A year ago tonight, Mark and I were in Scottsdale Arizona, watching on national TV as our home town of Chicago celebrated the election of Barack Obama, while five miles down the road, the challenger, John McCain, conceded defeat to his hometown supporters. Mark and I were thrilled and conducted a tearful and "rowdy" celebration of our own amid the quiet of the condominiums surrounding us.
Today, my heart is heavy with sadness and anger as I must accept the defeat of gay marriage rights in the state of Maine. I have a friend in Maine and I know he's hurting, too. Mark and I just shake our heads, certain that we do not deserve to be a part of a populace that rallies against us...and that the populace doesn't deserve us, either.
This weary rage I feel in the face of the smug sanctimony of the ignorant touches the same nerve as the bully on the school playground....or Hollywood on March 5, 2006, when Oscar turned its back on Brokeback Mountain...And while my life will continue tomorrow relatively unchanged from today, I feel as though I will walk a silent gauntlet, amid veiled glances of vindication from the non-supporters, despite the sympathetic gazes of well-meaning friends...
This should not be a matter for popular vote. If states had been able to vote on interracial marriage in the Civil-Rights era of the 1960's, would a popular vote to ban interracial marriage have been upheld as law? Why, oh why do we continue to put up with this piecemeal erosion of our basic rights? Why this tolerance for religious intolerance? Why not combine forces for the ultimate fight for a new Civil Rights law, for the protection of Gay marriage rights, that is nationwide?
Palm Springs Modernism Week
8 years ago
Great post Tom! You write so eloquently about how conservative factions do such dishonor to our country in their continued attempts to segregate a part of our population and deny them basic human rights. It's disgraceful that in this day and age that hate, in this instance directed at the gay community, is so openly advocated by religious and right-wing groups intent on "saving" us from ourselves. Shameful.
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