Rebecca's Take

Heartbroken

2006-10-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

California appeals court upholds same-sex marriage ban.

Enough said.

Let's Lump All the Perverts Together

2006-10-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

I apologize for being so absent lately - and thank you to my loyal readers who keep checking back to see if I've posted anything new. There's a lot changing in my life right now, including the job that's afforded me the ability to blog on work-time, rather than on me-time. I'm still trying to figure out whether I'll be able to maintain this to the extent I'd like, but on my drive home last night, I was reminded why I started the blog in the first place. Sometimes, I just need a forum to rant about sexual politics here in the U.S.

Indeed, I've been trying to figure out what, if anything, I wanted to write about this whole situation with Rep. Mark Foley. Last night, as I sat in traffic caused by the season's first rain, listening to NPR and screaming at my radio, I realized I'd gotten to the point where I was ready to write.

The thing is, for me, and probably for you, the Foley scandal is about a sexual predator. Would it have made a difference if he had been coming onto 16-year-old girls? Not to me it wouldn't have. But there is an undercurrent to all of this that shouldn't be ignored: for many Americans, the issue is that Foley's a homosexual. Because, you see, pervert goes hand-in-hand with homosexuality for so many people. If Foley is gay, then it's a given that he is molesting boys.

How do we handle this then? The man deserves to go down, whatever excuses he may make for his behavior. But it's a difficult line Democrats and the left and the queers walk right now. How big a scandal should this be? How far reaching? Should Hastert have treated Foley differently because the object of his inappropriate affections was male? That's what one bystander interviewed on NPR said yesterday - the problem was that Foley was homosexual, and Hastert didn't do anything about it. Whose agenda do we help by making Foley the poster child of Republican corruption?

It's so easy for me to forget that most Americans don't really have contact with gays and lesbians in a normal, day-to-day kind of way. Or, maybe they just don't know that they have contact with us because the ones they know are closeted. So what is their image of homosexuality? It's slivers of queer life - bacchanalian pride festivals, outed perverts, maybe some Brokeback Mountain.

Imagine if we judged straight people based largely on the two men who walked into schools in the last week and selected girls to sexually assault and kill. Imagine if we judged straight people based largely on men who frequent strip clubs, suburban swinging couples, wives who cheat? These are slivers of straight life, but they do not constitute the whole anymore than Foley represents the whole of queer America.

But that's not what many people understand or believe. And today I am at a loss as to how to convince people otherwise. I want the sexual predators (gay and straight) routed out. I want the Republicans out of office. But I'm scared I may get what I want on a foundation laid by incorrect assumptions about who gays and lesbians really are.

Mom?

2006-09-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

I try to keep a political slant, even to the most personal of my posts here. But A---- and I are at a bit of a loss, despite all our best Google efforts, and I've decided to appeal to my readers for help.

Our child's going to have two mommies, and neither one of us wants to be called mommy. But what do we want to be called? And where to begin trying to decide? If anyone has resources for parental names, or specific suggestions/ideas, send them my way. If you click the "Comment" button below, you can send me your thoughts. And if you don't want me to actually post your comment, just say so, and I won't. So easy...!

God Hates Fags?

2006-09-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to watch what you wish for. That's what crossed my mind as I read "Love sinners, not sin" in today's Aberdeen American News (South Dakota). Kathy Thorpe tells the story of a friend of hers, a gay man, whose mother couldn't tell him she loved him after he came out. He committed suicide, heartbroken by his mother's reject. Ms. Thorpe calls for Christians to make the distinction between the sinner and the sin.

This is the least of what I hope for from Christians - I don't believe hate is a fundamental part of Christianity, but I'm astounded by the lack of compassion among so many Americans who profess to be Christian. Just check out God Hates Fags if you doubt it (and you're up for it).

But reading Ms. Thorpe's article, I'm not satisfied with her stance. I disagree with the assumption that homosexuality is a sin (am I allowed to have a say if I'm not Christian?) and, frankly, I want her and everyone else to agree with me. Childish, perhaps, but not nearly as bad as holding a "God Hates Fags" sign at the funeral of someone who died at the hands of a gay basher. Given the choice, I suppose I'll take Ms. Thorpe's tolerance over Reverend Phelps' vitriol, but I hate that this is the choice I'm presented with.

Making Out on Flight 45

2006-09-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

According to The New Yorker, a gay couple who had the nerve to rest their heads on each other's shoulders and give each other the occasional kiss while on a transatlantic flight, were told to stop their lascivious behavior by the American Airlines crew. And then were told by the pilot to stop harrassing the crew when they and other passengers had the audacity to question whether the request was because the passengers being loving toward each other were homosexual.

The problem with writing about these things, is that I see the world through a lens that doesn't view being queer as being wrong. I read this article, and I think, "This is why A---- and I aren't openly affectionate in many public places." I read it and think that it's an illustration of how gays and lesbians are second class citizens ('you can ride the bus, but you have to sit in the back' doesn't sound all that different from, 'you can fly with your significant other, but you can't touch' to me). I am unsure of how to frame it in such a way that perhaps begins to color the lens through which others might begin to see the world in the same way I do - at least as far as being okay with homosexuality is concerned.

How about this: If you're straight, and especially if you don't think homosexuality is okay, humor me and try this little exercise. The next time you're out with your significant other (this exercise does require you to have one), each time you reach to hold hands, remind yourself you cannot. Ditto for when you decide to give each other a little peck. Definitely avoid making out. Try not to make doe eyes at each other, or say "I love you" out loud. Imagine that the world sees your relationship as toxic, and that you have to hide it from everyone. Let me know how this feels.

I have been asked not to be out at a wedding where I was the maid of honor, and A---- was my invited guest. I was unable to hold A---- at the funeral of her brother, even as she sat next to me in the church pew and sobbed, because the stigma felt too great to both of us to take on at such a vulnerable moment. In these big ways, and in so many small ways, our relationship is often kept under the radar, even given how openly we are able to live our lives. And each time, it hurts me, saddens me, and reminds me that I am not always welcome in my own homeland.

The Straight Marriage Debate

2006-09-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

Brad's declaration that he won't marry Angie has been turning over and over in my brain the past week or two, as if it were something of actual import. Esquire has the full article on their site, if you want to read it - along with the accompanying obligatory, fawning star-fuck piece that tries to convince us that Brad is better than all the rest.

Even as I pondered why it matters to me or anyone else whether Brangelina walk down the aisle, I've been reading AfterEllen's coverage of this non-event, and it's been stirring up my thoughts on the matter even more. Sarah Warn thinks that since Brad married Jen previously, his newfound conviction is thanks to Angelina's influence (scroll to the bottom of the page). I'm aware that lesbians love Angelina because she's an out bisexual and a big star, and that's a rare combination. But I'd like to point out that she's been married twice before, and a few years ago declared to Barbara Walters that she wasn't ever going to marry again, because marriage isn't for her. That, to me, is pretty different than saying you won't marry again until everyone can marry.

Today, AfterEllen posted an extended piece by Kim Ficera on why Brad Pitt's statement bothers her. She's tired of straight celebrities using the gay bandwagon to generate PR for themselves, and I can certainly relate. If I never hear another celebrity sex-pot declare her desire to be a lesbian, or "bravely" open up about her past attempts at lesbianism, or "accidentially" get caught smooching another woman, that would be just fine with me. Shocking as this may be to a lotta folks, being a lesbian is not about titillating men, at least not for me or any of the lesbians I know. It's also not something we chose because it was the cool option. When I was 15 and desperate to fit in and realizing that I probably really was gay, believe me, I didn't think to myself, "Cool!" As supportive as most of my friends were when I told them, they didn't say to me, "Oh, I wish I were a lesbian, too." So, as much as I suppose the good publicity is appreciated, I wouldn't mind if we moved past the "lesbian chic" phase and into the "lesbian reality" phase.

Despite all this, though, I disagree with Ms. Ficera's general premise that Brad's only motivation for making this statement is to get publicity. Here's a man who gets asked every single day when he's going to marry the woman he's with. A man who opens his mouth to order from KFC and it gets reported around the world. He could have continued with his "No comment" responses to the marriage question. He could have said, "We both tried that with other people, and it's not for us." He could have said, "For god's sakes, get over it already and leave us the hell alone."

But he didn't this time.

Instead, he said he wouldn't be getting married to the woman with whom he has three children until everyone who wants to can get married. And it got ink in papers around the world. Will this change anything in the great marriage debate? Not at all. Brad Pitt's an actor, not a politician, and probably not someone whose opinions change anybody's minds about anything. But if this is the choice he and Angelina have made, given their public position, what good would it do for him to remain silent?

Ultimately, I won't fall over thanking Brad for taking the stance he has, but I will give him kudos for once again playing the publicity machine so it sings his tune. If someone wants to pay $4 million for pictures of a baby, and the parents of said baby take that money and donate it to a cause they believe in, then more power to them. The same goes for using the press to get the message out if you have the ability to do so.

I sit quietly at my desk and write this blog, hoping it will inspire someone somewhere to think a bit about the marriage question. My reach isn't as far, but is there really any difference between me and Brad?

Why Marriage Matters

2006-09-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this handy PDF of "Seven Scientific Reasons Why Marriage Matters" geared toward the Jewish faith (if you're interested, they have PDFs for other faiths and languages available here).

The first part of the document details the role marriage has played in Jewish life, historically. The second part includes a list of the reasons why marriage is important. Here are some choice excerpts:

Both men and women who marry live longer, healthier and happier lives.
Just living together is not the same as marriage. Married couples who cohabit first are thirty to fifty percent more likely to divorce. People who just live together do not get the same boost to health, welfare and happiness, on average, as spouses.

Most of the other points in the list relate to parenting and how marriage impacts children, and I'm going to leave aside, for now, the argument that gay and lesbian couples can and do have children, who aren't second class citizens, even if their parents may be.

What I want to focus on is the realization that hit me as I read these two bullet points, and I can't honestly believe I never noticed this before when reading about the benefits of marriage on a person's happiness and longevity. It may be softer than a baseball bat or a fist; it may hide behind upstanding moral language that can allow these fine Christians to feel okay about themselves; it may not land anyone in jail. But it's obvious.

It's just another form of gay bashing.

Why can't gays get married? Well, because they don't deserve to be happy, and the shorter they live, the better it is for the rest of the world. Why beat up a gay person? Well, because they don't deserve to live, let alone be happy.

It's also worth reading through the final part of the document, which helps you to answer those pesky questions from the homosexuals at the water cooler (which is apparently where the battle for marriage is taking place), such as "How will my same-sex marriage hurt your marriage?"

Brad Pitt Is Really Cute

2006-09-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

As I've said again and again, throughout this blog, I can't understand why anyone without a personally vested interest (aka, someone who is queer) cares about gay marriage one way or the other. And it looks like voters in Minnesota are in agreement with me. Given two candidates whose primary difference is where they stand on the gay marriage issue, rural Minnesotans from prime "family values" territory voted last week for the pro-homosexual ticket.

It must be shocking, I realize, to Karl Rove and his ilk, that they've bashed this dead gay horse into the ground. Have Americans (at least a few of them in Minnesota) actually woken up and started worrying about the growing divide between the rich and the poor, the quagmire of a war we call Iraq, the lying, cheating and stealing that's happening at all levels of our government (and by both parties, although lately there do seem to be an awful lot of Republicans in hot water), the fact that the gay marriage issue is only being paraded out by the Right in order to distract voters from the real issues today? Or was it that Brad Pitt spoke, and Minnesota listened?

We may never know, but I for one will stay tuned to see what happens in November.

What Goes Around...

2006-09-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

I'm back to pondering the circular logic of the Christian Right's argument against gay marriage and gay parenting. 'We've banned gay marriage in some states,' the logic goes. 'So now we need to ban gays from adopting, because children should only be allowed to be raised by married couples.' This USA Today article (from February) sums it up nicely.

I think the most interesting piece of information in that article is this: "Mississippi bans adoption by gay couples, but gay singles can adopt." I'm left to wonder if single gay adoptive parents in Mississippi have to sign an affidavit swearing off dating and sex for the life of the child. What purpose does a law like this serve? What strange lines get drawn in the sand...

I'm also curious whether the Christian Right agenda (and believe me, they have far more of an agenda than the gays ever did) includes removing children from all non-traditional homes at some point in the future - after they've managed to ensure that the queers can't become parents. Single moms? Nope. Single dads? God, no. Blended families? Uh-uh, unless they're the result of widowhood; divorced people are not qualified to raise children. Grandparents? Maybe, if they were appropriately wedded when they raised their own children, and haven't subsequently gotten divorced. Logically, if this is the case, we'll need to ban divorce, too. And marriage between anybody who doesn't want children. Couples will need to be tested for fertility before getting marriage licenses - and if it turns out they can't conceive, they'll need to agree to adopt at least one child. Far fetched? Maybe...

I agree that divorce is bad for children, and A---- and I have a "no outs" clause once children are introduced into our relationship for that reason. What I don't agree with is the government, at the behest of the church, dictating who should and shouldn't be allowed to marry or parent based on a set of morals that aren't universally accepted. Most non-sociopaths, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, atheist or otherwise, agree that someone who beats their child(ren) shouldn't be allowed to parent. Easy enough. But if you have to apply the Bible in order to explain why gays shouldn't parent...well, that's a fine choice for your church to make, but I don't subscribe to the theory that the Bible has any real clout in dictating the rules of my life, so I'm not sure how it applies.

Back, full circle: Gays shouldn't be allowed to parent, goes that circular logic, so why should they be allowed to marry. And they're not allowed to marry, spin spin spin, so they can't be allowed to parent. Very neat.

***

As an aside, for those of you following my personal journey toward parenthood, A---- and I have been assigned a social worker, and she's supposed to call us by Wednesday to set up our first home study appointment. We're free all next week right now, and hoping we can just cram the four appointments in, bam bam bam bam, Monday-Thursday evenings. That's how it works when you're eager, right?

Torn Asunder

2006-09-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've noticed I feel torn about gay marriage. I want it for myself, I think I believe it should happen. But ultimately I struggle with whether it's the most important issue out there. Reading this article from The Progressive, I feel the same old questions rising up for me. It examines the impact previous statewide bans, and upcoming ballot measures to ban gay marriage in other states, will have or have had on gay couples and families.

My initial reaction is to wonder why anyone (other than gay couples) cares so much about this that they want to enact legislation on the matter. I get angry at the difficult position such changes in the law put families in. I start to wonder what family values really mean.

But a parallel track plays in my mind even as the anger bubbles up about the injustices against gays. What about the single parents? What about the rest of the uninsured? If we fight to carve out our piece of the pie (something I've written about before), it means we stop looking at the bigger picture. Just this week, the Census Bureau released information from a recent poll showing that 47 million people in the U.S. are uninsured - an increase both in the number and the percentage of uninsured Americans. It's not just gays and lesbians who are struggling with this, and I get antsy when the arguments for gay marriage turn toward partner benefits.

More compelling for me - and I think this plays to the larger national audience as well - are questions of rights. Hospital visitation gets to people. Even if you think homosexuality is something that should be kept behind closed doors, or is perhaps a sin, it's hard to argue that two people who have made a life together for decades shouldn't have the right to visit each other in the hospital if one falls ill.

I'll admit that when it comes to the legal challenges of having children together, I feel moved as well, for obvious reasons. But when it comes to convincing society at large, you must tread carefully on the gay parenthood issue. Arguing that we should allow for gay marriage - or even domestic partner rights - on the grounds that not allowing for it jeopardizes families with gay parents opens up the whole question of whether gays and lesbians should be having children...

As a total aside, I feel no conflict about the question of whether gay parenting is okay. The deeper we get into this process of being approved to adopt, the more I wonder why everyone doesn't have to go through this in order to become parents. It isn't a person's sexuality that dictates whether they're going to be able to raise a healthy child, and plenty of folks without the necessary skills manage to fall into parenting with nary a thought.

On the larger question of gay marriage and/or partnerships, I urge each of you to think about the ways that focusing on so narrow a goal leaves so many other Americans - gay and straight - in the dust.

The Macaques Do It, and the Bonobos Do It...

2006-09-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

This is a strangely compelling article about homosexuality in vertibrate species that seeks to debunk Darwin's theory of sexual selection. It certainly opens up some interesting questions about our assumption (and by "our" I mean, our society's) that queerness is a defect rather than a part of the natural order with a usefulness unto itself. I'd like to think that my lesbianism helps to serve as the sort of social glue of our evolved species.

Hating Hate

2006-08-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

I am apparently out of the gay loop, because I was unaware of the rainbow flag controversy stirring up trouble in Meade, Kansas until I read this article in the Wichita Eagle. It seems some California transplants to Meade County flew a rainbow flag in front of the inn they've owned for the past two years. They claim it wasn't about gay pride, but rather about being in Kansas - a reminder of The Wizard of Oz and everybody's favorite (admittedly gay) anthem, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Townspeople boycotted their restaurant, bricks were thrown through windows, the flag was even cut down. I'm quite sure that there's a movement afoot in the great state of Kansas to ban all references to rainbows, and to stone anyone who breaks the ban.

I'm having trouble understanding why a symbol of gayness (or support for gay folks) inspires such vitriol, but I can understand Bob Mabery's response:

Meade, he said, was a "respectful little town, but this has practically destroyed it..." For a while he was so upset he quit going to the Chuck Wagon Restaurant for his coffee. "No one's going to go around that place," Mabery said of the Lakeway. But he doesn't hate gay people, he quickly added. "I guess I'm just one who thinks it belongs in the closet."

I don't necessarily agree with the attitude that homosexuality should be hidden, but I can relate to it. Sometimes when I see a straight couple making out in front of my house, or in the Castro, I feel the same way about heterosexuality - I'm fine with it, as long as it's not in my face. It is interesting to me, though, that it is not the folks who are responding with such hatred who get blamed for the disruption in an otherwise peaceful town - it is the flag flyers.

What Mr. Mabery (what a great name for a smalltown guy) seems not to realize, is that whether gays are closeted or not, we are vulnerable to those bricks through our windows, to loss of livelihood, and worse. Silence leads to a risk of being found out, and then the repercussions from that discovery. At what point do you speak up? The hatred that paints profanity on a brick and throws it through someone's window for merely flying a rainbow flag (perhaps one not even intentionally imbued with queer meaning) gets closeted, too - but it exists, under the surface, whether it's openly discussed or not.

If we remain silent, the bigotry is allowed to continue. A gay man is found out and loses his job, and the silence continues. A lesbian gives herself away somehow and has no recourse when she's kicked out of her apartment. The police beat patrons of a bar merely for being different. When the silence is broken, what you find is that the haters are in the minority (a rather vocal minority, mind you) and that most other people don't care that much because it doesn't impact them. What the majority does seem to dislike, though, is the upsetting of the norm: 'If only those gays would stay in the closet where they belong, we could go back to the nice way things were, without all those bricks and insults flying through the air.' It is the not the brick throwers who get blamed in this equation, but rather the people who are "causing" the throwing of the bricks - the ones who were subjected to bricks, proverbial and otherwise, while everyone else got to live their nice lives under the old paradigm of silence.

The majority, of course, is not comfortable with homosexuality, but they're not throwing bricks. The brick throwers are the ones that confound me. Where does all that hate come from? What fear is it that my form of differentness inspires that cause some to so hate me without even knowing me?

After the November 2004 elections, I drove home from work listening to reports that exit polls indicated Bush had won because of so-called "values." I wept at the thought that I was more scary to Americans than terrorism and an ongoing war without an exit strategy and an economy in the doldrums. Those exit polls have been debunked, but that disbelief and heartbreak I felt stays with me.

When I read stories like the one about Meade County in Kansas, I have to remind myself that this is a long process, and that part of progress is backlash. We are no longer silent, I am free to live my life openly (at least in San Francisco), and it is the haters who are getting outed. I wonder to myself if those throwing bricks are descendents of Irish immigrants, or Italian immigrants, and if they know that not that long ago, their families were the targets of hate, told to go back to where they came from. I wonder, too, whether someday, after the gays and lesbians have fully assimilated into greater society, we will turn our backs and wish the rising voice of a previously silent minority would just be quiet so we can go back to living in our "respectful little" towns. Will we get our piece of the pie and then do our best to ensure we don't have to share it with anyone else? The cycle repeats itself, and history shows that eventually we will prevail - and more than likely, we will desperately hang onto the status quo once it's inclusive of us.

Hello?

2006-08-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

I'm having a bloxistential crisis. Who am I writing for? Is anyone reading this? Am I writing for them, and what do they think of this blog? Even Anonymous' off-humor comments to my last entry give me some hope that I'm not just pissing in the wind here. Hello? Anybody else out there?

Too Many Choices

2006-08-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

I have always known I would be a mom. Even as it started to dawn on me in early adolescence that I was a lesbian, I knew I would be a mother someday. It has taken longer than I expected (if I recall, my first child was supposed to arrive right around when I was 26), it certainly is something I've planned and thought a great deal about, and yet with the reality of it bearing down on me, I feel completely unprepared, and a little surprised that it seems like it's happened so suddenly. That's hardly the case at all.

Being a lesbian in a relationship and deciding you want to have a child is reminiscent of all the other areas in our lives where we have too damn many choices. On the Internet. With our finances. Selecting a career. With all our consumer choices (I couldn't even decide which article about too many consumer choices to pick - there are 3 links in that sentence). And goodness knows, plenty has been written about all the difficult choices that come after you have a baby (work or stay at home; breast or bottle; be their friend or be their parent, etc. etc. etc). I like to joke that whatever else we had working against us, we had a surplus of uteruses (uteri?) in our household, so offspring should be a cinch. I didn't think about what it means to be faced with so much choice.

Our options went something like this (I've created a handy flowchart for your reference - but the options were so plentiful, you'll have to click on the image to see it in a legible size):

A---- and I are pretty indecisive people as a general rule. But we've figured out (sort of) that when the right choice comes along, we know. We dithered around looking at bed frames for several years, for instance. And then one day wandered randomly into a store after eating brunch with friends around the corner. We walked into the store with the intention of wasting a few minutes browsing. We walked out of the store having put down a 50% deposit on a bed frame that is, still, the most expensive piece of furniture we own. We saw it, we both loved it, and we knew.

Our baby decision didn't quite go like that.

Presented with too many options, we went with the path of least resistance - let's try everything and see what happens. But then we realized that even making a non-decision resulted in our needing to make endless other decisions (see flowchart). So we went back to the drawing board and used something like a process of elimination.

Here's what we knew:

1. We were both potentially interested in carrying a baby.
2. We definitely wanted to adopt at least one of our children from the foster care system (woohoo! two choices eliminated in one fell swoop - no international or private adoptions for us).
3. We wanted our child to be African-American, or mixed race (A---- is black, I'm a Russian Jew).
4. We didn't want to share responsibility for parenting with anyone else (between the two of us, we have enough opinions about parenting to get us through).

There were other factors to consider, too. A---- is an artist, and welds metal sculpture and furniture in her downtime (whatever floats your boat, I say), which means she's exposed to a lot of toxic chemicals. If she were to carry a baby, she would have to give that up for awhile, not an appealing thought for her. On the other hand, since her only sibling - her brother - died three years ago, she is the last in line to carry on her family name, something that is very important to her father. I am one of four children, my brother already has two kids, and I don't have a strong attachment to my family name for some reason.

At some point in this process, my biological clock kicked in with shocking force. Suddenly, I felt compelled to get pregnant, and NOW. A---- was still reluctant to give up the welding, and so we decided I would carry our first baby, with the adoption option, or A----'s womb as likely candidates for the second child. However, unable to completely close off all other options, even as we perused sperm bank catalogues online (yes, you can shop for sperm online, and whether you're in the market or not, it's worth checking out all the factors to be considered when selecting the ideal genetic complement to your own dna) we contacted a fost/adoption agency we thought we might be interested in working with one day.

I devoured books on how to chart my cycle, discovered Target has the best prices on ovulation predictor kits, and found myself strangely in touch with parts of my body I'd never thought about before, much less seen. We found a donor at a local sperm bank that was like our bedframe - we knew instantly when we read our profile that he was the one.

And then, one cold winter evening, we inseminated. It was anything but romantic. Clinical, a bit of a comedy of errors, stressful, for sure. And totally bizarre. After years of imagining being pregnant with no chance that I was, suddenly there was a chance. And there were remnants of a complete stranger inside of me. Sperm. Inside me. Perhaps not unusual for the average woman, but for me, it was truly out of the ordinary.

I got duly nauseated, and convinced that my tummy was growing, and exhausted. And I took about 25 pregnancy tests, all of which were negative. And then two weeks after we inseminated, I got my period and lost the hearing in my right ear on the same day.

Suddenly our plan felt very much taken out of our hands. Probably an auto-immune disease, said the doctors. Take steroids, don't get pregnant for now. The hearing came back, then went away again. It did this several times. I handed over so much of my blood to the lab that they could probably start a blood bank in my name. They ruled out all the "major" potential causes (brain tumor, for instance) and then started testing for lesser known diseases.

While all this was happening, A---- and I stepped back, looked at the flowchart, and considered our choices. Because something strange had happened during the brief moment in our lives when we'd thought that perhaps I could be pregnant. We both had felt uneasy. As if we were playing at something that wasn't real - simulating a family headed up by a heterosexual couple. Pretending that we were creating a baby that was a combination of the two of us, pretending we were "normal."

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with us, or with lesbian couples who do decide to inseminate. I'm not even saying we won't do it ourselves one day - indeed, I was shocked at how difficult it was to let go of the idea of being pregnant once I'd done so much to get ready for it. But every time A---- or I hear or see or read a story about children in the foster care system, something clicks with us. With so much love to give, and no way to create a child that's a mix of her DNA and mine, why wouldn't we adopt a child that might not otherwise have a permanent home?

Tentatively, we moved forward with the adoption agency and started letting go of the babymaking project. I gave away my fertility books and stopped asking the doctors when I could start trying to get pregnant again. I started taking my allergy meds after six months of watery eyes and a stuffy nose and slowly stopped being jealous of my friends (of whom there were very suddenly many) who were pregnant. Eventually my sadness at not getting pregnant disipated, and my excitement about adopting a child grew.

Writing about the whole process reminds me how un-sudden this has been. But I'm still sitting here a little bit shocked that so soon so much will change. Only seven years late, and over a year of active planning later, it appears we will be moms in only a matter of months.

What Now?

2006-08-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back from vacation, and it's taken me a few days to get settled in. We spent four days on the north shore of Lake Tahoe and learned a lot about what we don't want to do as parents - yell at our kids while we sit on our butts on the beach rather than get up and, I don't know, play with them; give our 2-year-old a laptop to play with at breakfast while we alternate between talking on our cell phone and tapping away at our own laptop; allow our children to declare that one of their parents is more important than the other because she earns more. We did also see some examples of good parenting, evident in the behavior of their offspring, but for some reason the evidence of bad parenting stood out for us.

Perhaps this is because I had my tb test this morning - and after we get the results on Friday, we'll be done with our paperwork and ready to start the home study. Our days as parents are imminent and looming large in both our minds.

But today I want to write on the gay marriage issue, not our impending parenthood. There has been a fair amount of press, of late, about the gay marriage backlash within the community of queer activists. It was this U.S.News & World Report article that captured my attention this morning. What next? is the gist of the article - with so many states successfully passing legislation against gay marriage, how best to proceed with the movement to secure gay rights?

It made me think about how seductive the idea of gay marriage can be - has been. As crass as this sounds, I want to marry A---- in the same way I want to buy a house. Right now we rent, and as much as we love our apartment and our neighborhood, there's this niggling feeling always in the back of our minds that we wish we owned the place we lived in. What difference would that make? We have a roof over our heads, and walls and doors that lock, and a toilet and a shower and a sink - all the basic necessities. We've most definitely made the place our own, as much as we can. But we lose out on the tax benefits of being homeowners, and on the ability to replace our rotting windows, and to install a washer and dryer now that we're going to have an infant. A---- can't paint our room to look like a tropical hideout without thinking about whether there will be a problem when we move. All-in-all, it's not a permanent home, it's not truly ours; it doesn't belong to us. When we think of buying a home, it's about roots and security and the future. It's about permanence.

We don't need a piece of paper or a judge or church to make our relationship permanent. It is what it is, and we are committed to making it work, come hell or high water (and we've survived a little bit of both over the past five years). Just as we don't need to buy a house in order to have a home, we don't need to get married in order to have a lifetime commitment to each other. But there is a difference that comes from formalizing a relationship or purchasing a home. There are the tax benefits, sure. But there's also the fact that in all sorts of ways you acknowledge each other officially when you're married. When you file your taxes - whether jointly or separately, you must declare yourself married to someone and identify who they are. In order to declare someone other than your spouse beneficiary of your 401k, your spouse has to sign something approving the other beneficiary. Legally, A---- is a stranger to me, no matter how deeply she's buried in my heart or wrapped up in my life. If the building we live in burns down, our belongings are covered by insurance - but the fact that our home is gone will not be, because after all, we are just renters.

This is the seduction of the gay marriage issue for me. I imagine what it will be like when we finally can get married, and I understand that there is a difference, and I crave that solidity, can't help but hope to have that governmental fertilizer to help our roots grow strong.

But marriage is not the be-all and the end-all of gay life. Afterall, you can be queer, and not be in a relationship at all. This morning, I heard a story on the radio about how HR departments look at candidate's profiles on MySpace and Friendster to glean additional information that wouldn't necessarily be legal to ask in an interview, or that someone likely wouldn't bring up or admit to in an interview. And one of the things mentioned by the recruiter being interviewed (who sounded a lot like Harvey Fierstein to me) was that a potential employer could find out you're gay. Surely before we worry about whether we can get married, we should ensure that being gay isn't a problem when it comes to getting hired - and once our basic rights are secured, and the discrimination diminishes over time, the gay marriage thing will follow in due course.

Indeed, just last month, a group of prominent gays and lesbians wrote and signed a statement entitled "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families & Relationships." With the setbacks we're now facing in the gay marriage movement, with all the changes to marriage occurring even without giving queers the right to marry, with so many other battles to fight when it comes to gay rights, it is perhaps time to refocus.

I agree with this in principle. And the part of me that can't help but wish to legally marry my beloved can wait, because all of me believes it will happen in my lifetime.

And in the meantime, I intend to fight the battles that ensure that all of us are covered by healthcare, whether we're employed, married to someone with a job, or not.

Vacation

2006-08-11T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm on vacation - no posts until the week of August 21, but feel free to peruse my archives, leave comments and check back in upon my return. Thank you, dear readers!

Salvation

2006-08-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with how to write this post because some of the larger topics I've been discussing are starting to hit a little closer to home, and all of my questions about gay marriage and religion and bigotry are looming larger than ever.

A---- and I are deep into the process of being approved as fost-adopt parents - which means we'll be adopting a child from the foster care system. It's intense and involved and we've already literally handed over our blood and our DMV records and our finger prints, but we haven't even started the home study phase, which is apparently the most intense and involved of all. We are in turn elated and terrified by what we're taking on, and even when we have our doubts, we know it's the right thing for us.

But becoming parents strips away any pretense that we can pass as straight when we want to, and before we're even approved, this new reality is inserting itself in our lives, most notably when it comes to A----'s family.

Over the past five years, I have worked hard to ingratiate myself with the H's. Their dream for their daughter was that she would marry a nice Christian black man. Instead she ended up with a nice Jewish white woman. One out of four ain't bad, right? I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when Mrs. H called up A---- after the first time they'd met me to tell her what a lovely woman I was - and what a wonderful wife I'd make for some nice man someday. But three years later - this past April - Mr. and Mrs. H sat in our kitchen on their second visit to our home, and asked me whether A---- and I might like a toaster oven for Christmas. The toaster is surely the most domestic of all gifts, and I took this question, directed solely at me (A---- was at work at the time) to be an indication that they were accepting the two of us as a domestic unit.

All of this was brought about by a careful policy of don't-ask/don't-tell employed on everyone's part. A---- and I visited with them, but did not hold hands or kiss in their presence, and in exchange, Mrs. H stopped telling A---- that she had to change her lifestyle and get right with Jesus. I worked hard not to refer to A---- as "Babe" in front of her parents, even while I made insider jokes with them about their daughter's quirky ways as only a wife could, and they made it clear that they appreciated how happy I made their daughter. All, of course, without ever saying out loud that A---- and I were a couple, or using any of the gay-lesbian-queer-homosexual words out loud.

But this past Sunday, we called them up and told them of our intention to adopt, and all our pretenses went up in flames. Their initial reaction was, on the scale of the H family, quite positive. They were certainly not beside themselves with joy, but nor did they bring up hellfire and brimstone. They responded mostly with a lot of questions, including asking how old the child would be, whether we had any babysitters lined up, and if we knew we were going to have to go to church now. We got off the phone with them tentatively happy at how well it had gone, but a little tense about when the other shoe might drop.

It took only two days. Yesterday I called to wish Mr. H a happy birthday. Mrs. H answered and told me she'd been thinking about me and A---- a lot. There was a long pause while I waited for her to follow up, and she waited for me to give her an opening.

"Anything in particular?" I finally asked. "Or just thinking about us in general?"

"I've been thinking about salvation," Mrs. H told me. "I've been praying for your salvation."

Thunk.

It felt like a soft lob to my stomach, that word "salvation." I didn't know at first what it meant, but as the meaning sank in, the nausea came with it. This woman whose daughter I love and like and adore (with all the subtleties inherent in each of those words), this woman who I had bent over backwards to please, this woman who had slept in my home, on my sheets, and eaten my food - she believes I'm going to Hell.

Salvation.

I will be the first to admit that there are many ways in which I could live my life better. And not just in the guilty California liberal way (I should drive less, recycle more, exercise daily, eat less fat, volunteer regularly, live as one with the earth). No, my real sins are that I can be judgmental and temperamental and I too often speak sharply with people who don't deserve it. I harbor grudges, and as far as I extend myself for those I love, don't always extend myself far enough for them. I am not at peace with myself let alone with the concept of a higher being, but all of this I figure I will work on and work on and work on until eventually I die.

I do not consider my sexuality to be a sin.

And yet. Salvation. Oh, the power of language. I still cannot digest what is encompassed in that word. I looked it up to see if it would help clarify its meaning.

Salvation: Preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil.

How difficult it is to step back from this - that word from that woman's lips - and try to see the bigger picture. Is this really an expression of her beliefs, or is her faith just a smoke screen for her bigotry?

I can write off James Dobson and Ann Coulter and Maggie Gallagher and even Reverend Fred Phelps, whether I choose to consider their positions or not. But I cannot write off the woman who will be grandmother to my children. She prays for my salvation because she cares for me and she believes that I am going to Hell. Her belief that I am a sinner is as engrained in her as my belief that I am not. No matter how many cakes I bake her, or how many times we laugh together at her kitchen table or mine, she may never look past my sin to accept me fully.

And if that's the case, does it matter whether the beliefs are pure or just prejudice wrapped up in scripture? She is working hard to help her daughter save herself from the eternal fires. When I am a mother, I will fight just as hard as Mrs. H does to protect my children - perhaps even from their own grandparents.

Things That Make You Shake Your Head

2006-08-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Off Topic: Today I was driving to work and passed by a VW Jetta with a "Go Vegan" bumpersticker. The woman driving was smoking. How come this strikes me as contradictory?

A Confession

2006-08-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago, A---- and I sold our television and DVD player. The intention was to use the proceeds to buy a flatscreen tv with a built in DVD because it will take up less real estate in our apartment and lives, but we found ourselves at Best Buy unable to commit, and so here we are, tv-less and only vaguely perturbed about it. Eventually, we both figure, we'll buy one.

But then, we're odd, and we know that. My co-workers already thought it was strange that I didn't have cable. Nope, not even basic. We get by with rabbit ears nine months out of the year. I get the sense that people attribute this lack of investment in tv culture to my latent socialism, or they assume I'm judging them for watching too much tv. It doesn't help when I explain that we mostly watch PBS and we don't need cable to get that station. God, it even sounds snooty to me when I write it out here, but it's true nonetheless.

Three months a year, however, all of this changes. Three months a year, we cave to our basest cultural cravings, and how I love those months. Each January, I call our cable company and pay the introductory $39.99/month for three months in order to get the Gold Package - somewhere in the range of 3,268 channels, including the all-important Showtime. After I call Comcast (don't get me started on them), I send out an Evite. For three months, it doesn't matter that it's raining outside because we don't have to leave the house for anything but work. All that entertainment, right there, 24/7.

And Sunday nights, our social life comes to us. We somehow pull together meals that accomodate the lactose-, wheat-, egg-, meat-, and vegetarian-intolerant appetites of all our dyke friends (usually by doing the good lesbian thing and throwing a potluck), and together we all give into the guilty pleasure of watching The L Word. Because that's the real reason we subscribe to cable in the first place.

I have several lesbian friends who can't watch the show because it is such a disappointment. And it disappoints me too. It depicts a world that's about as far from my reality as can be. But then, Desperate Housewives probably isn't an accurate depiction of the average straight viewer's life either - that isn't why folks watch it. I don't watch The L Word to see reflections of myself on the screen. I couldn't even tell you why it's more compelling for me to watch a lesbian psycho-drama than it is for me to watch a bunch of straight people falling in and out of love, realistic or not. As badly written as it can be, as inconsistent and frustrating as the characters often are, it gives me a thrill to tune in once a week, three months out of the year, to watch actresses pretend to be lesbians (and I am including the few on the show who actually are).

No show can be all things to all people. No show can even be all things to all lesbians. I've also spent the last five years addicted to Six Feet Under (on DVD), but what I loved about it wasn't that it was "real," (because I don't know anybody whose life even remotely resembles the lives depicted in that show), but that the characters stayed true to themselves, no matter what got thrown their way. The L Word fails at this, but I don't think of it as the kind of highbrow tv where you'd find that kind of writing and character development. It's trash tv, and the only reason it disappoints is because it's the only lesbian tv show out there.

Would an accurate lesbian tv show really be just about lesbians, though? Maybe I'm weird, but my world is populated by lesbians and gay men and straight men and women as well. Even the Cosbys, great black hope that that show was, had white friends. To me, The L Word is a step on the path toward weaving lesbians into the greater cultural fabric. I look forward to the day when I turn on the tv (assuming I have one) and a lesbian character will be integral to a drama or comedy that is not classified as "lesbian." I look forward to the day when I won't feel compelled to watch a show just because they have a lesbian character or episode or theme. When we get to the point where we're on as many shows as we aren't on, and I can pick and choose what I want to watch based purely on what I think is good - that'll be the day...

In the meantime, Sunday nights from January-March, you can find me at home thoroughly enjoying my trash tv. Only five more months to go.

Trade-Offs

2006-08-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

A---- and I live in a very expensive, very wonderful city. Our neighbors across the street are the sweetest family - a teacher, a marketing exec who works from home, their five-year-old son adopted from Guatemala, and their baby daughter adopted from the foster care system. The parents are two gay men. Within a one-block radius from us are at least ten queer families, and people of every ethnicity I can think of. We know this because of the block parties and barbecues and neighborhood garage sales and impromptu meetings on the corner we have somewhat regularly. I cannot imagine there is anywhere else in the world where we would feel more comfortable than we do on our little hill in San Francisco.

But despite all this, we spend more hours than I care to think about talking about leaving. The cost of living in such a wonderful place is high - monetarily, and because of the monetary stress, emotionally. But when we peer up out of our little oasis of diversity and acceptance to look around at where we might be able to afford to live, we get stuck on all we'd have to give up. There aren't many places where an interracial lesbian couple are bound to feel comfortable, and there are even fewer of those places where we would be able to find jobs and afford to buy a home.

If we stay in the United States that is. Every once in awhile, our conversations turn north or cross the Atlantic, as we consider our options in countries that have institutionalized their acceptance of the gays and the lesbians. When I read articles like Steve Kluger's piece in today's USA Today about the ease with which he and his partner settled into rural Canada, I wonder if we're struggling for naught down here. Sure, San Francisco is a haven of acceptance (for the most part) but we don't have to drive far to start feeling uncomfortable. And we think of the ease of our lives during the three months we spent in rural France, and wonder why we put up with our commutes and worries about making ends meet and struggles to buy a little plot of land of our own. Granted, we weren't working or out in France - but somehow nothing seemed as difficult as it does here once you removed the day-to-day stresses that are inherent to life in an American city. And rural America is not an option for us - we would stick out like sore thumbs and would fear for our safety.

I wonder sometimes if we would have left SF long ago if we weren't queer. It's one thing to feel different than others in your community. It's another when you noticeably are different - and of the group that seems to be the object of so much hate these days. The options feel awfully limited.

Christians as Messengers of Hope Not Hate

2006-07-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek “power over” others — by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have “power under” others — “winning people’s hearts” by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said.

Mr. Boyd is Reverend Gregory A. Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota. The quote above is from an article about him in yesterday's New York Times. Boyd believes that churches shouldn't be telling congregants how to vote, and Christians shouldn't be telling people how to live their lives. How refreshing.

But he's not alone. There are others, like Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri (who happens to be both a Methodist pastor and a congressman), calling for the government to stop politiking in the name of Jesus.

""This is shamefully political and sinfully divisive," Cleaver said during an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "It's bad theology because there is nothing biblical about creating divisions between people."

Cleaver is referring here to the gay marriage amendment Congress voted on a couple of weeks ago. Whereas Boyd doesn't share his party affiliation (although he indicates he has conservative leanings when it comes to abortion and gay rights) Cleaver is a Democrat.

Whichever party they each vote for, however, both agree that it is not the place of Christians to rule over others, and they use their unique positions of power to preach this message.

It seems to me that these days, these two men are something of an anomaly. Christianity has gotten so wrapped up in our government (or our government has gotten so wrapped up in Christianity) that it has become nearly impossible to figure out where one ends and the other begins.

I applaud these men for not banging the rest of us in the head with their Christianity - personally, I might be more inclined to convert if Christians acted with this kind of tolerance (rather than bigotry) more often.

Amen

2006-07-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, A---- and I went to church. Recently I've been on a bit of a kick about wanting to find a larger meaning in it all, and while I'm not sure I'm going to make the leap from being a non-believer to embracing a full religion, I am open to the possibility that I could find something within religion that I would find helpful. We went to Synagogue a few weeks ago, as well (I may write about that another day), but yesterday we decided to attend the Baptist church where A----'s cousin is the pastor.

We sat in the car for 10 minutes after we parked, trying to work up the nerve to go in. Funnily enough, we were more nervous about the fact that I was going to be the only white person there, than about being a lesbian couple in a room full of Baptists. Over the past year or so, we've developed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy with A----'s family that has worked quite well all around, and I think we imagined that as long as we weren't overt about our status as a couple, it wouldn't be a problem.

And I have to say, the welcome was warm. Several people came over to introduce themselves to us, clearly happy to have us there. And as the service got underway, I was moved by the music that seemed to accompany everything, and the responsiveness of the congregation to the prayers.

About an hour into the service (we'd been told it would be about two hours total) a pastor who was visiting from Louisiana stood at the pulpit to offer a prayer. Heads bowed, we rocked along with the cadence of his words and the accompanying organ, punctuated by "Amens" from the congregation. He was slowly building up to a crescendo, and I felt myself swept along, unclenching a little more. Today, though I can only recall two lines of his prayer.

And let us pray for the drug addicts!

Amen!

And let us pray for the drug homosexuals!

Amen!

And like that, my blood froze. I felt A---- still next to me as well. We both stood there, deaf to the words that were being called out. I wondered how I was going to make it through another hour, clenched as I was again. I felt A---- nudge me, and I looked at her.

We walked out as the sound of the organ died out, and I wondered how it was possible that a pastor from Louisiana could be worried about homosexuals right now, given all the devestation that still haunts that state nearly a year after Katrina.

Drug Addicts. Homosexuals. I just can't make sense of it.

Where Are Our Stats?

2006-07-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

As I pulled into the parking lot at work last Friday, I heard a report on NPR that the lesbians had broken up. This is the couple in Massachusetts who were the lead plaintiffs in the case that ultimately resulted in gay marriage being legalized in the state.

The first thing that crossed my mind was that all the folks who oppose gay marriage were thinking "I told you so," as they heard this news. What pressure. Because when straight couples break up, it's sad, and maybe someone's fault (do you blame Brad or Jen, we wonder by the water cooler), but it's not considered proof that no straight people should be allowed to marry. But every time a public gay or lesbian couple splits up, I feel a little crushed, as if all gay or lesbian couples are going to be judged through the prism of that one relationship.

I must remind myself - and, I wish I could remind the naysayers - that straight marriages succeed only 50% of the time these days. We don't know what the stats are for commitment-minded queers, and so we have no sense of whether our numbers are comparable, or worse - or better, for that matter - than those for divorce.

Foster Care Aside

2006-07-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

Glad to hear common sense prevailed in Missouri, although not without some valiant effort on the part of bigots. Can we start focusing on finding foster families who don't beat, abuse or neglect our most vulnerable citizens - children whose biological parents have beaten, abused, neglected or rejected them, and who are wardens of the state as a result - and stop focusing on ensuring that qualified gays and lesbians aren't allowed to care for them? When you've got the foster care system working and more qualified applicants to be foster parents than you can handle, you can start discussing whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to.

Sadly, I have the feeling pervasive bigotry against gays and lesbians will be a thing of the past long before we fix our foster care system.

Oprah's Welcome in My Family

2006-07-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

All this brouhaha about Oprah's sexuality has me confused, and when I'm confused, I try and write it through to at least clarify what it is that's confusing me. So...

There is an argument to be made that accusing powerful women of being lesbians is a way of undermining their power, aka, she can't be powerful and be a real woman. And there is definitely some validity to that argument.

But pause and think about that for a minute.

Let's set aside the fact that among the lesbian community, it can be very tempting to claim strong women as one of our own. How tempting it is to imagine that Oprah and Hillary and Eleanor and sometimes even Condi, (when she's dressed like this and you squint in just the right way and you're facing due east and you have temporary amnesia so that you forget for a moment her politics) play for our team. My brother teases me that when I watch the Oscars, I see a different show than he does, because I'm convinced that every third person who crosses that stage is queer, although I'm sure some of them really really are because where there's smoke... but I digress. My point is that there's a difference when lesbians claim someone as their own, and when the world at large starts to accuse someone of being a lesbian.

This is a multi-facted issue. You've got, on the one hand, a powerful woman whose power others attempt to undermine by slapping the lesbian label on her. And then you've got feminists pointing that out - why does a woman always get called a lesbian when she's powerful, they rightly ask. And you've got lesbians saying, I knew it, she's one of us.

But wait - back up for a second. Feminists (and I count myself as one of those as well) are saying that it's an insult to be called a lesbian? Of course, for the folks who feel the need to cut a woman down to size because she's gotten too powerful for their comfort, being called a lesbian probably would be an insult - powerful women are bad, lesbians are bad, powerful lesbians are the worst, in this paradigm.

And it's true that saying a woman is a lesbian merely because she's powerful (and therefore must be somehow manlike) is insulting - to women and even to lesbians (c'mon, it takes all types, even in the lesbian community, and we run the full gamut from masculine to feminine, and from weak to powerful - sometimes even within one single lesbian, so don't lump us all into one basket and call it a day; take the time to get to know your local lesbians - and there are some, I promise, no matter where you live - and you'll realize we're just as complicated and varied as the rest of you folks).

What bothers me is when it's left at that - you've insulted this woman's power by calling her a lesbian. I'm left wondering, is it okay if you are powerful and a lesbian? Or would that be a problem for feminists? I'm torn between understanding that inherent in the accusation is the reality that as far as we've come, women have a long way to go, and my realization that as far as we've come, lesbians have a long way to go, too.

Why is it anyone's business?

2006-07-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

This morning, I read this article and was left wondering (as I occasionally am), why does anyone care if anyone else is gay? I don't understand the investment in anyone else's sexuality or relationships, as long as no one is harmed. Pedophilia is a problem. Abusing your spouse is a problem. But I just can't understand why homosexuality is such an abomination.

Don't - don't! - tell me it's because the Bible says it is. The Bible says all sorts of things we understand are no longer relevant in today's world. So in my book, it's not valid to justify your bigotry through quoting the Bible (your book may be the Bible - mine isn't; I'll respect your book if you respect mine). Leonard Pitts Jr. says it eloquently here:

I've had it up to here with the moral hypocrisy and intellectual constipation of Bible literalists.
By which I mean people ... who dress their homophobia up in Scripture, insisting with sanctimonious sincerity that it's not homophobia at all, but just a pious determination to live according to what the Bible says.
And never mind that the Bible also says it is "disgraceful" for a woman to speak out in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-36) and that if she has any questions, she should wait till she gets home and ask her husband. Never mind that the Bible says the penalty for going to work on Sunday (Exodus 35:1-3) is death. Never mind that the Bible says the man who rapes a virgin should buy her from her father (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and marry her.
I'm going to speculate that you don't observe or support those commands. Which says to me that yours is a literalism of convenience, a literalism that is literal only so long as it allows you to condemn what you'd be condemning anyway and takes no skin off your personal backside.

I'm stuck back at that question - why does anyone care? Go ahead, believe it's a sin - I don't mind. I'll let you believe what you like, if you let me make a life with who I like. Is that a deal?

Because, when the argument comes down to gay animals, I start to get lost. On the one hand, I think - hey, if penguins are gay, it's clearly not an aberration of nature. But then I wonder - why is it an aberration of nature if it's humans, but not penguins? Do we blame society for homosexuality, but if we can prove it's not society, then we'll be okay with it? Ultimately, I'm not really sure how drawing the line somewhere, pointing to a cause, or a starting point, or a commonality with the rest of the animal kingdom, impacts the argument for or against homosexuals.

Let's get down to basics. The swans mentioned here are gay. I am gay. The swans and I are both animals, and frankly, I doubt either of us woke up one day and said, "Hey, I'm gonna be a queer." Are you straight? Did you wake up one day and say, "Hey, I'm gonna be straight"? Didn't think so. Didn't happen that way for me either. No matter what or how it was caused (you can believe it's God or nature or genetics or environment, or our rapidly deteriorating society) it just is.

But why does anyone care?

Here are sins I worry about: Some people starve to death while others have so much food, they throw it away rather than eat it. Some folks have no home while others have homes the size of Rhode Island. Some people rape, beat, murder other people. Some people are mean. God, I hate mean people - even when I'm having one of those days, and it's me being mean. Some people neglect their children - their own children, for goodness sake! Some people drive 85 mph, swerving between lanes, endangering not just their own lives, but the lives of everyone on the freeway. Those are sins!

Do what you will with your own life. Believe whatever you want, and please, please implement that in the life you create, just so long as you don't harm others. Just stop caring so much about my life, or else explain to me why it's any of your business. Please.

Too Many Words

2006-07-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

I had A---- read the blog the other day. I still feel like I haven't found my voice. And she nailed it when she told me I'm using too many words, but not going deep enough. This is why I haven't sent it out to the world at large yet. I'll keep working on it...happy to hear comments from others as well.

Words sometimes seem to get in the way. Especially with a topic as emotional as this. LB commented on the lack of logic behind arguments against gay marriage, and I suspect she's right. But I keep searching for it. But then, so often when discrimination is involved, logic is based on emotional assumptions - like saying blacks have to ride in the back of the bus because they're inferior. Hard to refute if someone believes it to be true, but certainly most of us here in the United States understand that there is something inherently wrong in such racist concepts. Let me digress on this topic for a moment - because I think exploring racism a bit helps to understand some of the arguments against gay marriage, even if it's not necessarily directly comparable, as some black leaders argue.

Most of us harbor all sorts of biases, both acknowledged and unacknowledged (I wrote a bit about this before). The chances are pretty good that occasionally you rely on stereotypes, or lumping groups of people together because of the color of their skin or their religion or their political beliefs. If you're white, the chances are quite good that, even if you believe that the Civil Rights Movement was a good thing, you are still biased in some ways against blacks. Maybe you realize you're doing it. Maybe you don't. But the biases still exist, in subtle and less subtle ways. It's a painful thing to confront if you like to believe yourself not racist (how I flinch when I hear that preface - "I'm not a racist, but...") and you may be one of the rare few who manages to escape all the cultural bombardment that teaches us to look at the "other" with skewed vision (this isn't limited solely to whites - blacks, too, suffer from this kind of biased thinking against people of other races, and even other blacks, and the same issues exist for Asians and Latinos).

Take a look at that Psychology Today article and consider that the chances are good that the potential employers reviewing those applications likely don't consider themselves racist, either. They probably had perfectly good reasons, in their own minds, why they rejected the candidates with the black-sounding names. But the fact remains, fewer folks with "black" names got called back. I'd be curious to hear what percentage of Americans consider themselves racist - does anyone have information about this? Apparently over 1/3 of French describe themselves as racist, but I somehow doubt Americans would be so forthcoming.

Something similar happens when it comes to the question of gay marriage. Certainly there are still plenty of folks out there who are openly homophobic. This seems to change for many people if they're close to someone who comes out. But for many straight people who don't consider themselves homophobic, some line gets crossed in their mind when it comes to gay marriage. You can base your arguments on all sorts of logic about what defines marriage, why it exists. But underlying that logic is an emotional attachment to the idea that gays and lesbians are different - separate but equal perhaps.

How can I claim to be any better, since apparently even I hold onto some such notion. I'm torn between an emotional desire to marry my partner, and some emotional reaction to the idea that I deserve to marry her as much as straight people deserve to marry their beloveds. And something in my personality, as emotional and irrational a person as I am, needs to feel there is logical underpinning to the idea that gay marriage should or shouldn't be allowed.

Personal Is Political

2006-07-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

In the wake of last Thursday's New York Court of Appeals decision, and thinking most particularly about today's California Supreme Court hearings on whether the ban on gay marriage in California is unconstitutional, I'm focusing more on what it would mean to me personally, rather than esoteric arguments about the pros and cons of gay marriage.

Whenever it seems possible that they could legalize it here, in California, my heart quickens. It's clear from the way I react that I desperately want to be able to marry A----. It astounds me what it feels like to make a life with someone, and it's rare that a day passes that I don't realize my love for her has deepened, broadened, enriched my life. I'm a traditionalist and a romantic in many ways, and I love the idea of marriage - the concept of one true love, the security of promising to spend your life with someone, the invitation to your community to recognize, honor and participate in that relationship. I want all of that for myself, for us, and my response when it seems like it could happen is visceral.

When Mayor Gavin Newsom briefly was able to legalize gay marriage in San Francisco, we were in France. We heard of what was happening when a retired English general remarked to us in the local bar how extraordinary the events in SF were - he seemed so thrilled by what was going on, and so completely without guile, that we weren't really sure we understood until we got to the local library to check our email the following Monday. There we were, 8,000 miles from home, on a three-month self-imposed exile, literally in the middle of nowhere, and reading about what was happening in our own city, to many of our own friends, and it seemed so extraordinary and wonderful and impossible.

So much of the press around those events was about the couples who chose to get married - all the celebrations, the flowers arriving from around the country and the world, the sold-out hotels, the jubilation in the streets. But I wonder, sometimes, how many relationships ended that weekend when suddenly couples were confronted by a question that had thus far been only the purview of straights - what are your intentions? Without the need to buy a ring, commit to a date, walk down the aisle, sign the papers, it's so much easier not to discuss long term plans for the relationship, to go on with life, each assuming that the other shares a common vision for the future. There is no lack of a proposal, or accidental pregnancy, to force the issue. So what impact did it have on all those relationships when everyone woke up one morning to suddenly find they could get married - and that it seemed everyone was doing it? Surely heartbreak existed right along with all those nuptials.

Indeed, I think about that question when the arguments about whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to be parents come up. Inherent in the gay culture (whatever that is) is this sense that gay and lesbian relationships aren't permanent or condoned by the larger society. Some of us opt to think of our relationships differently, but there's a different set of pressures on straight couples. I watch my straight friends fend off relatives and even relative strangers, as they are asked again and again why they aren't married (if they are single) and when they are going to set a date (if they are in a relationship). It hovers over heterosexual couples in a way that even the most marriage-minded gays and lesbians can't relate to. And it means that built into our inability to get legally married there comes a real freedom that might not exist any longer if we were suddenly the norm, and our families expected us to get married, too. With a different set of expectations comes a different approach to relationships that might impact the statistics about whether gay and lesbian relationships last, even if someone actually bothered to compare couples who considered themselves married to wedded heteros.

Back to this parenting thing for a second, though. I keep drifting away from it. In the conversations that happen among those that oppose gay marriage and parenting, there's a certain lack of knowledge about the reality of becoming a gay parent - it's not something you go into lightly. There's no such thing as an accidental pregnancy when you're involved with someone of the same sex. There's no casual conversation or choice about not using protection and "just seeing what happens." To become a gay or lesbian parent, you have to make some serious choices, often plunk down some serious cash, and even if the conversation starts out light, if you actually get to the point where you become a parent, you've really made a choice to follow through at that point - seriously committed to the process and the result.

This doesn't mean that every gay or lesbian couple that becomes parents never breaks up. But it strikes me as a fascinating juxtaposition that all sorts of heterosexuals can become parents without thinking about it - and that Maggie Gallagher and Dr. James Dobson can make blanket statements indicating that they're inherently more qualified to be parents than any gay or lesbian couple could possibly be.

Some element of the argument against gay marriage, then, twists around and starts to contradict itself. Queers shouldn't be parents because they can't get married, and they can't get married because their relationships don't last, and therefore they shouldn't be parents, which is the only reason folks should get married at all - a bit of a circular argument. And don't even get me started on heterosexuals who don't want kids and are allowed to get married. With arguments like these I'm starting to wonder if you should be required to prove you're not barren before you're allowed to tie the knot.

Biased Thinking

2006-07-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

How often do you think about your biases? I was raised with biases - weren't you? Born into a commune, I grew up in San Francisco, the offspring of hippie parents with clear ideological tendencies. Even when my father took a position contrary to my own - which is usually the typical bleeding heart viewpoint - I'm pretty sure it was to stir up debate and get everyone thinking, not because he actually did vote for Reagan. That's just the kind of Libra he is.

So, when I read this article, and then did a little research on Rick Riedel, it took me awhile to get over the fact that a minister from South Dakota wrote it. It really never occured to me that someone from South Dakota - anyone, let alone a minister - might write such a clear-headed defense of gay families. Isn't everyone in the flyover states adamently opposed to homosexuality? Don't Christians believe it's a sin?

Me and my knee jerk reactions had to consider the possibility that assumptions were getting in the way of real thought. Because this minister from South Dakota - a Christian man unbiased by the force of the gay and lesbian families that inhabit every block in my neighborhood - sounds more sure in his conviction that we shouldn't be biased against gay and lesbian families than I am.

Rick Riedel's piece bitch-slapped me with my own biases. I'm biased against South Dakotans and gay families. Say what!?

I think we're more accepting of those we love than we are of ourselves. Or maybe that's just me. I'm pretty sure my family doesn't struggle even a little with the fact that I'm a lesbian (honestly, I think they believe it's cool to have a lesbian in the family). But I do. I question my sense of entitlement every day.

I'm in love with A----, plan to grow old with her. I have chosen to commit to this person, even recognizing that as easy and wonderful as it is now, it probably won't always be so, and I have committed to myself that there won't be any easy outs from this relationship (something I'm frankly not so sure many straight people commit to when they marry, given the divorce rates). If I could marry her legally, I would in an instant. And there are plenty of folks in our lives who would celebrate such a thing.

But when we decided to formalize our commitment, diamond rings and vows and all, we did it privately, just the two of us. Why? Well, in part because it felt more personal that way, an incredibly sweet moment shared only by the betrothed. And because we're cheap and didn't want to spend all that cash on a party. There was also the fact that A----'s family is still coming around, and we weren't sure if they would show up to the wedding (although you should see the progress they've made - we're so proud! But more on that another day).

In the back of my head, though, is the main reason I didn't push for a wedding. This sad, niggling little doubt. The one that wonders if all those people in the middle of the country - the ones I biasedly assume hate me - are right. Do I deserve to marry A---- just because I love her? I wonder, secretly, if all our supporters would be thinking the same thing, cattily chatting among themselves about our pretense at reality.

Frame it around any of my gay or lesbian couple friends, and I would tell you without hesitation that they have as legitimate a right to get married as my straight friends do. Like I said, it's easier when you're talking about someone you love, rather than yourself. But there's something to this need on my part to acknowledge and think through my biases, whether they're about South Dakotan Christians or marriage-minded queers. In this endless debate we seem to be engaged in as a nation (and it goes well beyond the questions around marriage and sexuality), how often do we each step back and recognize our biases? How often do we question them? When was the last time you really considered where the "other side" was coming from?

I have an incredible stake in this marriage question. The tax ramifications for us would be huge. The legal ramifications instant and gratifying. And I am brought to tears at the thought of the personal implications - what it would mean to feel accepted by society like that. It is easy for me to ignore that voice in the back of my head, to close my ears to the arguments against gay marriage without even considering them, because I know, I know, I should be allowed to marry A----.

But then how would we ever get anywhere? If I take that position, those who oppose gay marriage have no obligation to question their biases, to pay attention to the voices that may be niggling at the back of their head, to really listen to the arguments in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to marry. And, so, in my commitment to really thinking through the ramifications of gay marriage, I am going to explore more than my own perspective, and I am going to examine my biases, and I am going to consider the arguments very carefully, both for and against.

Next post, I'm going to consider the liberal case against gay marriage.

Apples to Oranges

2006-06-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

The article that finally inspired me to start writing about all this stuff was a debate in USA Today about whether gays and lesbians should adopt. The central point these two (straight?) men debate is whether gay and lesbian couples are indeed stable, and thus whether being adopted by such a couple would be better for children than the inherently unstable environment of the foster care system.

Let's set aside the fact that the numbers they're discussing are at best outdated, at worst irrelevant. The central premise of their argument seems flawed. They are comparing the relative longevity of gay/lesbian relationships to straight marriages. But that's comparing apples to oranges. A good many straight relationships break up long before they get to the alter, just like gay and lesbian relationships which last varying amounts of time. And, of course, since gays and lesbians can't marry most places in the world, it's harder to track data about how long the committed queer relationships last. But this is what needs to be looked at in comparison to that 50% success rate with straight marriages - how many gay/lesbian couples who consider themselves married survive? If we're going to have this debate, please let's have it on an equal playing field.

Introduction

2006-06-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Over lunch today, I realized that between my personal investment in and experience around gay marriage, and my job reading endless content from today's leading magazines and newspapers - most of which include regular articles about the subject - it might be worth starting to write about gay marriage, and so here I begin.

Full disclosure: I am a 32-year-old lesbian in a relationship with A----, a woman I consider my wife. I both cringe and get excited when I refer to her as my wife. The word doesn't fit somehow, but like all forbidden fruit, is endlessly tempting. It's political when that's not the intention at all, and yet nothing else is right. "Partner" sounds so...efficient, and strips away all the sense of romance, and there's plenty of romance here. "Girlfriend" is used by straight women all the time to indicate a good female friend, not to mention the fact that we've made a commitment to each other that takes us beyond the girlfriend stage. "Lover" is just way too much information for casual conversation (or most conversations, to tell the truth). If anyone has a great alternative - a word that encompasses the commitment, the joy, the seriousness of the relationship without taking it into a political realm, post it here or send it to me.

Therein lies my confession. I am an out lesbian, and yet I struggle on some level with how to name my relationship, and with the politics that are somehow inherent in my true commitment to another person. Here I plan to explore that conflict, the intersections between the personal and the political, the ways in which the public debate rages in my head, my tendency to cry from happiness when someone legalizes gay marriage in some small way, and to simultaneously, secretly, wonder if there is some merit to the argument that gay marriage indeed threatens the institution. Call it schizophrenia. Call it internalized homophobia (another term I hate). Call it a real attempt to think beyond my own backyard, and to react in some way that isn't solely knee jerk. Call it what you will, but it's my reality, and I've decided to share it with you.