PRESERVE marriage rights in California

an hour in a phone meeting, more organizing. Now back to the telephones.

Oh, yes, and I have other work, too!

from the California General Election Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Official Voter Information Guide:

Prop 8 Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. Initiative Constitutional Ammendment.

it eliminates the right. again, wow.

even if I thought the definition of “marriage” and “family” should be held rigid and never change, even in today’s globalizing world _{and I don’t}

actually the culturally accepted idea of family has expanded from the relatively new idea of nuclear family w/ mom, dad, kids to also include single parents with kids, or grandparents raising grandkids, or a couple with no kids, etc etc etc, and that’s not including the practice of international adoption or foster parenting, or grandparents living with the nuclear family, either. in a way it seems ironic that, after so much struggle for the right to divorce, and the right not to have to marry anyone at all (especially for women), people are now struggling for the right to get married. but this is not just about the LGBT community. what this really is about is the right to marry whom you want to marry, never mind their gender or sexuality. in the past, we struggled for the right to marry the person of our choice regardless of their (and our) class, caste, race, creed, religious denomination, etc. but we are still finishing the job here.

even if I had issues ?perhaps religious? with homosexuality or transgender relationships _{and I don’t}

if I did think it was against religion somehow, then I’d make sure that I didn’t do it myself, and leave the judging of others to God

even if I had the slightest confidence in the beneficent authority of government to know and do what is best for its citizens _{completely laughable}

I would still never vote for any constitutional ammendment that eliminates any rights.

courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Martin_Niemoeller.jpg

“There is an important sense in which a relationship is always public. It is not just two people but, as its boundary conditions, their connection to the whole of society… Marriage has the function of formalizing this public relationship, which is why marriage is always something more than love and never ‘just a piece of paper’. We often talk about love as commitment, but compared to marriage, all other romantic commitments seem abstract indeed, no matter how gallant or loyal the lovers, no matter how often they say to each other – or to themselves – that they will always be together.”

_{Robert C. Solomon in About Love, page 85}

_{btw, no, I did not consciously imitate Adar’s avatar, although my Guinevere does look amazingly like her Xena, Princess Warrior XD}

It is too important an issue to leave unmarked or unaddressed.

This is a human rights matter. Married people should all enjoy all the same marital rights.

It astonishes me actually that so many people think and feel their rights somehow supersede someone else’s rights. I cannot understand why so many people think other people’s personal decisions should match up with their personal decisions.

Can it be that there is a streak of recidivist thinking in our culture that has a block of people convinced we should all match up like buttons on a wedding gown?

to the tune of about 10 hours a week. Tonight I went to a meeting over in San Francisco about the No on 8 campaign, and learned a lot specifically about talking about a piece of legislation in a nonprofit environment.

Amazing the stuff I’m learning.

Emailing, phoning, phone meeting, organizing.

A side benefit of this is that I have learned how to use Excel to organize ANYTHING.

“Vote NO on 8” with a background of the California State flag… it’s my new accessory for every outfit.

on this goal?

I’m opposed to Proposition 8 because before the California State Supreme Court ruled that gay and lesbian Californians have the same right to marry that everyone else does, the “domestic partnership” band-aid on the issue was creating second-class families in this state.

My family isn’t second-class. All families should be equal.

If you agree with me, please join me in this goal! Or if you don’t like the wording, set up a goal of your own to oppose Proposition 8. If it is adopted, we will amend the State Constitution of California in order to take away the rights of citizens. I’m very concerned that people know to Vote NO on 8 this November.

that I hope will point me to next steps on this goal.

I want to do ALL I can.

a meeting tonight of folks working on this goal. I decided that I’m going to put several other projects on “Hold” for a while and put my heart and soul into this one.

More soon.