Mike Alvear's Urge & Merge

The Washington Post did a great video of couples standing in line:

Over 50 couples lined up at the city clerk’s office this morning as Washington DC’s new gay marriage law takes effect. The Supreme Court turned down opponents who had asked it to stop the proceedings. Good thing, because straight people have almost as much to gain from gay marriage as the people in this morning’s line.

Homophobia creates a great deal of marriages that end in divorce. Homophobia drives the fearful into fraudulent marriages. It compels people into deceit. Like my friend Paul. He wanted kids, he wanted job promotions, he wanted acceptance. What he didn’t want was the stigma of being gay. He was convinced that he could not have what he wanted out of life without living a life he didn’t want. So he lived a life he didn’t want to get the things that he did. He married. And years later, when he couldn’t bear living the lie anymore, he divorced. Leaving hurt children, an angry wife and confused relatives.

For every gay man or woman who married as a means of hiding–and then came out–there are at least three or four heterosexual victims: The spouse, the parents of the spouse, the parents of the gay person, the relatives of both and most importantly, the couple’s children.

If we will not be punished for loving someone of the same sex, if we will not be denied the protections and benefits of marriage, if we will not be denied a promotion, what incentive do we have to pretend to be straight? If we can get everything we want out of life without pretending to be someone we’re not, why go through the trouble of lying?

With the ability to marry, fewer and fewer of us will enter into sham marriages to get the privileges that come from being, or at least acting, heterosexual. As equality rises homophobia will fall and so will the need for using marriage as a bush we can use to shimmy over to the rights trough. By removing the need for marrying under false pretenses, same sex marriage will end needless heterosexual suffering. Read the rest of this entry »

I love this story because it shows how love insists its way through the cracks of a family sidewalk. Most of us would be surprised if our brother showed up to our marriage, let alone be the best man.

From Towleroad:

“Eamon Farrell is having a blessing to mark his union with artist boyfriend Steve Mannion. According to the Irish Independent, the pair actually got married in Canada this summer, with Colin as Eamon’s best man. At the time Eamon lamented the fact he and his partner could not wed in Ireland…After the wedding blessing the couple will spend the evening with a host of well-wishers in Krystle nightclub, a funky venue on Harcourt Street in Dublin. The club has private booths, a pent house and a VIP suite – ideal for accommodating the VIP party. It will be a family night out, including Farrell’s mother Rita and sisters Claudine and Catherine, the Independent reports. A gang of other Irish celebs will be there too.”

The heart of her speech about gay marriage:

It’s important because when a country has different laws for different categories of people, it sends its population a message–that a different group of people with lesser rights are somehow inferior and less deserving respect and are in fact not wholly human. And that message is heard loud and clear by the worst elements in our society. And it instructs them that if they’re looking for somebody to bully, beat or kill….

It’s The Gay Gap. “If people over 65 in each state made the laws, 0 states would have gay marriage; if people under 30 made the laws, 38 states would have gay marriage.” That’s the conclusion of a new research study–the generational gap is preventing marriage equality. Thanks, Grandpa!

Thanks to Queerty for this.

I logged onto Facebook today and was bombarded with invitations by friends to hit the streets in protest of California’s not overturning Proposition 8, their law that bans same-sex marriage. Noble protests, in my opinion, but misdirected, considering that neither myself nor anyone inviting me actually lives in California. This sort of logic escapes me, like storming a McDonald’s demanding a refund because Burger King got your order wrong.

I am pro-gay marriage. I don’t think it runs the risk of devaluing marriage in American society. Straight people have devalued it enough (Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, for example). I think gay marriage would be an enormous boost to a struggling economy, extremely benefiting the entertainment, real estate, and legal communities. More importantly, I think gay marriage would dramatically improve the lives of thousands of overlooked children trapped inside the broken foster care system in this country.

That being said, Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know how many of you watched “The Early Show” this morning, but they had one of their classic moments that make watching the show bearable. Apparently in high pageant queen drama, the Miss California pageant funded homophobe Carrie Prejean’s big, new silicone breasts. Oh, the corruption. Where does it end?

That’s what film maker Cindy Abel, said in our debate about the twisted Warren/Robinson prayer pretzel. Here’s the rest of our kitchen table coffee clash:

Cindy: Eugene Robinson is a crumb thrown from the master’s table to those of us living on the edge of legal starvation. Are we supposed to be grateful that Obama picked a gay bishop without civil rights to pray at an obscure ceremony while the chief opponent of those rights gets to lead the invocation?

Mike: Obama promised CHANGE and he’s delivering it.

Cindy: Giving a platform to an opponent of equality is not a change. We’ve had that for eight years.

Mike: It IS a change. Would George Bush have chosen Gene Robinson for ANYTHING, even as a crumb? Think about this: An openly gay bishop is going to kick off a presidential inauguration. That’s HISTORIC change. Look at all the good that’s come out of this. Mainstream America has heard more gay voices and seen more gay faces–it’s harder to demonize the humanized.

Cindy: Well, of course good can come from bad, but why does something bad have to be committed in the first place?

Mike: Because unfortunately that’s how progress is made. A Matthew Sheppard had to die to get people to see our humanity. A Harvey Milk had to die to accelerate a movement.

Cindy: That’s partially true, but completely wrong, morally.

Me: If Nelson Mandela could get people who killed each other’s families in the same room, Obama can get people who disagree on gay human rights to say the same prayer. I’m not discounting your hurt or your point of view, all I’m saying is that the pain is necessary if we’re going to live in peace.

Cindy: I think it’s good to have different points of view expressed in a forum of dialogue. But a ceremony, in which there is no discourse, only statement, is not the place. If Warren used the Bible to argue against Jews or Muslims having the same rights as Christians, would Obama have given him this honor? Would the Martin Luther King Center?

Me: No…

Cindy: So there you have it. Obama does not give gay people the same respect as other groups. That’s the kick in the gut.

Me: I don’t disagree. But you think we’re living in 2009, when from a civil rights standpoint, we’re probably somewhere in the late 1960′s. George Wallace was not considered a racist by the mainstream then and Rick Warren’s not considered a homophobe now. I’d rather make friends with him–meet him where he is and move him towards our humanity–than to stay with the politics of polarization. Now be a dear and pass me the half-and-half.

Cindy Abel is a film maker and board member of Victory Fund (a PAC that works to elect openly gay candidates to public office)

Drag (draäg) n.   1.  When a man wears what a lesbian won’t

When I heard that Lady Bunny hopped away from New York City to star in the return of one of Atlanta’s longest running plays, Veranda, I assumed the playwrights added a new role to accomodate the big-wigged, potty-mouthed, foundation-caked boy-broad who prowls the stage looking for somebody to insult.  Imagine my surprise when they cast her as the Southern Baptist preacher’s wife.

Yes, the She-Man who came up with one of the funniest, crudest Martha Stewart jokes* EVER, is going to play a soft-spoken spouse of an anti-gay marriage preacher.  In drag.  

I can’t even type that out without chuckling.  Living in Atlanta, I’ve seen the play many times.  It’s hilarious enough without her–I can’t even imagine what it is with her.  I smell a national tour.  Here’s Bunny talking about her new role:

*  ”How do you make Martha Stewart scream twice?  F**K her in the ass and wipe it off on her curtains.”

I figured churches and other religious and conservative organizations know a lot about saving marriages because they deal with so much divorce.  Knowing that these good folks would not spend over $25 million to change California’s State Constitution to prevent gay people from marrying unless it truly threatened the institution of marriage, I figured they made a list of the Top 10 reasons couples get divorced and it looked something like this:

1.  Some guy they don’t know, who lives in a city they’ve never been to, marries a guy they’ve never met.

2.  Infidelity

3.  Domestic Abuse

4.  Financial issues

5.  Child rearing differences

6.  Substance Abuse

7.  Sexual Incompatibility

8.  Religious and cultural conflicts

9.  Lack of Communication

10.  Boredom

So, you see, spending $25 million on Proposition 8 makes sense.  A whole lot more than spending it on counseling centers that offer programs to deal with the bottom nine on this list.  

I mean, you gotta start at the top and work your way down, right?

“Are we actually voting to take away other people’s rights?  Turning the American Constitution into American Idol?  Letting the contestants stay as long as they amuse us?” 

On November 4, Californians will vote to amend the State Constitution, which currently allows the right of same-sex couples to marry. 

There will be no winners in this referendum.  Whether the proposition succeeds or fails, we’ll all be diminished by it.  That always happens when one group of people has the authority to take rights away from another. 

In California, gay couples have a right to marry.  Prop 8 isn’t about preventing people from enjoying that right, it’s going to the unprecedented step of  taking it away.  It’s the equivalent of voting to take away a woman’s right to vote.  

It’s too bad we can’t get online and pull up a moral Mapquest.  We could input the starting location (the corner of Rule and Law) and the ending location (the corner of Playing and God).  We’d click the “Get Directions” button and see the quickest route:  Proposition 8.   

Voting to take people’s rights away circumvents the rule of law.  Actually, it does more than that—it transforms the law into a tool for persecution. Which may sound fine, if you believe the persecuted pose a danger.  But who gets to decide that?  You?  Me?  What if we disagree?  Majority rule?  But what if you’re not in the majority?

Here’s the exact wording on Proposition 8:  “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

The problem with “letting the voters decide” on that simple sentence is that once we get used to deciding who deserves a right and who doesn’t, once we get a taste of that kind of power, we’ll want to exercise it again and again.  Where would we stop?  Imagine if you will, a Proposition 80:

“Only marriage between a Christian man and a Christian woman is valid or recognized in California.”

 . . . 

Part of the reason so many can’t see the folly of Prop 8 is the belief that the vote is about preserving the sanctity of marriage.  It’s not.  Imagine yourself at the entrance of a dying man’s hospital room.  He doesn’t want to die alone.  His lover is in the room.  You’re voting on the right to throw him out.

Part of the folly is the belief by so many that the vote is about stopping two women from getting a marriage license or two men from registering at Bloomingdale’s.  It’s not.  Imagine yourself at an orphanage with an eight-year old girl nobody wants.  She found a couple who’ll love and take care of her.  The papers are signed.  You’re voting on the right to leave her in the orphanage.

Part of the folly is the belief by so many that the vote is about stopping two women from entering into a committed relationship or two men from filing joint tax returns.  It’s not.  Imagine a lonely 70-year-old woman who can stay in her home because she’s receiving spousal death benefits.  You’re voting on the right to cancel her checks.  

Is that what being an American is about? Voting to take away other people’s rights?  Are we going to turn the American Constitution into American Idol?  As long as the contestants amuse us we’ll give them another chance?  

This isn’t just about gay marriage.  It’s about codifying the ability of one group of people to punish another by taking away their rights.  That’s why it’s imperative that this amendment fail– so it doesn’t continue as an option to be used against others.  Vote No on 8.  Not because you’re for gay marriage, but because you don’t believe you have the right to stand in the entrance of that hospital room and reverse a dying man’s decision, because you don’t believe you have the right to keep that little girl from loving parents, because you don’t believe you have the right to cancel a widower’s checks.

But most of all, vote no because you don’t believe other people should have the power to take away your own rights.