Waiting for Gay Marriage

Please click through and scroll down for an added multi-media feature to this post...

Okay, I couldn't resist the "Waiting for Godot" allusion, even though I prefer to use the terms "marriage equality" and "equal marriage rights."

So a great number of queer people, people who care about queer people, and people who just care about civil rights in our society--in California and elsewhere--are holding their breaths. Waiting. Trying to think positively. Because while the highest court in our state has until June to decide the validity of putting civil rights up to a popular vote, the scuttlebutt is that the decision on Prop 8 may come down as soon as this coming Thursday.

And this is something--as a queer Californian who very much would like to be able to legally marry my partner, and who believes that I should have the opportunity to those rights and responsibilities as part of being a Californian protected by our state constitution--this is something about which I care a great deal. It's personal and political, and it's about relationships and civil rights.

I guess I'm coming out...as a Unitarian Universalist--this is from the wedding of our Reverend Greg and his spouse Stillman in San Francisco last summer--and as engaged--David and me at Coastanoa when we decided.

I have been trying to stay positive, even when the scene that unfolded in court seemed so negative earlier this year. And as the incredibly amazing news keeps flowing westward from Iowa (Iowa!) and Vermont and now even Maine and New Hampshire, along with strong efforts in New York and DC and other states, I feel myself believing that our court has to do the right thing. And trying not to be afraid of believing that. And I know for a fact that so many other people, leaders and activists and allies and everyday folks are feeling and/or trying to focus on the same thing.

The purple--appropriately--is where marriage equality is now the law.

I know this is incredibly Californian of me, but I'm asking you to join me in visualizing our court doing the right thing and adding our home state to the list of places that says that queer people are not second-class citizens and queer committed relationships should be legally sanctioned, valued, and protected.

I completely understand the feelings, the preparations, and the call those who are working to plan events in response to the court upholding Prop 8 are making. I just think it's important for me to believe that justice will prevail.

Here's the added multi-media feature in this post: In January, David and I sat for a Storycorps interview in San Francisco. My dear friend Dena had passed along the call to participate because she knew I'm a huge fan of Storycorps and oral history, and because she knew I had been trying to figure out a way to process how I was feeling and seeing in our community in reaction to Prop 8 passing. It was a powerful experience, and helped us clarify how we've--together and individually--come to feel about wanting to be married and wanting everyone to have the right to marry. I'm including our interview in this post to give you a little more background on why I feel the way I do.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO AN MP3 OF OUR INTERVIEW

I hope you enjoy it and please comment and let me know what you think of it, and please be kind about the editing--I cut it down from forty minutes and I've just been teaching myself how to use sound-editing software.

P.S. David bought me the great Storycorps book, Listening Is An Act Of Love, this past Valentine's Day; the interviews are incredible and moving and I highly recommend it.