isn’t that a great name for a Supreme Court case? i thought so.

what i thought even more amazing was this text, from the decision:

Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

and with that, in 1964, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 was overturned, once and for all. the anti-miscegenation laws are now far behind us, but do you know that until 1991, we would not have had a voting majority to agree. i’m very glad that interracial couples did not have to wait until 1991 for the general public (who are notorious assholes, as a group) to agree that it was ok for them to have this ‘basic civil right’.

quote, and Supreme Court case, discovered reading Robot Monkey Pants.

i used to be just a personal blog. i used to be allll about me & occasionally about my computer, and for some reason it feels a little odd to shift focus like this, especially to a single issue, social &/or political. demonstrating this, i start this post out talking more about me, me, me. yeah, it’s all about … to change. well, not all. but this is change. i’m a lizard, i kick the habit, shed my skin.

trying to figure out why it is i’ve attached myself to the cause of marriage equality. best excuse reason i can come up with is, this is my civil rights movement. i was approximately 2.5 years of age when Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in the march on Washington. although i did (in my own, elementary school periphery) follow the civil rights movement, i did not live in an atmosphere that encouraged that. my parents would never, not in a bazillion years attended a protest, let alone taken me to one. but in my own, ADD-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye-distracted-daydreamy type of way, i did follow. i did also spectate the summer of love, at age six & living just across the bay from San Francisco, watching the hippies on the news and … daydreaming. & as soon as i was old enough to think up reasonable reasons to do so, i would take the bus down Bancroft Avenue & end up in Berkeley in People’s Park hanging out with vagrants & students (& chemists, ok? they had some talent there in the seventies, let me tell you). i have always been a counterculture wannabe.

& that part of me that always wanted to be is both delighted & honored to find my self, at my age, with a cause that is every bit as important as the struggles of the 60’s and 70’s, & (having had a life of major fuckup-related stress distractions in the interim), excited to finally be able to join a movement about something important & have that matter, even if only in the most infinitesimal way. because, what we have here before us today is an era in which the grassroots movement has been proven, in a decisive & undeniable way, to be the absolute perfect way to get shit done. we put an African-American in the White House because he was the right (electable) person for the job, how hard does that rock? in a less imperfect world, that wouldn’t have been a big deal but in this one? yeah. “Congratulations on being a part of the decision that made this nation move well and with style.” oh you betcha. this is the new stuff, i go dancing in …

so in this new nation in which we can move with such style, well, what now? nothing rhetorical about that question, seriously, i’m asking … what next? i’ve joined some groups & signed up for some things. i’ve been to the first protest of my life, and i brought my kids (including my 11 year old’s friend who was over for the day & we all agreed we didn’t need to mention this to his mom because she over-reacts). yeah, i snuck a tweenager over to a gay marriage rally because he personally believed in it & i want to encourage that kind of rebellion. also, i’ve always been the ‘cool mom’, the one that would rather be talked to than lied to. and in my daughter’s adolescence that also made me the one that got the calls from VPD at one in the morning, & i held my counsel, & continued to be the one that wasn’t lied to, & that’s another story entirely. i digress, but i always digress, so … deal with it.

i’ll repeat the question, what’s next? i do not require answers but appreciate them where applicable. i myself will continue to do what i do best, ping things & join things & make what noise i have time to make, which might not be all that much, considering. my point, if a rambling thing like this blog post has such a thing, is that i have found my cause, my civil rights movement, my larger thing in which i might be a very small part & have that matter, no matter how much.

i have to digress one more time, i would apologize but i’m not particularly sorry. you know who would make a great Secretary of State? John McCain. you know who would make a great Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare? Hillary Clinton. feel free to yell at me about that, or about digressing in such a completely random & less-than-sensical fashion. make some noise!

i missed most of it. and for this, i suffered the loss of the full experience, and i regret it. however, considering i was up most of the night before with the heat & the winds & the allergies that felt like a flu, i accept that i did what i could. got up, got some Zyrtec (amazing stuff, fixed me right up), cleaned the car (it was bad), packed it with me & some kids, headed down to Mission Park right around the time the main protest was supposed to be ending.

it did not end then, nor had it ended by the time i left, an hour & a half after that. a core group of energetic anti-haters stayed and stayed and chanted and chanted and passers-by either honked & waved & thumbs-upped, or (and there were less of these) averted their eyes & pretended we were not there.

but we were there, we will be here, and we will not go away. ever. so get used to it.

we found this sign, adopted it, waved it, and passed it on to others when we left.

i missed so much, but i still came away with such a feeling of love and pride. my two sons came with me, along with their friends. we waved signs, we chanted chants, we talked to some amazing people. and do you know what? there were more straight people there than not. there was such an amazing variety of right-thinking humans there making their voices heard for what is right. there were families, kids, grandmas, teenagers, and a drag queen or two in full regalia (assuring his friend that he was indeed wearing panties under his short skirt). there was a pretty young dark-haired girl who did not appear to know anyone there, with a small homemade sign saying Prop 8 was unfair & wrong. she did not wave it, nor chant; she stood off to the side with her sign, alone, not interacting with anyone, just being there for the cause. i refrained from taking her picture, it would have been intrusive i think, for she radiated shyness.  and i might respect her most of all, just for getting out, just for showing up, just for standing up for what is right even though she was doing this, in her own world, all by herself.

because as i, and my children, and everyone who attended this rally today know, there is only one right thing, and that is our rights. civil rights, human rights. anything that everyone but a select few can do, is a right. anything that any minority is excluded from based solely on their status as a member of that miniroty, is a right that is unfairly granted to all who enjoy it. it’s in the California constitution, still: “A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens.” they didn’t amend that with Prop 8. they can’t. the fight is not over, yet. but there is no doubt in my mind that right will prevail.

you know, i love it when i hear someone joking that they approve of gay marriage because ‘everyone should be just as miserable as i am’. it acknowledges the inherent rightness of equality, while using humor to dispel any lingering discomfort with the concept of gay marriage, which is fairly recent, at least in this iteration of civilization. i choose to see humor as progress.

today i had many conversations in several venues, and in order to make my point and get my facts straight, i did a lot of research, and i learned many things. in case this helps, here are some rational, fact-based responses if you are ever up against these misconceptions:

MYTH: marriage is a religious concept and has always been between a man and a woman.
FACT: marriage predates recorded history, but the earliest known traditions in Greco-Roman times were intended to define who got the dowry, who inherited what, and who was the boss of who. and yes, there were same-sex unions. they followed more or less the same patterns, with one partner (the male, in a male/female marriage) would be older, and the younger partner (usually the woman) would be passed from the control of father, to that of the spouse.

so, marriage then, as now, was a very similar and mostly practical arrangement. it was about property rights, social position, defining the shift from being your parents’ child to forming your own family, and how many goats that was gonna cost one of your dads. and of course commitment and love. and if not for love, at least for some sort of strategic alliance. religion got involved much later on and acted like it invented the concept, but no.

MYTH: civil unions are just as good as marriage.
FACT: only a handful of states offer civil unions. many who do, specifically refuse to recognize the civil unions of other states. civil unions do not convey the same rights to pensions and security benefits and do not establish “kinship”, which marriage does. marriage creates familial relation between unrelated people, and this kinship is recognized across state and international borders. why can’t we extend this to civil unions? well, that it would have to be enacted at the federal level, which violates state’s rights – and states still decide who marries. it would certainly be a daunting legal challenge, and it would still carry the ’separate but equal’ stigma.

MYTH: the majority in California has spoken, and they have rejected gay marriage
FACT: there are serious constitutional issues surrounding the passage of Proposition 8. it was put on the ballot as an amendment, rather than a revision, to the constitution. by law, an amendment is a simple change to one section of the constitution, while a revision is a more complex and far-reaching change, sometimes to multiple sections at once. even though Proposition 8 only added 14 words to one section, it revokes the rights of a “suspect class”, which is a legally recognized minority. by law, matters pertaining to suspect classes must fall under the “strictest scrutiny”, and (as the lawyers are now arguing), this makes Prop 8 a revision, which would need a 2/3 vote in the House and then a majority of citizen votes.

a little history: in 2000, the voters approved a ban on gay marriage. the Supreme Court overturned this ban (after ruling that gays are a suspect class), and that the ban unconstitutionally discriminated against them under section 7(b), which states, “A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens.” this is why proposition 8 was placed on the ballot as an amendment. they couldn’t pass an unconstitutional law, so they changed the constitution. and there’s a good chance they did that in an unconstitutional fashion.

MYTH: without Proposition 8, churches would be forced to marry gays, or face sanctions
FACT: the state’s role in marriage is very limited: they issue the license which is necessary to create a legal and binding contract out of a ceremony of the couple’s choice. they also enforce the legal provisions to the contract, and decide who gets the house, the kids, and the goats, should the parties decide they want out of the contract. it’s this contract that same-sex couples are denied the right to, there’s nothing sacred about it. there is no stipulation that requires that the contract be blessed by a religious institution – yes it’s true, atheists are allowed to marry. the couple can choose to be married by a judge, a magistrate, a ‘marriage commissioner’, or of course a member of the clergy. some California counties even have a “deputy for a day” program that allows non-clergy friends and relatives to officiate at a wedding. your pet psychic could be ordained by the Universal Life Church and marry you while channeling your dearly departed cat. tom cruise could marry you on his yacht, where he achieves the highest possible operating thetan level. the possibilities are endless. the sacredness, or lack thereof, is up to the individuals involved.

the bottom line is, no church could be forced to perform a gay marriage. that would be unconstitutional.

ok, that’s enough for now. there will be more, oh yes.

a wise woman once advised me that to get a message across, it is necessary to repeat it again and again until people hear it in their sleep. so here it is: “A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens.”