11/11/08

Thanks to Veterans, Straight Allies, and Olbermann

Some days you just wake up full of gratitude.

A special thank you to our veterans today for bravely shouldering the burdens of inhuman brutality to ensure our safety. You inspire us to keep fighting for the rights you so valiantly promote and defend. We owe it to you to pressure our elected officials to preserve your legacy of noble heroism by treating our current warriors with dignity and forthright intention.

Another thank you to warriors of a different brand, our straight allies in the culture wars. Out of all this Prop 8 filth, I've been able to draw solace from a couple of things:

Number one, the 4-point margin by which it passed pales in comparison to the 22-point lead by which its equivalent Prop 22 passed eight years ago. Polls indicate that people tend to support our side the younger they are, so perhaps eight years of old prejudice died in between now and then, or maybe even hard hearts softened.

Number two, my straight allies make me so proud. I have macho straight guy friends and girly girl straight lady friends who all called me and texted me on election day so excited to tell me they had voted no on 8. Each one made me want to cry with gratitude. The only connection these people have to the prop is a firmly held belief that they want to live in a world that is equal--where people like me, their friend, get to have the same things they enjoy. It's the ultimate gesture of generous sharing of your toys. I have gay friends I had to flog to go down to the "No on 8" campaign office to make phone calls with me (though I will admit that at first I was just as complacent as most) while my straight friends were taking all my lawn signs and proudly displaying them in their hetero suburban yards.

A thank you to one straight ally in particular: Keith Olbermann. I've got Rachel Maddow fever so bad over here that sometimes I forget to mention our other friend over at MSNBC. Keith last night on Countdown devoted a segment of his show to Prop 8, and he got it so right on. He even made a Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam reference, hooray! Video below.


KEITH
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."

6 comments:

Teresita said...

From one veteran to all the other'uns, happy Veteran's day and thanks for making this the Land of the Free, as a consequence of being the Home of the Brave!

Having K.O. invoke the fact that Barack Obama's parents couldn't get married in a third of the States would have had a bit more impact if Obama himself didn't oppose marriage equality for all. Supporting same sex "unions" isn't good enough. Imagine if Governor Wallace of Alabama said in 1968, "I can't support the coloreds marrying our women, but if they must, I suppose we could call it a civil union of some sort." Sounds insane. But that's what we've got right now, today, in 2008.

Me. Here. Right now. said...

As a veteran myself, thanks for your words.

My hope is that our President-elect has wise counsel as he proceeds on his journey. While ya' know I want my equal rights - I hope his priority is dealing with the war, dealing with the economy, and keeping the rhetoric down on our quest for equality as the appeals work their way through the courts.

Dharma Kelleher said...

Keith's words would have meant more if he had made them BEFORE the election and if he had bothered to VOTE himself. He chose not to. Not helping.

Margo Moon said...

My new mantra:

What IS it to you?

Thanks for the Veterans Day post, Lesbiatopia!

Paula said...

A belated Thank You to all you veterans out there. My dad, brother and sister all served in the military so I have an idea of the sacrifices you and your families have made for this country. I hope Obama has the abolition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on his agenda.

www.ComeTogetherGiftBaskets.com

Anonymous said...

It was great to see Keith report on this one...and thanks for covering those hot chicks in uniform too often forgotten.