An Open Letter To President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I followed the story of your grandmother with heartfelt interest because mine was also a huge influence on me. She was the one constant in a dysfunctional family with a father who was absent most of the time and a mother who worked all of the time. As the oldest child it often fell to me to take care of my younger brother and sister and the household too, especially since my grandmother was already a senior citizen when she came to live with us.

My grandmother immigrated to America a couple years after we did. It took that long to save the money to sponsor her, and during that time she struggled to survive until we could send for her. As I was growing up, she was my support, my encouragement, my source of hope. And she had endless stories of what it was like to live through two world wars, how she managed to stay on the safe side of political struggles that redefined the boundaries of her home every few years, and all the ways she escaped the horrors of the Nazis and the Fascists.

But there was one story I did not learn until after her death, and it was about one of her sisters who remained behind. In retrospect, she probably suspected her sister was a Lesbian, but in the period of time that extended from the turn of the century through the 1960's, it was not a topic one discussed lightly in any of her homes: the former Yugoslavia, Italy, or the United States. But it is a story that haunts me because it is one that is far too common even today.

My grandmother's sister lived with her partner for most of her adult life. I can only imagine what it was like to live openly with her "roommate" all those years. I'm sure they had friends. I'm sure her partner had family. But we never knew any of them. We never knew if she was safe, if she was fed, if she was afraid. She disappeared into a world where secrets are kept for life. She disappeared into a world where it was impossible to immigrate as her sister had done, as just about everyone who was related to her had done. She was left alone with only the woman she loved, a woman we could never bring here because she was not related to us by blood. In the eyes of the law, she was not family, no matter how many years she lived with my grandmother's sister as her life partner. The law would let us bring her but not the woman she loved. The law would make her abandon her partner. She chose the path of her heart and stayed behind.

I think of what my life could have been like with more than one granny, more than one adult who could nurture me, who could help me grow, or who could just help me in the many small ways that left me exhausted when I should have been playing with all the other kids. And I think of how lonely my grandmother's sister was when her partner died, how alone she must have felt. I can't even think of this without breaking into tears. I can't even begin to comprehend the unfairness of it in any way that would sense.

Mr. President, I tell you this story because this story is still being played out all over the world. I have American friends who are gay, who fell in love with citizens of other countries. In so many cases these other countries have afforded them citizenship rights and recognized the legality of their marriages. I have friends who have lived in other countries with their partners for many years and now they want to come home to the America that has new promise, new hope because of your Presidency.

But in order to do so they still have to make the choice my grandmother's sister had to make. I want to believe we are a better people than that time. I want to believe that we no longer split up families, people who love each other because of bad laws. But all the evidence says we still do and will continue to do so.

That's why I'm asking for your help in passing the UNITING AMERICAN FAMILIES ACT. It's time to bring home your citizens who want to help make America realize it's true potential as a beacon of hope and promise to the rest of the world. They want to be part of what we're creating together. But please, Mr. President, don't make them choose between love of country and love of their partners. Please help pass this vital piece of legislation for all Americans, no matter what their sexual orientation.

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An Open Letter To President Obama

Overturn Proposition 8

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Let me put this in terms that just about any moron can understand: proposition 8 was not about gay marriage; it was about voting to take away one group's civil rights. It wasn't even about marriage. All legal marriages are civil marriages. If you get married in a church without that official STATE license you have to fill out, sign, pay your fee and send back to the STATE, then you are not legally married.

Proposition 8 was a church-funded assault on the civil liberties of one select group of citizens and their right to engage in a civil ceremony. It was bigotry and hatred on a scale that brings shame on these churches for even invoking the name of Jesus.

Where in those damn holy books does it say one group of human beings should be denied a civil ceremony because of someone else's religious beliefs? And why are churches who politicize the pulpit allowed to keep their tax-exempt status? When they take funds from their donors/congregations for influence peddling and election tampering then they are officially PAC's and need to register as such. And they need to pay taxes on the money they raised for political actions because it sure as hell isn't going to help the poor and hungry.

And let me put this another way that just about any moron can understand. My grandmother's sister was a Lesbian. She was born in the late 1800's and lived with her partner in Italy for their entire adult lives. They were two women who shared a home for decades. And not even their own families knew they were a couple, knew they were part of an enduring life-long relationship they had to live in secret.

And when my grandmother's sister died the secret some had suspected was revealed in the lone photograph of her lover, the woman she shared her entire life with. We don't know her name. We don't know how and when she died. We don't know if at that time and place, close friends were allowed to be with each other when the other died. We don't know if it was as it is in so many hospitals here that only one's "legal" family can be with the dying patient, no matter how many years they shared, how much they loved one another, how lonely they must die without the presence of the other.

How can a church justify this kind of sorrow, this kind of heartache and loneliness? How can its congregation think such pain, such despair is approved by their precious Jesus? Will someone please explain to me how hate came to mean love and how tolerance came to mean interfering in someone else's right to the same rights as every one else? And if you can, then maybe I will understand why so many thought it was acceptable to hurt so many in the name of their god. If they think that's okay, then maybe they need a new god.

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Overturn Proposition 8

Why Isn't Sarah Palin Pregnant?

Sarah Palin is a member of Feminists for Life who share the view of extreme fetus-fanatics that birth control is a form of abortion.

"Today, pro-life groups in the U.S. are reclassifying the most common contraception methods, including the birth control pill, the patch, the IUD and the depo-shot, as “abortifacients,” claiming, with no scientific backing, that they cause abortions. On their website, Feminists for Life classifies emergency contraception as an abortion method. If this were true, Feminists for Life should also classify 40 percent of all birth control methods as abortion methods because they all have the same mode of action as emergency contraception. Feminists for Life's colleague, the American Life League, shares this view explaining, “We have been working to prove that prescription contraceptives have nothing to do with women's health and well-being but are recreational drugs that prevent fertilization and abort children.” Northern Kentucky Right to Life will only endorse candidates who believe the use of the standard birth control pill constitutes abortion. Most chillingly, Army of God, a pro-life organization that lists those who murder abortion providers as “heroes,” also classifies birth control as an abortion method. On the “Birth Control is Evil” section of their website they explain, quite threateningly, “Birth control is evil and a sin. Birth control is anti-baby and anti-child…Why would you stop your own child from being conceived or born? What kind of human being are you?”" read more

So, either Ms. Caribou Barbie is following the tenets of abstinence only that her daughter failed to heed, or she is using birth control. Which is it?

And for those who think it is nobody's business, then why is it okay for Palin and others who believe as she does that it's okay to legislate what goes on in the bedroom of homosexuals? If they get their heads out of other people's sex lives, then I will too. But as long as they continue to try and define what is normal sex and with whom, then it's only fair that questions about Ms. Moose's potential use of birth control pills, condoms, or other "unnatural" methods to avoid pregnancy is a question she needs to answer, especially if her beliefs lead to a ban on these methods should the unspeakable happen and she is put in a position to enforce her insane views.

So, Governor...how come you ain't pregnant?


Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, abstinence only education, anti-birth control, Feminists For Life, Religious extremism

Why Isn't Sarah Palin Pregnant?

Only when it's someone else's bedroom

If the Republican party still had a few delusions left that it could draw anything to it but rightwing crackpots, it threw those to the hurricane strength winds driving their karma up the gulf when it started screaming about the "liberal media" going after Palin's daughter. read more

First of all, Ms. Palin of the multiple investigations into your sleazy life, when you make it your business what everyone does in the privacy of their bedrooms and try and cram your abstinence only crap down people's throats, your daughter's oopsie pregnancy is news because it points out the failures of that policy.

Second of all, it's only a "liberal media" because someone other than Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or anyone of your toadies is focusing on one of your own instead of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, or any other Democrat caught in a sex scandal. If you really want to get nasty, how about trying to explain why all the Republican scandals involve little boys and girls and the Democrats involve consenting adults. Really, the liberal media all over the world would like to hear you answer that question.

But I suppose you're too busy to answer that one as it takes a lot of time to peep inside the bedrooms of Gays and Lesbians, time that would be better spent teaching your daughter how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy rather than remembering how to keep her legs together and hollering for Jesus to help her resist those raging hormones.



Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, Liberal Media Bias, Republican convention, failed Republican policies, perverts, Bristol Palin, baby daddy

Only when it's someone else's bedroom

Del Martin

For those of you who somehow missed hearing or reading about Del Martin, here's a synopsis of her remarkable life.

"Del Martin, a lesbian rights pioneer who took part in one of California's first same-sex weddings, died today in San Francisco after a long period of declining health. She was 87." read more

This amazing woman and her partner Phyllis had a very large impact on my life. It started with my grandmother's sister who was a Lesbian in Italy. She was born somewhere before the turn of the century in Yugoslavia. I can't imagine how difficult it was to have anything like a normal life in that part of the world at that time. And yet she did, and lived with her partner until death parted them. I know that my grandmother didn't really know until she was at least in her 70's and 80's and even then it was something impossible for her to wrap her brain around. It was easier for my mother to understand and accept. Recently, one of my cousins is trying to track down the her partner's family because through our grandmothers, we are connected and that needs to be acknowledged, their love and commitment for each other needs to be acknowledged.

It was for my grandmother and also one of my cousins that I am grateful for Del Martin's responsibility for getting the American Psychiatric Association to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness.

I also owe her for being one of the fortunate few who broke the chain of domestic violence in our relationships. My mother was often severely beaten and abused. Del Martin's work to publicize domestic violence opened the door to women like me being able to walk away from a relationship that had the potential for violence. Through her I knew I deserved better than the hell my mother endured. And through her courage in speaking out to all women in similar situation I was able to break that chain.

As one of the many people who attended far too many memorial services in the 80's for friends who died of AIDS, I saw my share of life partners denied those precious final moments at the bedside of those they loved before they passed away. Del Martin's work to change this horrible tragedy allowed life partners to share in all aspects of their loved one's lives and deaths. It allowed them to marry in California and the day it became legal to do so, she and Phyllis married as did many of my friends who live in the Bay area.

So thank you Del Martin from this straight woman who owes you so much. You will be sorely missed, but what you leave behind will continue to heal and inspire people for generations to come.Technorati Tags: Del Martin, Gay Marriage, Lesbian, Domestic Violence, Equality

Del Martin