Won't Someone Please Think of the Children?

It's as bad as we thought, people. Recent research now quantifies the impact of gay marriage on the world (from buzzfeed.com):

I've kept fairly quiet on this so far, as I think it's fairly obvious where I stand. But I'll say this much just to get it off my chest:

So here's the deal, America. Human rights are for humans. As in all humans. You don't get to decide which ones. You don't get to negotiate or legislate or equivocate mine while yours are a birthright.

And you for damn sure don't get to stand behind made-up excuses that are designed to create action out of fear while in reality it comes down to this: you don't support gay marriage because you're a bigot.

You're not doing this to protect the childen. Or the churches. It ain't the end of the world. Or a threat to the sanctity of the whole shenanigans.

It's your bigotry that's holding us back. And we deny you that right. We'll have exactly what you have, and we won't rest until we have it. That's what Americans do. It's why humans everywhere have risen against bigotry. It's why tyrants fall and corrupted systems find themselves powerless. And if you want to worry about anything, that's what should worry you most.

Not So Funny Business

On Thursday, the 1st District Court of Appeals upheld California's ban on gay marriage. This summer, high courts in New York and Washington states also refused to strike down laws prohibiting same-sex marriage.

Rusty and I have been together for the last 11 years. 11. Count 'em, you judicial fuckers. 4,015 days.

We own a house. And a dog. Well, it's more like the dog owns us. But we own the back yard he counts as his toilet. We've fought. We've laughed. We've fucked. Just like everyone else.

And for each of us, there was a time when we thought we were watching the other one die. Seriously. No hyperbole. There was one day in those 4,015 when it looked like I might bleed to death. And there was about a week in those 573 weeks when it looked like complications from Rusty's surgery were going to prevail.

Luck prevailed instead in both cases. But what if it hadn't?

Due to circumstances that aren't important to this rant, our house is in Rusty's name. Had he died, I promise you that the house we've laughed and fought and fucked in for the past decade would no longer be mine. His family would have rights to it that I'd be denied. They've never been in my home. Not that they wouldn't be welcome. But they've never wanted to be any part of the last 14,600 days of Rusty's life. And so they are not.

They don't send Christmas cards. They don't call on his birthday. They certainly don't invite us over for dinner. They don't drop by when they're passing through. They ... just don't.

But they'd own my home. And I'd be out. It would take just about as long as it's taken to type this.

Now of course you can say that we can protect ourselves from this by paying an attorney thousands of dollars to make certain I'm protected as well as I have to be. You're right. And we have ... but not everyone in our situation has that kind of cash or the wherewithal to know what to do.

But here's the question the high courts and every last pig-fucking mouth-breather who doesn't think Rusty and I deserve to be married should answer: Why should we have to do that?

Why is the right of survivorship something I have to pay for when other people wake up and have it for free? And don't get me started on taxes and the mountains of other things that all the money in the world to an attorney will never afford us.

Why should anyone in this country wake up and be three-fifths of what anyone else is? And why aren't we rioting in the streets?

I'll be funny tomorrow. Today, I simply can't afford it.