want to be respected, honored, loved, cherished, smiled at, appreciated, and hugged. In a word, I want to be married.

Anything less would be a tragedy.

Comments

Louis Gray
Posted on 27th May, 2009

I dig the Conan and English Setter references. Nice. This Labor Day, my wife and I will be headed down to LA to see my best friend of 16 years get married to his husband. And that’s what they’re going to call it, regardless of what California says. So we’ll be in your neck of the woods very much for this reason.

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