California Decision on the Proposition

Just wanted to quickly chime in on the recent Ca court decision on Proposition 8. It's been killing me not to have the time to get right on it as the news broke.

The significant up side for us personally is, of course: my family came out of all this with equal rights in several states and some countries with our still-valid Ca marriage license, along with 18K other couples, about 40% of which have children, judging from the 2000 census. That piece of paper there still puts some legal bite into the promises we made to each other so many years ago, and made again last summer in San Diego; it secures some rights in some jurisdictions, equal to other citizens, and could be used to enforce the responsibilities we've taken on as a couple and as parents. This is a great success for the best aspects of family and I hope no one overlooks that victory.

Okay, sure, we're one of the lucky same-sex couples who got there in time and maybe I'm feeling it with too much weight. It is personally important, though; we hope to and will most likely end up living in California, and equal treatment under the law is a requirement for the next government we have to pay taxes to, at least at a state level. So yeah, I'm personally happy and relieved and hope federal support of marriage is forthcoming. At least then we'd have something in effect while still here in Utah.

But, as everyone probably knows, this Ca supreme court decision is bitter sweet. Marriage is still between man and woman in addition to being between this man and his man in California, and the sky hasn't fallen. But the young gay couple just ready to make that sacred leap into marriage is left with an offer of only a "civil union" from their government. That's a good deal more than what we have in Utah, sure, and it should be appreciated but separate is not equal or tolerable in the long run. The first time they attempt to take their "civil union" into a jurisdiction unfamiliar with the what that practically means, or the first time the law makes a distinction between "married" and "civil union-ed" (as it does federally anyway), the need for all citizen to be in the same legal boat, regardless of their sex or the sex of the folks in their family, will be all too clear. You'd think it'd be apparent why heterosexual couples, in the vast majority, don't want the "equal rights" the Ca Supreme Court feels they found in "civil unions". Besides, talk about undermining the meaning of "marriage"; to legally ignore it's best aspects because of an M or a F on a birth certificate... And it's not just a matter for same-sex couples; one has to wonder what those couples that include an individual intersexed from birth, neither or both biologically M or F, are left with in Ca law now.

Anyway, 2010, or 2012, or 2014... The day is clearly coming when, throughout the US, the shape of your body or your chromosomes won't determine the amount of tax you pay, the rights of your children, if you can just run off on your spouse without legal consequence, or any of this stuff. I'm sure in California the day will return when "marriages", as performed according to the individual citizen's religious or secular convictions, will be treated justly and equally under the law, blind to our anatomy and focused instead on the weighty public interdependence, commitment, and responsibility found in the act of human coupling, be it in same-sex or, um, "opposite marriage". The day will come when people realize our children go to school too and have a right to talk about their home as much as any other kid. They will get tired of the fear mongering and will realize we can have different definitions for marriage in our homes and churches, and still be treated fairly under the government we must share.

Unfortunately, though, the mark of the Prop 8 vote, complete with the lies about everything from Catholic Charities to marriage in Europe, will always remain on those people and organizations who pushed it. It will be something we point out to our impatient grandchildren, just as I had the uncomfortable and strangely embarrassing conversation with my kids last year about how race used to matter in US law (and faith) as much as sex does in this instance. But if justice was easy, our species would have gotten it right long ago instead of in painful increments. Besides, maybe we need these bumps in the road to drive home the broader value of such ideals as the Golden Rule.

When all is added, though, I guess I can't be unhappy about this (and I've tried :-)). Tonight I'll go home to my family, to my kids, and to my husband, the man who is still my legal husband even if only when we're standing in certain territories between sea and shining sea. Hey, and at least next time we vacation in Ca, I, as a legal husband, won't have the added hassle or cost of being a second driver on the rental car contract :-). More importantly, of course, when we can move from Utah to our dreamed-of near-beach home, we will have what any man would want from his state for his family.

Good Times

For each year of our boy's life, and even through the process of becoming parents, I've gathered all our many pictures and videos and put them to music on dvd. I swear they must be the most photographed children in history; it would probably take a good 6 hours to watch all those dvds.

Yesterday they were off with their grandparents and so I decided to start on the 6 to 7 year video. A couple days ago Brian told me this song was his "favorite song ever, because it's Icelandic" :-):



Which is cool, because I like the song too. So I started out with that and then looked to add our pictures. I found that the first photos from that month just happened to be from our legal marriage in California, last August.

Remember that? How nice that was before we knew how the story would progress?

This year will forever begin in our family record with that wonderful weekend.

It made me laugh, looking over those photos again. What a great couple of days; it seemed like we'd finally made it over the hill and time would quickly take care of the rest. We were actually in a place where, if something happened to me, I knew my family would be treated as family should be treated. Sure, it wasn't the whole load off, but it was some relief, and I felt I could let down my guard.

And it didn't end there. What a great month: married in Ca, helped my cousin with her art exhibit in Helper, attended a nephew-in-law's wedding in Moab, and had our huge family reunion in Sun Valley. It was a near perfect month, made all the better by the fact that I knew my husband and kids had this added bit of legal protection.

I'll put the video of August I have below, though you'll have to imagine in the song (Not yet in my life have I violated copyright law, and I'm kind of hoping to avoid it just to see if I can :-)).



Anyway, that's what I want to get back to. I finished putting this video together from our August marriage to our February Hawaii trip and it really put what has happened this year into condensed perspective; each snap shot fading in and out in seconds jogs the memory of weeks.

I watched this video as it makes it to November and past, and read those two posts after Proposition 8 won (or, heck, most of my posts since) and can see this sense of being pathetically unable to protect my family take hold in me, and I feel I'm just now getting a hold on it, even though I naively thought it'd be a matter of days back on November 5th. So, yeah, thank you for your patience :-). It's taken too long but I will reassemble an optimistic sense of fairness, my sense of the public's standards of evidence, and my sense of what to expect from strangers. I'll reassemble where I was 8 months ago.

If Ca doesn't decide soon, maybe we should just head off to Iowa; speed up the process :-).

If Then Else

Okay, I screwed up in moving us back to Utah.

Simply, I’m realizing we shouldn’t have moved back. I’ve got some comforting excuses: We needed our family, wanted our friends around, and Gay rights weren’t as much of a topic in Utah’s legislature back then and only became so after we returned. To my shame, I never even knew who my representative was before then.

Looking back, I misjudged two things: 1. I forgot in great part what Utah was like with the strong LDS church influence, and 2. I didn’t realize how practically important the legal rights they don’t want us to have would become to us once Rob became a stay-at-home dad. I’d never had to, for example, get him on my health insurance before as he had his own. I guess I kind of also got used to not realizing we were gay while in California, and was caught off guard when I found again that living in Utah makes being gay a very important characteristic. I’m just feeling grateful now it wasn’t as bad as it could have been; at least neighbors and school friends have been great to our kids and they haven’t noticed any problem yet. However much I love our state, though, we are essentially working without a legal net here, the religious and political climate is getting more heated, and fighting it is taking too much of my attention; which I would feel was my duty to give if not for the fact that I am a father of young kids. Importantly, Utah law would simply not be there for them in an adequate or just way, should something happen to me.

It was a complicated decision to live here and it still is, but, looking back, I think it was a poorly made, naive decision.

It’s funny how hard it is for me to admit that, but it’s true and I think, especially now, I need to put that out on the table. I want to be the perfect husband and father but my decade-ago self had some unwarranted optimism for living here and he tripped up, and—he being me plus ten years—he may again, right?

So now what is often on my mind is how to be sure I don’t mess up a move again?

It's a decision we need to make in a hurry too. We’ll need to find a house, new job, and a new school before the summer is up or it will be more tempting to let the kids finish another school year here. Ug, what about the new research grants I have been applying for, with researchers here?... Then there’s the fact that our decision will decide where my parents end up retiring; I’d like to keep them out of harsh winters and snow shoveling while past their 70’s... In short, it’s a mess of considerations and I’m stressed. And I guess I’m venting here as we can’t let it show at home, around the kids.

The trouble is that we won’t know our best options until after the legality of Prop 8 is decided in Ca (late spring, if I understood). Will it be overturned? If not, will those marriages performed still be legal? We most want to move back to Ca but Ma and even Canada come into the picture if we can’t have full equal treatment and protections in Ca. Then will DOMA be repealed anytime soon, as it seems it should with the new leadership? I just don’t trust not having my family in the same boat as everyone else anymore, and I don’t want to have to pull up our roots twice.

So, a plan for the record, to be held to: If our Ca marriage is still legal come early summer (Prop 8 overturned completely or not), then I’ve got a good job prospect there to follow up on and hopefully it will all work out, and we’ll be in the golden state before second grade starts. Heck, if we keep legal marriage but prop 8 is found valid and prevents future marriages, at least I can quell some of my guilt of leaving Utah by fighting for equal rights to return to Ca. Else, well, for now I’m looking for openings in Vancouver or Ma or Ct, and will just hope none of those are the best solution come Summer; that’s just too far from what will always be my home.

Salt Water

We did that Prop 8 interview with Reed Cowan yesterday. Each time we do anything like this I try to brace myself. Questions like "What does family mean to you?" or "Tell me about how you became a parent." or "What does your relationship mean to you?" are common. With such topics that slight cramp at the back of the throat eventually seizes and I can't get a thought out that's not too heavy with emotion.

That's another benefit to being a gay man, though. I can be as masculine as I am by nature, and still get emotional without feeling I have to hold up some masculine stereotype (I don't even have to watch the Superbowl today!). Example, I let loose a tear in Batman, The Dark Knight, for goodness sake :-) (when the convict takes the remote on the ferry...). In short, I'm a crier, but don't really care much to control it in most instances. I spent too much time when coming out trying to hide how I was feeling.

However, that makes me a bad interview, and so, in those instances, I've tried to learn ways to hold it down again. I've taken to just telling people interviewing me right off the bat they can ask what they want, but stay away from emotional questions about family until the end if they want anything useful.

Now, there is a certain reason anyone with kids and who knows much about Reed would find their emotions near the surface around him. I don't want to go into that; suffice it to say it was an emotional setting from the start.

He was great. He just let us speak, and normally I'd have been okay, but my parents went before us. My mom got emotional, talking about what we go through in this state and I expected that; I could keep composure with that much. However, my dad, he rarely loses composure but he did yesterday. That finished off the flimsy interview barriers I've reconstruct during our last 4 years in this fight. When it was my turn, I'm afraid I left them with nothing usable.

The potent thing is that you don't really know how much your parents love you when you're growing up. You can't. You know they love you, but not what that means for a parent, not until you feel it yourself. And when you are a parent, your focus goes to the love for your kids, and you kind of stop thinking much about the love from you're parents. My parents were and are wonderful parents, and as an adult they are two of our best friends, people we love spending time with. I may not take enough time as an adult to realize or enjoy that love they have for me, but, recognizing what I have for my sons in them, it was more than I could hold in.

At the end they had everyone say their name and what they want. My parents said for me and my family to be treated fairly; I said (or tried to say :-)) to be able to protect my family like any one else, to have my family treated in the way our LDS neighbors want their families treated. It's that same sort of drive, pointing that particular love forward, into the next generation; I wish my composure stood a chance in front of it when also in front of a crowd, but am also kind of glad it doesn't.

Anyway... getting a little too serious?

Why stop mid-post though, right?

I also want to take some time here to give some kudos to Scott and Sarah. We stopped by their home last night on the way back from the interview. They are very good hosts, and all that was appreciated. Thank you.

But the thing that strikes me most is the fact that they've generously given a nonjudgmental place to relax and fit in for gay LDS who either just want to hang out with others like them, or those who desperately need a break, a place they don't have to hide who they are. Sometimes families of gay kids in these parts lose track of that familial love for a time, or cause distance thinking it's love, and it's a great comfort to me to know people are there to catch them. To open up your hearts and home like that is impressive, and inspiring to me. Whatever the blog equivalent of applause is, I'm doing it.

Pocket Change

It turns out the LDS church just reported about $190,000 in donations to pass prop 8. I blogged on the details of that at isocrat, here.

The funny thing is I knew they gave more than the couple grand they were initially claiming; everyone did, right? But I find I was happier with the illusion.

Rob's mom is staying with us and I find this news to be kind of upsetting. That's where some of her money went: to deciding on those commercials, threatening California parents that children in school may talk about the same sort of family that her grandkids have, if they didn't act to forcible divorce her son and I.

I know the LDS people we love didn't mean to pay for such. I know most don't even want to. However, many believe it's like a supernatural necessity to give money to the LDS church. I get that it probably breaks them up too, and I'm not angry at her for it; though I'd much rather family not fund legally hurting family. Can't the LDS church set up separate accounts :-): one for families who don't want to pay to harm the gay couples in their clan, and another for those who don't mind?

Anyway, I just liked it better when the illusion was that their inadvertent contribution was more like a fraction of a cent, than anything that could be shown in real coins.

As Many Times As It Takes

Hey, I'm engaged again!... for the fourth time (if I'm counting right :-))... to the same guy.

Sure, as a Utahn it may be expected of me to have 4 to zip marriage to divorce record, but we may be one of the first here to do it without polygamy. (I wonder, is there a world record we could apply for?)

I know, I know. Our last marriage, in California, might still be legal come Summer, and the court could rule taking rights from a certain minority group is a violation of and revision of their constitution's equal rights guarantees and thus Proposition 8 should not have been up to popular vote according to law. I hope that's the case, but it may not be and I just don't feel like I can be comfortable without having this ability to protect my home somewhere in the US, or know where I can move our family to have it quickly, or be ready for when the federal government repeals DOMA.

Having that for my family last summer, I cannot get used to not having it now; stepping back hurts more after the step forward. I'm still periodically having dreams about protecting them and I hope getting back to the legal standing we had before Prop 8 will help with that.

Though, thank goodness, my family-defence dreams are now just getting silly; I can wake from them with a laugh rather than heart-pounding stress. I had one the other night where I was defending them from a terminator robot (a subconscious comment on Schwarzenegger's veto of CA marriage rights :-)?), and last night I dreamed we were robbed, and it had something to do with zombies. Clearly it's still weighing on my mind, but at least it's more action/adventure than tragedy. I mean, I can wake up and laugh at protecting my home from zombies, but I'll still be stressed from a dream about fighting people saying how horrible it would be for our children to even talk about their family at school. The two opponents may have some similarities ;-), but one opponent doesn't disappear at waking up.

Anyway, we'll be headed to pioneer territory, to Providence Town Ma late in the summer. We'll be sharing a condo on the beach with a couple other gay and lesbian parents and their kids and it should be a lot of fun, even if we won't need to be re-re-re-wedded... *sigh*... But if we do need to, we'll have one more legal document protecting at least a fraction of our rights to equal treatment, in a fraction of our country, and holding us to a fraction of our responsibilities. It's something. One more marriage license added to our bitter-sweet collection is better than nothing.

Anyway, as they always say, fourth time's the charm, right?

Busy Day, and Phychic Powers

Let me see if I can explain how impressive my man is. Yesterday we woke up, he prepared and got cooking a ham and a turkey. Then we went off to karate, and then right off to the anti-prop 8, pro-marriage rally at the city and county building.

We then hurried home, where, within an hour, he finished off the ham and turkey, separating the white from dark meat while making the gravy.

Then we arrived, just in time, for the thanksgiving party for our group of same-sex headed families.
We had a lot of fun. It was held in one of our member's church, which was much better than the cramped quarters we used to use; the group is just getting to big for homes and the GLBT center. It's just nice to let the kids socialize and run wild, while the parents get to commiserate about politics; is there a sound more joyful, though, than the sound of a herd of children chasing each other? It's hard to commiserate with all that laughing :-).

We had a surprising amount of new members: people with infants and some grown families moving into the Salt Lake valley. One couple moved here from Ca to be around family, which made me reconsider our thought of moving away. But their family was completely on their side, not part of the politics fighting against us, and not part of the predominant faith here. So there are some differences; besides, we'd be taking the grandparents with us.

After we were stuffed with stuffing and turkey, we headed up to the candle light vigil at the capitol.
Here we were trying to spell out "EQUALITY" on the lawn. You can see it partially done by ksl's coverage, and it eventually got done, but it was tough to fight the wind and shelter the flames from going out faster than we could light them... There's an analogy in there somewhere :-).




Also, I thought this was cute: On the way home, Brian asked me what a mutant was (something he saw on T.V.?). I explained again about our genetic codes and such and then talked about some special mutations humans sometimes have. We talked about some genetic and semi-genetic differences humans have, like albinos, dwarfism, perfect pitch, and synesthesia. With each they were more and more enthralled and I was loving it.

After we talked about synesthesia and some people "hearing" sights and seeing numbers as colored, Alan wondered if some people can hear other people's thought. I told them that was called telepathy, and, without telling them what I believed, I asked them what they thought.

On the freeway on the way home we ended up conducting many experiments, trying to read each other's minds (and me trying to teach a lesson about science and skepticism :-)). Most tests were, of course, unsuccessful... but when it was my mind's turn to be read I picked a thought and thought hard, and they tried to hear me.

Alan asked if I was thinking of our dog and I said no. Then Brian asked if I was thinking "I love you."

I was! I laughed and said "Yes, how did you read my mind?" Wondering if I'd now inadvertently initiated him into new age magical thinking :-).

Brian said, in his little kid incredulous voice, "I didn't read your mind; that was just a lucky guess."

I'm lucky for many reasons. I'm lucky to have two sweet boys and an amazing husband. I'm lucky to have these teachable moments. I'm lucky, even in Utah, to have groups of tens and hundreds and thousands of activists and families to gather and hope with us.

I'm especially lucky my son finds it to be a good guess that his pop is thinking "I love you".

We're Here... Again

We have a busy day today and it's only half over, but I thought I'd hurry out a post so that there's not too much later.

After the boys' karate this morning we headed out to the local pro-marriage equality rally (I think they're weekly now :-)).
Again, it does my heart so much good to be around such support. I mean that both figurativly and literally; I can feel my pulse rate slow and the stress of protecting my family in this climate fall off in the optimism that I can find in all those many friendly faces.

One thing that is kind of amusing and disturbing is the difference in tone from what's being portrayed by those against our marriages. The angriest face I saw there (well, on our side) was this one:
And that's just Brian's pretend angry face (and yes, he's carrying a remote control; he likes to pause and rewind me sometimes).

Everyone was in a great mood and there were a lot of conciliatory and respectful words said with regards to the LDS church and others. I think the community as a whole is quite confused as to how they could think we want to alter their temple ceremonies, or take their rights, and such, and I hope the message gets across the polarization that all we want is for our families to be treated in law the way they'd want their families to be treated.

And despite the hope of some on the other side to make this into a race issue, and pit minority against minority, every community in Utah was represented there from our Latino friends to the Dakota native American who gave the blessing. It was a very heart warming event, once again.
Of course, others there we're in a less than good mood:
But that wasn't more than just kind of strange. It's funny how the group calling us hateful can't see a couple yards from their face into the love of that crowd, and it's odd they're the same group calling us "ignorant fools" and going on about our torture in hell. It's also odd that a group would be telling us we shouldn't exercise our right to free speech and assembly, while mistakenly assuming they were defending a person's right to vote.

We can vote, and we can speak. If there is a silver lining here, it certainly is the new strength we've found in each other.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

1. I kind of feel cheated out of experiencing the full scope of what Tuesday meant for our country. I just want to say again how excited and happy I am to see some of the barriers be broken down for racial minorities and to have a president who gives me hope for what's to come.

2. For our families specifically, the president elect has said he'd work to repeal DOMA, and allow our gay men and women in uniform to serve openly. But on top of that, for a great part, this election was about the future of the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court, and the future of our rights will be in their hands. Obama makes more likely the appointment of justices who will actually take the equal protection assurances in the US Constitution seriously. I know... I can hear the anti-gay activists now... Doesn't it suck when activist judges uphold some of our most basic and sacred rights delineated in our most supreme law? How dare they?

3. Equal rights won in Connecticut. Okay, most of us here on the west coast will probably never live there, but we can be married in Ct and voters defeated a call to constitutional convention which was aimed at banning our marriages, 60% to 40%. That's substantial.

4. California could really be seen as good news too. The hard part was losing rights we had, having our marriages put in legal limbo, and that we were so far ahead in the polls until those demonstratively deceptive ads began. Yes, that'll sting for a long time. Nevertheless, the vote was only 52% to 48%, when in 2000 the Ca voters passed a marriage ban 61% to 39%. We are moving along with the help of many straight friends and allies, and so is public opinion. This was nearly our opponents' last chance--if the trends hold we will be past 50/50 public aprooval of our marriages by the next presidential election. They won, but that was not nearly our last chance.

5. We're hurt but look at what we have built in each other now. The gay community in Utah has come together so strongly and there's such a sense of camaraderie; it's heartening to me. As a 15-year-old kid coming out I never got to see a role model of what it meant to be a gay man. It's not that they weren't out there, but they weren't visible in Utah. Most of the gay people I eventually came to know kept quite; many hated themselves anyway and believed their church when they were taught their attraction and propensity for love was more of a weakness and an addiction than a strength and a blessing. An impromptu march of thousands in down town SLC would have been unimaginable.

When I think of myself, in my despair as a teenager, thinking I was the only one in my state, and then I think of a boy in a similar state reading the paper yesterday... Well, the hard work of many in the gay community from several generations has brought about a sea change here, despite ardent opposition; it's a sea change which I'm sure is saving lives. There is, simply, a lot to be thankful for, even here in Utah. Maybe especially here in Utah.

6. Finally and of course, there is a new Bond movie coming out :-)... I'm inexplicably compelled by the new Bond, James Bond...

Anyway, Always look on the bright side of life, right?

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

(Do the kids nowaday still watch Monty Python? :-))

Mutual Respect and Civility

So we went last night to the rally at the public park but left before the march (my dad said he was going regardless and so we had to tag along to keep him from getting into a fight ;-)). I was absolutely amazed at the turnout (the paper says about 3,000). In all, it seemed to go well, peaceful. I only saw a couple signs on our side that made me wince, which is much better than I can say for what we heard from the counter protesters.

The atmosphere was actually very pleasant, and there was a wonderful sense of solidarity and community, with people from all walks of life from infants to senior citizens; I recommend you read the article on it for specifics. I also see you can watch one of our fellow moho's on tv :-).

In response, the LDS church put out one of their characteristic press releases. It could stand a closer look:

It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.

Let me try to help explain.

The LDS church isn't experiencing a backlash for "speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election." We are all for your rights, to speak, vote, marry, have equal treatment from our government, and so on. Try, though, to think of the difference between speaking up in favor of, say, tax reduction for everyone verses speaking up in favor of tax reduction for white people. Maybe think back to when it was racial integration that the LDS leadership was speaking out against. There is a difference.

Simply, what has people upset is your hope to use your vote to take rights away from others. That is bound to cause some constitutionally protected "speaking up" to come back at you, and it's disturbing you find that exercise of free speech "disturbing".

As for being singled out, can you really not see the irony? Of all the problems with marriage, you pick on such an easy target as us, such a perpetual minority as our families and make fighting our marriages just under the importance of tithing. Most of the churches fighting against and for marriage equality do not have a centralized leadership to protest, but the route by which most LDS money got into making all those deceptive pro-proposition 8 ads (which you could have denounced) is clear. The cause can be traced to downtown Salt Lake City. If we lived in the Vatican and it was part of the US there would be protesters there too, but, come on, it's too late to deny the LDS church didn't have a big hand in this, right? You worked hard and did "all you can" to do what you did to our families, right? I mean, your argument isn't that you shouldn't be held morally responsible because other churches were doing it too, is it?

Furthermore, in Utah, the LDS church and many of its members have been behind a whole host of anti-marriage and anti-adoption laws for our community; history here doesn't start with Prop 8. Prop 8, where you took rights we had away, just pushed it over the edge. If not for your "speaking up" (which, yes, of course, you have a right to) our families would be in much better shape here; many of our children could get health insurance and our stay-at-home parents would have security.

We have a right to speak out in our public streets, and at least we aren't wanting to legally restrict your marriages in your private homes and churches, as you've done to us. To me, that would be unconscionable, and so I hope you can rest assured.

Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States — that of free expression and voting.

They did. Millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation voted against Proposition 8. The difference is that those who voted for Prop 8 voted to take away some of those "sacrosanct and individual rights," which you finally seem concerned about. Now it's kind of odd you feel entitled to ask for respect for them when you hold them. You'll get it nonetheless--we'll stand up for your right to vote and your right to equal rights--but it's just odd you don't see the irony.

While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.

Again, really? You think people are mad because you were "part of the democratic process"? You have no concept that your actions hurt, in real legal, financial and emotional terms, real people, families, parents and children? You don't see that you've targeted the most sacred institutions for us? Being upset because people gathered at a public park and then walked on public streets around your headquarters, seems to show an absolute lack of empathy and understanding for what you've done to what is sacred to us.

Once again, we call on those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other. No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.

I wish you believed that. I wish the LDS church acted in "mutual respect and civility" in the first place. But we all know what's been said about our families, and we all know what you've done, and it was far from respectful of us or our families. You can't be taken seriously when you hit a guy and then call "no hitting", right?

Anyway, I hope that clears some things up for the PR department ;-).

Protest

Tonight there will be a protest at the SLC LDS temple.

Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Utah Pride Center, states "Friday's message will be one of hope for steady progress towards equality and fairness - a message everyone can believe in."

I hope she's right, and I hope the crowd keeps civil. Actually, I'm not really that worried it will get out of hand. We know a lot of those in leadership positions and I think I know that they'd keep it peaceful and I feel near sure it will remain that way.

I wish this all wasn't happening, though, and that we all could just live and let live. I also understand you just can't take it without defending yourself. I know first hand the damage done. They have played a huge part in stepping into the affairs of our homes, lives, and churches, legally harming many of our families. In rhetoric, they have insulted our marriages, our families, and even our children, and made it all worse in then asking for our respect for the incivility (for example: Chedner's blog and isocrat's blog). I could see how a peaceful protest outside their church may be a reasonable response.

But, remember who we are dealing with. They are our families, and they are our neighbors, and most are holding good intentions. Yes, they've brazenly broken the Golden Rule, and there is reason to respond, but it will do no one any good personally or politically if we do what they've done to us and start getting in the way of their rights.

Simply, I hope anyone going tonight will consider some suggestions:

1. Please, please let's do not harass anyone going into or out of the temple. We cannot get in anyone's face and we certainly cannot even touch another person (unless it's for a consensual hug, or possibly even a non-french kiss).

2. Let's keep from using the words "hate" and "bigot" on signs. They do not accurately describe the other side, and we, of all people, should know that telling your opponent what they feel directly when they don't feel it is the best way to shut their ears and tell them you don't know what you're talking about. They are "prejudiced" against our families by definition, and they are making choices that a bigot against us would also make, but they (well, most) are not experiencing the emotion of hate that typically goes with the word. In fact, the cloud and the silver lining here is that they feel they are being loving and good.

3. Let's try instead to tell them what they've done to our families, our couples, and our children, instead of telling them we're angry because of it. They know we're upset, in our satanically inspired rebellion against all that is good :-). More and more, though, I'm sure they do not understand, and this may be one more opportunity to get them to hear us. Or it could be just a PR mess; it's up to us.

4. Let's stay off their property. It's theirs, they own it, and can say who gets to be on it, even on that little bit of Paris where our public main street once ran ;-). Anyone has every right to speak at and be on public property; we all certainly have a right to gather and protest. And sure, I know they fight to take our rights and harm our homes, but let's not get into a tit-for-tat; let's show them, by example, what it looks like to respect the rights of others.

--To assure that end, please, let's leave our anger home. If we cannot go there with our calm wits about us, we should not be there. Sadness will inevitably tag along, and that's fine. Righteous indignation? Okay, but anger will likely end in more sadness. Yes, they are doing wrong and doing harm, but they have their reasons. As I always remind myself, being angry at people is as reasonable as being angry at the weather, the main difference being anger at the weather isn't likely to make the weather worse.

Anyway, I hope this all goes well, peaceful. We do not know if we'll be there or not. I can see reasons on both sides. But, as we'll be having dinner a block away tonight, I probably won't be able to keep my curiosity from letting me peak in. If I do it will be my second time protesting at a LDS temple (please note, the first time was a 100% complete accident :-)).

I'm Just Listen'n to Cold Wind Whistl'n

Rob woke up yesterday, and didn't really need to ask about the proposition, just by looking at my sad mug. We shared a long hug and started our day again.

Brian woke up at the same time and ran straight to the paper to see who won the presidential race. He was thrilled about Obama, and that, as was inevitable, lifted my spirits. Alan wasn't too upset that McCain lost, though; he always had a problem with McCain's position on cap and trade anyway.

Yesterday was, of course, tough. It's not everyday you're forcibly divorced, or at least that your marriage is made legally ambiguous (though, I'm pretty sure it happens more often to my family than most).

I can be a boob; I cry all the time for joy or sentimentality. If one of my kids asks for one too many hugs before they go to bed, I'll tear up. I haven't cried, though, for sorrow for a long long time, and I felt a spell under a lump in my throat off and on all day, just waiting to get out, but I was hardly without the kids or coworkers around. I stupidly agreed last week to help a PhD candidate practice her defense yesterday and I'm sure I was of little help.

I feel like I'd benefit by finding a quiet place and just letting it out, but that also just doesn't really feel like my place right now.

It didn't help to come home and into my office to check my email to find Rob has been looking at home prices in Ma and Ct. I'm not sad that he wants us to move; if that's what he really wants in a couple months I'll support it. It will be tough living here after what the predominant religion has helped accomplish. Things are just different. I'm sad that he's upset that much with our local culture; I'm hurt that he's hurting. I'm sad he's resenting his parents; even though they didn't support the church on prop 8 directly, he can't get past their financial support in tithing. They did help pay for this. I can't say I'm feeling much different about some of my family either, but these are our kid's grandparents. I'm sure/hoping things will look different in a couple days though.

When I think of my family, I feel a swell inside that seems like it could change the world for them. But it can't; I can't; it just feels that way and I know it and that is what's getting to me now, my inability to defend them. If a big organization wants to, they can put out a huge media campaign and change enough minds to hurt us, even in a way they wouldn't want their family hurt. All the power I have is bound up in the limits of a body and a piece of paper. The constitutional guarantee that it is our right to have equal protection under the law sounds noble and substantial, but that can be made into just ink on paper, if the majority wants, and I can be overpowered, if only a couple men want. At least I have it much better than many other troubled fathers through history who could do little but watch the world harm their family. Still, I'll do what little I can.

What's weird is that I can feel that well documented change in body chemistry that occurs with a substantial loss in humans. All the sudden the "lizard brain" in me is in defensive mode, even on unrelated items. Our alarm sensor on our front door had been broken for months and I've just felt absolutely secure in our neighborhood, like it's no big deal. Yesterday, I couldn't sleep until I fixed it. Various worries of harm coming to my family are suddenly coming to mind. I even had to check for coyote tracks this morning for the first time in a long time, after the dog had been gone too long.

This need to protect your family can be stressful and compelling. It's an obsession I don't care to give up, but I feel, with each loss or inability to do so, a toll.

I've noticed my blood pressure is up and so is my pulse rate, another consequence of such a change in body chemistry. Of course this makes me wonder again about about Utah needing a MSDS. Research shows incidences of discrimination lead to heart disease and various other life-shortening maladies seen in the African American community (see here and here for example). Discrimination, apparently, shortens lives. I worry I'm not only losing legal battles but time with each of these legal hits. What are you going to do, though, right? Stop caring? Stop fighting the good fight and run off to a friendlier jurisdiction? (well... :-))

Gee, I'm being gloomy :-), but what happened to gay and lesbian headed families in the US yesterday is a sad setback. As certain as we can predict the track of the sun through the sky, I know, given a week, I'll be back to my regular self and this blog can lighten up. Bear with me.

...a Man Who Bruises

My family has lost a lot of battles. Regardless of how this election ended up, looking back on that is how I should begin here.

We moved back to Utah, just in time to find a law passed that made it so only single gay men could adopt, not couples. With great emotional and regular effort, we fought our way past that to become parents. After we welcomed our boys into our home, there were then about three anti-marriage, anti-civil union laws passed in our state, pushed by LDS, and meant to make sure we had no "marriage-like" rights as a couple. We went up to the capitol on each to beg. Each time we were met with indifference or worse. Then we had our Amendment 3 which constitutionally took away all marriage rights and civil unions. Each time those laws passed handily, in the name of God, or family, or even marriage. Each time it was a kick in the head. Each time we regrouped and moved on.

Now Proposition 8 has passed, 52 to 48, and we may be once again without legal rights as a couple anywhere in the US, save those measly agreements a man could have with, say, his attorney. It is again difficult to take, and admit the world isn't what it should be and that this country isn't really the place where all have equal protection under the law. It's just tough to wrap your head around it.

I understand how it passed, though. I think the pro-prop 8 camp summed it up:

"We caused Californians to rethink this issue," Proposition 8 strategist Jeff Flint said. Early in the campaign, he noted, polls showed the measure trailing by 17 points. "I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn't we let gay couples get married. And I think we made them realize that there are broader implications to society and particularly the children when you make that fundamental change that's at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage," he said.

He's greatly right; we were going to keep equality under Ca state law, and their ads, backed by an influx of so much LDS money, did make a lot of good intentioned Californians "rethink the issue." Mr. Flint, though, didn't get people to "realize that there are broader implications"; he got people to fear us, their neighbors, to fear that we wanted to hurt their rights, to fear ghosts and mirages of "broader implications". He got them to believe they are the victim. Unfortunately, the lies worked, from the Boston Catholic Charities case to closing down LDS temples. They got the public to believe our case was about something as insipid as making gays "happy" or wanting "social acceptance", and convinced them that separate but equal isn't the oxymoron it inevitably is in law. Simply, let me say it again, they won by lies for which there should be guilt, no two ways about it (but how can you feel guilt about lying while doing God's work, right? ;-)).

The "fundamental core" of society here has been debased, not supported. Sacrifice, family, love and dedication are all made into a legal second class if the anatomy is off, and that sends a message that marriage isn't important to give to some families. Also they've set a precedence of putting into their constitution a retraction of and limitation on personal rights. All should be worried the tools they brought to the legal playing field are going to now find wider use, but I'm pretty sure they aren't worried right now.

Mr. Flint is also right about the broader implications for children, though wrong on which children he's worried about. Marriage doesn't make our children pop into existence, but treating our families like subordinates will hurt many children, and those for Prop 8 will still have to face the fact that their child will go to school with mine and learn that homosexuality is out there. What's worse for them is that their children will learn what their parents did to their friends' families. When the moral tide rises, and it is undeniably rising, even their children won't be buying what they're selling, and they'll be regarded as, say, I regard my well-intentioned, though undeniably bigoted grandmother.

Anyway, et cetera, et cetera, right?

I'm writing this now while my family sleeps. I don't want to be the one to tell this to my husband, but I will be. I don't want our kids to see the worry on my face. So I'm going to focus on what we have.

My family has lost a lot of battles, but I'll still start my day with my husband's embrace. I'll be greeted with our children's smiling faces. Family is simply stronger than "pro-family" groups can understand, and we'll find another way, if we need to. Nothing makes our inevitable victory in the face of so many lost battles seem more inevitable than the thought of the three of them.

What's better is that Brian is going to wake up and find his guy won; Barack Obama will be the next president. We have lost battles, but just think of how many battles the African American community has lost, how many times they felt beat down and were literally beat down. Today a man from their community, and apparently a great man (my distrust for politicians notwithstanding), is set to be the leader of the free world.

I am overwhelmed with a joy that dulls the sorrow for my family when I think of how that may feel to the African American who went through those tough time and thought this day would and could never come in the US. I am happy my boys will grow up with the first president they really know being a minority, and I hope this signals the death of much of our racist past.

I'm awake this morning in pain and bruised, but still proud of the US, even if our greatest ideals remain unrealized for some families, for my family. We will get there.

I Can See Better By Candlelight

Last night was the candlelight vigil to suppot LGBT individuals and families. With all that's going on with regards to our local predominant faith, Proposition 8, and our community, it was a needed event.

Before the vigil, we broke bread with some of those who came to support us. There was my parents, my aunt, my sister, and niece (and their dates and spouses). I was specifically touched to be joined by a family of four from our boy's school. It's one thing to have inclusion and acceptance in their school; it's another thing to have active support like that. (If you saw Rob talking to a handsome guy who wasn't me, no worries; it was the dad of this family:-))

We met more friends and family at the rally. It was raining off and on and I was surporised by the significant turn out.

We were also pleased to meet a bunch of fellow blogger there. And okay, I was 5 minuets late to the meeting spot because dinner went long, but where were you, Edgy? I'm beginning to think you're an elaborate webbot or something.

It was a pleasure meeting all of those never met before and still a pleasure to see familiar faces :-). I wish we could have talked more, but I spent the evening chasing children and going between family and friends. Altogether, our kids had to go pee 5 times in that hour! I hardly got to hear any of the talks. That'll teach us about not keeping an eye on the drink consumption at dinner, right?
Still, that really wasn't the point for me; I know the issues. I know why we were all there, what the LDS church thinks, and why we disagree and want to support the LGBT community.

I really just needed to chase my children around a crowd of people who we could count on, people who want a society were families are welcome and the Golden Rule applies. I needed to see that here, in Utah. I needed to be around a crowd that was missing that terrifying ability to "lovingly" damage their neighbors and even their children for religion. I needed to see many people here aren't so willing to pick up the infinite ego by proxy of believing they are doing and know, by book or leadership, what omnipotence and omniscience say is best for another man's family.

Too often I wake too early by the notion that I can't stop those who would turn love into a weapon, ignore evidence and even their conscience, and use strong faith for their excuse--so many people in history have been powerless to stop much worse being done to them under those banners. I worry at those times that I'm not able to protect my family, because there is no good defense from "God says so"; that's why it's used. But last night I got to see hard evidence that many others will have our back, and we have theirs.

And it worked. Yesterday, thinking of the polls and the possibilities and the precedence of taking rights away from us as a group, I was becoming more and more stressed. I walked into dinner last night feeling worried, but went home from the vigil relaxed, and sure the arc will bend towards justice for our families too, some day, even if not Tuesday (VOTE!).

After the talks by the Mormon mothers who put on the event, we all walked around the block in solidarity (funny how such ritual helps so much). We walked a bit, but this is what the view of that looked like while trying to find a restroom for Brian across the street :-):

It's Already Happened

On Halloween we were driving from my mom's house to my sister's house to trick-or-treat. I was, as I have been most of my waking hours these days (and some hours when I should not be awake), thinking about Proposition 8, the culture here, and what our options will be. Ultimatums have been given in my family. My parents are becoming increasingly upset with other family, while I'm feeling more detached and resigned about them. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about living here.

I'll not deny my emotions are near the surface here. While I was thinking on this and driving, out from the back seat, Brian says, "I love [my school]; it's the best school ever," and suddenly there's a lump in my throat at the idea of moving him away from his friends and teachers.

But then, he started talking about friends in his school that have divorced parents. One of his good friends is having a tough time with the parent's back and forth. Brian ended by telling us "But you and daddy will never divorce."

"No we wouldn't", I assured him. We promised and have kept it for many more years than most all his friend's parents. He even got to see us do it again in California, and I'm sure we'll always be the other's spouce, come what may. As an explanation for why some people "fall out of love", we told him we work to keep our relationship strong, and this brought us into a whole talk about our responsibilities to our family, and led into a discussion about how, for family, you'll often compromise your desires as an individual to keep the institution healthy (some of the divorces he's known of ended for some less than great reasons, e.g. cheating, desire for "more freedom").

Now, I know there are some good reasons for a divorce; I don't mean to indiscriminately disparage people who've done so. It's just, 6-year-olds aren't known for nuance and I wanted to send the message that a marriage is not something that should be built with an end in mind.

Still, I find it odd no one is out to shelter kids "as young as 5" from being "exposed to learning about divorce in school. At least divorce is something on which you don't need wild theories about how it'll "threaten traditional marriage"; it is literally the end of a marriage. Anyway, here we are having this in depth discussion about families splitting up, about how marriages mean something else for us (not unlike what the pro-prop 8 folks are warning about), and yet no one in Utah, with our higher than average divorce rate, is trying to stop legal divore or such conversations with children using anything near a constitutional amendment. No one I've heard expresses near that much worry about these conversations with their kids, but they worry about talking about my little family, driving around on Halloween?

Isn't that odd? Some people honestly need to have a notion of a person's anatomy before they can decide what's worth promoting to their children in marriage and family? I just have a hard time understanding how that can be.

It's also ironic how easy it actually is to teach your children that some families are different than ours. They get it; it's not hard. Our kids don't know a thing about "gay marriage", and I'm not really sure I know how that's significantly different from "traditional marriage", but they know about marriage. They know our marriage is different; it's different from the terminated unions of some of their friend's parents and of some of our family, but it's not because their parents are gay.

When Brian was done talking about it, Rob said to me quietly, "I just wish everyone would choose a traditional marriage like ours, so that we didn't have to explain this to the kids". :-)

He can always change my mood for the better.

(and we'll be there tonight come rain or snow)

Important Announcement, Really

Please Read:

Earlier this month some Mormon PFLAG mothers of gay children gathered for a luncheon date. The luncheon stretched out to almost four hours as these mothers talked about what the Mormon Church’s active support for California’s Proposition 8 was doing to their families and to their loyalty for the church.

While these mothers have tried to give their church leaders the benefit of a doubt with respect to their church’s policies, the church’s recent public support of the California Proposition that would take away the civil rights of their gay children seems to have been a tipping point.

They want to do something to show their support for their gay children and for the larger gay community. At the mothers’ urging, Salt Lake City PFLAG, Equality Utah, the Pride Center, the Inclusion Center, Affirmation, and the Human Rights Campaign have joined together and scheduled a candlelight gathering for all supporters of our homosexual friends and neighbors this Sunday evening, November 2nd, at the Salt Lake City Library plaza at 6:00 p.m.

The gathering is open to the general public, gay, straight, Mormon and non-Mormon alike and is intended to be a positive pro-community show of support and inclusion of our gay brothers and sisters. There will be a short program featuring Millie Watts, Katherine Steffensen, and Linda Barney. Candles will be provided for everyone following the program and we will join together in a short procession around the city block of the library.

Please spread the word and encourage your friends and families to be there. This event is free. Everyone sympathetic to gay civil rights should be there. The sponsoring groups foster equality for all people. Having a large number of participants will be an eye opener to many who honestly believe our numbers are few. Let’s join with our gay friends and show them that they are valued and equal members of our community.

WHAT: Candlelight gathering

WHEN: This Sunday evening, November 2nd, 6:00 p.m.

WHERE: The Plaza of the Salt Lake City Library, 200 East 300 South

PLEASE BE THERE!

NEWS RELEASE, OCTOBER 29, 2008

I hope you all can be there; and spread the word, online and in person.

As Dr. Watts explained it to me, It won't be a church bashing session; it will be an event to focus on what we have here in Utah. We all need to heal, and feel some sense of community here. Even some of those out to legally harm our families are suffering with the split and backlash in response to the LDS push for Prop 8.

Personally, I've been feeling less and less part of my home state, I do not feel my family is welcome here, and you've all heard me whine about maybe moving (aka retreating). In short I know I need this, and, regardless of whether or not Proposition 8 passes or fails, we'll all need the warmth that will be there Sunday night.

If you are coming (and you are :-) ), be sure to tell me and we can meet up, have a blog reunion. Maybe Edgy won't stand us up again.

Utah Mormons Will No Longer Aid Prop 8

A couple days ago the tribune reported:

Church: Utah Mormons will no longer aid Prop 8

While I doubt the headline is completely accurate, there has been a change and I've been wondering about this for a while.

The reason given is:

"It would be more troublesome for Prop 8's public relations if non-Californians were making those calls," said Davis, who teaches political science at Brigham Young University. "If a caller says, 'Hi, I'm calling from American Fork, Utah,' that might be a turn-off to a California voter."

They aren't going to call people because their calls will make marriage equality for our families more likely? Have you ever gotten a political call where the person said "Hi, I'm calling from [not your state]..."?

For all I know every political call I've received was from Bolivia.

Rob thinks the actual reason is fear of having to pay taxes while acting as such a significant political force. But, as I understand it, they're fully within the IRS guidelines.

Why did they think these calls were a good idea and put out a call for them and then change their mind so quickly, though? Even if they did plan to ID themselves as Utahns in their calls, you'd think the negative consequence of that would have occurred to them right off the bat.

Maybe they did rethink the whole thing... but I guess I'm saying I'd like to think the true reason was that they saw the trouble this was causing in families like mine, and they wanted to pull back and doing so in Utah was as much as they could afford. Yeah, it's a little late, and I'm probably being naively optimistic.

I am glad I've less reason to be upset with some of my family, though it's not much when you know they'd just have to move a day's drive and they'd be as active in the anti-marriage equality campaign as possible. Still, it's something... or it might be?

Ug, I'm tired of having so much of my family riding on the choices of strangers.

S

Time rolls down the hill of order, they say... or they might?

No one has, for example, seen a shattered window reassemble assemble itself, and if we did we’d assume we were watching the world rewind, and for good reason. There are simply many more ways a system can be chaotic rather than ordered, and thus, with each time step, black holes decay, carcinogenic replication errors become more likely, and our i-pod ear buds become more tangled in our pockets.

Damnable entropy.

There is no truly irreversible action, in the universe or in our relationships. Everything leaves a mark. It takes energy to melt and reform a shattered window. It takes great effort to even approximate a fraction of justice after an injustice. For some crimes, the act is truly irreversible in any sense. Regardless, all work spreads more entropy. Thank goodness the earth has a tiny water wheel placed into the stream of solar energy radiating into the void, else we’d be... well, we’d not.

Anyway :-), these are the sorts of things my mind wanders to when considering the feeling that something irreversible has happened. I’ve been feeling like this business with the LDS church, Proposition 8, and my family has broken something, irreversibly. With their aims, ads, accusations, ominous predictions, and even literal demonization of my family, that pro prop-8 team of churches has put out a lot of energy, and, by it, many stones were thrown through my extended family and our relationships with LDS friends. By the laws of chance and nature, by the thermodynamics of interpersonal relationships, something valuable and intricate was bound to be broken, right?

I think it has.

I just don’t see some people the same now. I love them; I’ll be polite, but I don’t feel for them what I used to, knowing what they supported being done to my husband and children, acting on orders or not, feeling love and righteousness and good about it or not. They hope to debase and harm in very real terms my family and then think asking for respect for their faith, their motivation sounds near reasonable? You can shoot into a man’s home, hope he understands, and complain if he comes out and decks you? The excuse being you feel, with all your heart, that God wants and will reward you for shooting guns into people’s homes? That’s not an excuse; it’s a statement of guilt, selfishness, and lack of regret.

Sure, it sucks for us both. I understand they feel such motivation deserves respect--every supernatural claim must ask for special treatment, from Scientology to Islam, or they'd never last a day. I wish I could give it to them. Such God-given, moved-by-the-spirit feelings are a dime a dozen, though, all over the world and to many different ends; when the ends are to take rights from so many families, respect necessarily ends.

I've read some research that shows some people's brains are literally built to believe with special spiritual feelings and I know some of my family may be such people. In a way, maybe I'm being intolerant of their build, their nature to be intolerant of us on faith. But my home can only afford to give leeway to them if they can control themselves and keep away from harming us and others first; I wish they could see that. When the Golden Rule is broken, a line is crossed and they make their faith fair game. I can respect faith in, say, that people can become gods, that people can be resurrected, or that bread turns to flesh; all that is fairly benign and I'll keep away. But not the rest, not that they have to legally harm my family. Slapping a label of "Faith" on that makes it no more deserving of respect than any other bit of bigotry; it only drags down the brand name.

And sure, maybe I should be a bit more understanding as there was a day when my whole world was the spiritual, and being moved by unheard voices of the spirit decided all sorts of decisions (one of which was leaving the church that most of these family members belong to :-)). I do understand these feelings can be quite pleasing and assuring to the human mind; it's the hedonism of agnosticism. I'll try to be understanding of their use of them, but it’s just not the same as it was for me last year; something broke.

The funny thing is that I probably have become, with respect to them, as they were with me. All these years, when they were doing it to us, I just never really knew how it felt for them. I’ve always had an issue with their choices, but never felt it was much of my business and I could be happy that it pleased them. I could look at it more like their preference for certain foods than being on a different team. More and more, though, their choices are becoming my home's problem. I love all my extended family, but, for some of them, not in the way family should love each other anymore; I love them the way they love me, without that deep feeling of support for who they are and what they want out of life, when what they want means harm to the 3 most important people in my life. We’ll hate each other’s sin, love the sinner, and be pleasant when we interact… And that’s the way it is; that’s the broken window.

And look here, adding more work to the system just increased the overall entropy, didn't it? I wish the analogy didn't hold :-).

The question remains, though. Could we find the energy to melt the glass down and reform? It can’t be undone, but can it be remade? Don't know; I just know I'm not willing to do it alone.

(Boy, that was supposed to be a short post; guess I needed to vent :-))

Chain Letter Reaction

A LDS chain letter just got to me through my brother. He was upset by it and wanted to share his response, which was supportive and loving (This is the younger of my older brothers, not the brother who’s a bishop). In short I was touched to know exactly where he stood, but even more so appreciative to know he’ll stand up and say it and that he wanted to make sure I knew he would.

I went through bits of the letter on isocrat.org, but this blog is more about the personal. In short, it’s a deceptive, strange and kind of sad attempt to garner support for Proposition 8.

Anyway, the letter is written by a Sharon, who I don’t know from Adam (or Steve). But the person who spread the letter is a person in the periphery of my extended family. We see them here and there. I don’t care to address them directly and will put my energy elsewhere. I don’t think it’d do much good to confront such people anyway.

But my brother has entered the fray, and is now a couple letters into it. Furthermore, this letter was also sent to my parents and other family, and they’ve gotten upset as well. They are sending out a letter of their own to everyone on the long string of emails listed, which will include family closer to us. The man who sent the letter to my brother is a man on his 3rd marriage, and a guy who my parents know to have physically abused his children; they also tell me his current wife has been convicted of fraud, some pyramid scheme. So you can guess how personal this could get, now that the first stone has been thrown.

I can’t blame my parents for getting personal, though. I’d be upset if a guy I knew was spreading the message that equal treatment of my son’s family is somehow an insult to marriage and a goal of the Devil. I guess I’m just wary of how these things spread and grow in a family. Will my siblings or parents get too heated? Will other siblings or cousins take the other side and defend this guy?

And yet, another part of me is admittedly beginning to want to get it all out, get it over with, to stop the sublimating and self suppression on all sides and have our trial by fire. I want to know who we can trust and who is just being polite to our faces; I need to know to whom in my family my family is family (I think if you read that again it might make sense). Maybe it's naive, but I suspect, while it may hurt, we'd all get through one intense big event closer and better for it, instead of second guessing through all these little things.

Maybe we should do it at the family Christmas party ;-) (or maybe :-\).

I guess all families have fault lines. I just fear each little event like this, a chain letter from a guy I hardly know, could cause the tremors that lead to the earth splitting for our extended family. Or maybe it's the start of the refining reaction we need. Or maybe it’s just a flash in the pan.

Hand Holds

I used to rock climb quite a bit, before our boys were born. Once, due to a mistake of communication and a blinding overhang (note: not hangover), I almost dropped a friend to a rocky riverbed and, long story short, I caught him and dropped the desire to do that again.

A couple days ago it felt kind of like it did when, while you’re ascending a new climb, you look around to be unable to plan an obvious route to the top. I couldn’t see what our next move should be, with family, law and the simple geography of where our family should live. Really, I still don’t know how to surmount those large questions. Nevertheless, it seems the analogy holds in that you don’t really need to see every move to get to the top; you know others have done it on far more difficult climbs. You just need to see how to move one hand or foot even an inch higher, and you’ll eventually find a higher place on the rock for your other appendages.

So I'm feeling good after inching up a bit in a couple areas.

Family: My Father in-law, well, I asked him if he’s been involved in any the pro-prop-8 movement, making calls or asking his congregation to act on it, and he told me no, he hadn’t. But that was it; his reaction was abrupt, the sort that says "no but let's not get into this". Okay, I learned the minimum of what I needed to know. I can live with leaving it at that without a debate on what the LDS church is doing. I love my in-laws and it continues to hurt us that they indirectly support people working so hard to undermine our family, but it’s not direct support. Maybe I’m a hypocrite for not holding more ground, but I see the way Grandpa is with our boys and I can swallow some of it for now, rightly or wrongly. Maybe these are things that defy measurement anyway.

On my side of the family: I came home from work to find out that, after my mom read that “go viral” article, she spent the day calling all our family and asking for their help and asking about what they’ve done on Prop-8. There was some good news and some bad; sadly, the wedges have been driven deeper for some others, but my family is still attached to the bulk. I’ll deal with the bad new when we have to all interact again. But it was a great blessing to find out that my mom had done that. I feel grateful and phenomenally lucky to have the parents I do. They have always understood and are probably the reason I have the home I do; they gave me the freedom and example to do so all the way back to the day I came out. I’ve been too lucky both as a father and a son, and may deserve to be told to shut up when I complain too much about the extended family (Note: not a license to tell me to shut up. Shut up are the only two words that are "a bad word" in our home.).

Doing Something: I spent my lunch calling organizations. If only the gay community were more like a church or a business. If only it really had a monolithic gay agenda. But no, there’s a bunch of people with a bunch of aims and we’re brought together by others' bias and demonetization, sometimes literally by our local culture. No one really had an organized reaction to the interstate LDS push, and we really need help getting organized here. One local community leader suggested that the members of these various boards should meet once a month, just to know what everyone is doing (I think that’s a great idea and hope it’s implemented). Anyway, I’m going to try to help put something together; just waiting a weekend for suggestions from HRC. I know whatever we come up with may not do much, but it's something.

PTC: We had parent teacher’s conference and our boy’s are doing great. Scholastics come much easier for “way above grade level” Brian, but Alan is not struggling either; he’s “where he should be”. Their teachers told us they are doing great socially and have a lot of friends. Hoping to head off any problems, I asked if our family structure has been an issue in any way. They both separately gave back a quick no, almost shocked that I’d ask. They both even went on to compliment our family for our extra involvement and familial support. One said "Everyone here thinks so highly of your family and I can tell your son has all the support he needs", and the other said "I wish we had 20 more like him". I eat that stuff up :-).

I think we’ve been very lucky with teachers and parents at their school. While it is predominantly LDS, it seems to not be your typical suburban Utah political atmosphere; most don't seem to be buying what their leaders are telling them about our family. Or perhaps it just changes the atmosphere by breathing it and giving others the chance to see us for what we are, instead of amoral monsters backed by activist liberal judges out to destroy The Family (TM) and convert their children (Brian’s teacher even has an Obama pin… Brian must have convinced her in political debate ;-)).

So maybe, as a repeating theme of this blog, I worry about our family here in Utah more than is justifiable, but not less than I want to; just in case.

Anyway, there are still problems to face, opponents to challenge, and more hand holds to find in this climb to equal rights, but at least we’re moving. In leaning on our loved ones, whatever November holds, we'll be okay and we'll keep inching up.

Oh, and today is National Coming Out Day. FYI, I'm gay. Your 18th (or 19th?) coming out day really ain't that special :-), but kudos and good luck to those for whom this is their first.