in which i have feelings about prop 8

As I'm sure you know by now, Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop 8 yesterday afternoon. Proposition 8 was passed by voters in 2008 and effectively repealed same-sex marriage in California.

Obviously, it was a big deal to repeal same-sex marriage in one of the most stereotypically liberal places in the country. There were protests, there were rallies, there were viral video campaigns, there were celebrity speak-outs. Barack Obama had just been elected president around the same time. We - anyone who could be construed as even kind of liberal - were all certain that The World Was Going To Change For The Better. It was going to be great! "Yes we can," we had said. We did!

I remember November 5, 2008. We were all high off the announcement of President-Elect Barack Obama; we were full of joy and hope. We were proud to be Americans, Americans who had just elected our first African-American president, we were going to be Liberal Progressives and we had silenced McCain and Palin. I mostly remember being glad that the election was over so I wouldn't have to hear anything about it anymore; nobody would be chasing me across the street begging me to vote!

The next day, I remember hearing that Prop 8 had passed. I remember being kind of hurt and but still riding high from the night before. It's going to be okay, I thought. It won't be nearly as bad as the past eight years. We have Obama, not Bush. It's going to be okay. (I also remember not wanting to put all my trust for a country in one person; I remember not entirely liking Obama's LGBT policies and plans and I remember being distrustful of political promises. I knew that I was being stupid and naive, so easily deluded by our Liberal Progressiveness! But I wanted to believe, oh how I wanted to believe.)

I put Prop 8 out of my mind. California's far away, I thought. Things can change still. Other states will pass civil unions. There are 49 other states. It's scary to know that same-sex marriages can and will be repealed, but at least they had them, right? New Hampshire had just begun to talk about it. It was an exciting time. My home state of Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage, and I was hoping to see the same live-free-or-die philosophy honored in my adopted home state. New Hampshire's civil union ruling went into effect on January 1 of this year. It is exciting to be young and queer in the midst of this political process.

I kept pushing Prop 8 out of my head as more states started to institute civil unions. It's a frustratingly slow process; it doesn't always feel like you are moving forward. Sometimes it feels like you are moving backwards.

On the road to LGBTQ+ equality, every state that starts to think about civil unions is a baby step. Every state that passed civil unions and/or same-sex marriage is another baby step. I have friends who are not in support of marriage, calling it a heterosexist institution. But before you can overthrow an institution you need to have it securely in place. Baby steps. Gay marriage with full civil liberties will eventually become Non-Modifier Marriage. We need marriage before we can overthrow marriage.

Straight folks can get married and divorced and married and divorced; something like 50% of marriages end in divorce. Maybe you are the one ruining the institution of marriage. How does that feel? Not so good, right?

Here's the thing about being gay: you are repeatedly told that your identity is inherently wrong. Being gay is the scariest fucking thing, every single day.

This past fall, Maine was voting on legalizing civil unions. In October, I went to a concert in Portland and saw many God Hates Fags signs while I was there. Maine, twenty minutes away from me at UNH, didn't feel like a very safe place anymore.

Maine's civil unions bill didn't pass. I read the news that morning, heartbroken, and cried for a while. How could this happen? How could this happen so close to me? And then I remembered Prop 8. I remembered how many lives these rulings touch and affect. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about it.

Knowing that California has reversed their ruling makes me so, so happy because it is a huge step towards equality. Of course there are going to be appeals, and of course it's going to keep going on and on in circles for a while. But yesterday was a huge, huge victory for so many people. And not just in California - this struggle for equality is worldwide.

I can't wait to tell my kids about it one day.

sticking it to the man

You have probably figured out by now, dear reader, that i like social justice; I'm very passionate about it. I have probably gone on a few too many Angry Feminist Rants already on here. But, if you don't want to hear about it, that's fine ... have fun being ignorant.

So you can imagine my surprise when the US Census Bureau announced that for the 2010 Census, they were not counting LGBT(Q)* identities. This is supposed to be a portrait of Identities of People who Live in the United States. And so, as their ads say, we can't figure out how many classrooms the United States needs unless we know how many schoolchildren are there. But, we also can't see how many people are affected by not recognizing LGBT(Q) identities in socio-political discourse. (Yeah, I said socio-political discourse on my blog.)

Which brings me to the Queer The Census movement. The Queer The Census movement - a product of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force - is mass-producing free stickers for everyone who wants one to identify themselves to the Census Bureau to show them a population of people who are not-straight, and want their identity to count.** (Conveniently, almost a full month into the Census, the Census bureau announced if you were an LGBTQ in a long-term, committed partnership and wanted to list yourself as "married" rather than "single", it is okay to list your partner as your husband or wife. Way to devalidate any long-term same-sex partnerships for anyone who submitted their census form in the first month.)

If you have your census form sitting in front of you and you don't have a sticker, you can download a PDF from their website and use packing tape to put it on your form. You have the option of checking off lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or a straight ally - an identity that almost everyone can categorize themselves under, even if it's a little limiting or broad. Below are pictures of me Queering the Census. Please do this - it's really important.






* I'm notating (Q) as such because Queer and Questioning are sometimes a little too broad in categorization. This is not a bad thing, but if we can get everyone to identify predominantly on an identity which is easily quantifiable by the whole country? That would be so wonderful.

** In a similar act of ignorance, Hispanic/Latino/Latina identities are equally as ignored in the category of "Race".

My non-denominational public university is closed for Easter.

Easter is one of those holidays I really just don't get. Your leading prophet died... which is somehow a positive thing (Good Friday) and then 48 hours later he rises again (Easter), which somehow actually means bunnies, jelly beans and chocolate. Right.

At least my holiday (Passover) makes moderate sense: A bunch of plagues happen because a large group of people are being oppressed; and in order to be spared from the final plague (death of the first-born), Jewish families had to mark their doors so they would be passed over (PASSOVER). From there, the Jewish families escape their oppressor by fleeing the country. This seems like a much more reasonable holiday. All of the traditions at least fit the [percieved] historic background.

But I digress. Apparently my non-denominational public university is "closed" for Easter weekend. This means it operates much like a curtailed-operations day; only "Essential Employees" are here. Granted, there aren't a lot of people here - unless you don't celebrate Easter or live too far away to go home for the weekend, not a lot really needs to be going on. But why couldn't you have TOLD us, UNH? We could have planned ahead. I was surprised to find myself kicked out of the library until 4 PM tomorrow without any warning. I wasn't the only one there, either! There is work to be done; where are we supposed to go? What if I needed something there tomorrow?

If I was an angrier person I would probably call the university out on being oppressive to those of us still here and/or not celebrators of Easter. But I am not that angry of a person, and I suppose it IS unfair to anyone (read: nearly everyone) who celebrates Easter to make them work. But, really! What would happen if I were to celebrate every Jewish holiday? "No, I can't go anywhere tonight or tomorow; it's Shabbat and I don't do anything which could quantify as 'work' until Sunday morning." "I can't. It's Yom Ha'atzmaut. I'm celebrating Jewish independence. I have to go light twelve torches." This wouldn't fly! I barely get any sort of university recognition on Hannukkah; I'm amazed every year when the dining halls when they designate a Passover-appropriate section, which mostly features matzah for build-your-own matzah adventures featuring the rest of the dining hall.

I think I'm just mad because nobody provided a heads-up in case you were planning on sticking around. That would have been nice. I know it's difficult, New Hampshire, to recognize difference sometimes. But I had work to do, and planned to be here in hopes of getting it done.