Each time I pass one, I shout out, “Hell no!”

I suspect, however, that I’m interpreting the questions differently than they were intended. They are part of a statewide campaign for a marriage amendment, sponsored by the group Pennsylvania for Marriage. Legislation to put an amendment on the ballot already died in the state house from lack of support from our elected representatives, but the folks at PA4Marriage still think they speak for all Pennsylvanians. They’re intent on passing an amendment to ban marriage and civil unions.

All in the name of “protecting” marriage.

You see, they worry that letting people marry will destroy marriage by redefining.

We decided to do our part to test that theory.

So we got married, and now we’re waiting to see if the world falls apart.

We didn’t take this on lightly. We’ve been considering our options for a long time now.

One choice was to wait until we have full marriage rights at both the state and federal level. I’m often accused of being a “political purist,” but even I realized that this choice hurts no one but us.

Another choice was to go to Canada or New Jersey to have a marriage or civil union. That option carried the weight of some level of official recognition, but it would vanish the moment we returned home.

In the end, we decided that what was most important was to be married before our friends, our family (those who would attend), and our God.

So we had a wedding that means absolutely nothing legally but absolutely everything to us.

The law won’t call us married. Our employers and insurance company won’t call us married. PA4Marriage won’t call us married. But we call ourselves married and I truly believe that God considers us to be married.

We stood before family, friends and vowed to love and honor each other for the rest of our lives, to support and care for each other, and to work together to help those around us.

If that’s redefining marriage, so be it. Let Armageddon begin.

Tell me

Do you really think you go to hell for having loved?

“Jon and Dawn Kennedy were two of those people at the celebration. Their brother, Sean Kennedy, died May 16, 2007 in Greenville, S.C., after being struck by a man who reportedly called Sean a faggot before striking Sean with such force that it crushed the bones in his face. Sean died from the one fatal blow.

Sean’s mother was present at Seven Straight Nights and was one of the event’s several speakers, including Faith In America Executive Director Jimmy Creech.

When Sean’s brother and sister politely told the leader of the anti-gay protesters that their brother was killed and that their hateful speech promotes violence toward gay and lesbian people, the protester flatly and unemotionally told Jon and Dawn Kennedy that their brother “was burning in hell right now.”

Tell me

and not for thinking every thing that you’ve done is good.

I really need to know.

I really need to know how these men have usurped the title Christian.

I need to know how men like these, and the ones who verbally assault and threaten us at Pride every year, see themselves as walking in the footsteps of Jesus with a megaphone in one hand and a hate sign in the other.

I need to know what my parents want to hear from God when they pray to Him about their lost daughter who is condemned to hell.

I need to know what the woman who came by our table at dinner tonight and loudly hissed slurs at us thinks the Cross she was wearing around her neck means.

I need to know why good people stay silent, watching what they know is wrong.

I got a life to lead America
I got a life to lead
I got a soul to feed
I got a dream to heed
And that’s all I need

Making my own way home
Ain’t gonna be alone
I’m going to a town that has already been burned down.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1288405CncktjTr

Today is the day to share those stories to celebrate, to educate, and most important, to be visible.

HRC has put out a call for coming out story videos on Youtube. Watch them here.

A sample:

This one is NSFW:

I hate the glorification of war, but when I watch something like Ken Burns’ The War, all I can feel is awe at these everyday, ordinary people who have seen and done extraordinary things. I’m amazed at what humans are capable of, both the good and the bad. My life has been so sheltered that I can’t even imagine what I would do in the circumstances these old soldiers recount so calmly. I cannot imagine living with the memories they must have.

And when I look around today at our new generation of veterans, young men and women returning from war today, and regardless of my political views on the war, I can feel nothing but respect, admiration, and a little guilt when I talk with them. They go about their lives looking like every other young person, normal kids in their twenties who should have memories no more harrowing than a bad night of drinking in college. But instead they’ve lived with death. When they tell their stories, I’m amazed that anyone can survive the reality they’ve been through. I’m amazed that these normal, everyday kids have something in them that keeps them going through the horror. I may be a decade or two older than they are, but around them I feel young and naive.

I was thinking about a particular young man I know who is trying to adjust to his new life back home, about how it will never be like the life he had before he went, how the war has changed him, and how he will one day be an old man with distant yet vivid memories of war like the World War II veterans. As I thought about him, over the car radio came this commentary, “A Grandfather’s War Stories.” (Listen here.)

As I listened to the commentator tell about his grandfather’s WWII stories, and then listened to his voice break and the barely suppressed tears as this Navy officer thought about his friends in Iraq and their stories, I couldn’t take it. I had to pull to the side of the road and cry.

Last night on The Daily Show, Lewis Black ranted about our politicians wasting time arguing about the Moveon.org ad and Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” comment. I think they might do it on purpose. Each day they or the press spend their time talking about Barack Obama’s lapel pin is a day they don’t have to think about the people for whom this war is not a political strategy, but their lives.

I’m not describing it well, so please read it for yourself.  She’s got my mind swirling and at the same time inspired me to try to make sense of everything I’ve read and learned over the past week.  I’m going to take a stab at making my own contribution to a productive discourse, but that may take a while, so while I’m trying to get my thoughts in order,  read Pam:

The difficult discussions people don’t want to have 

Adding Jake Gyllenhaal was hysterical. It reminded me of this classic:

Here’s another one for Gina, Jake with Rufus:

Today, this letter was sent to the House, signed by over 90 LGBT organizations. (You can add your own voice by signing this petition).

United opposition to sexual-orientation-only nondiscrimination legislation
October 1, 2007

Dear Madam Speaker and Representatives:
The undersigned represent the vast and celebrated diversity of the LGBT community in this country. Some of us are national leaders of organizations with tens of thousands of members and constituents, some of us run the only local organization in our state. But we are united in a common cause: We ask you to keep working with us on an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects everyone in our community, and to oppose any substitute legislation that leaves some of us behind.

We ask and hope that in this moment of truth, you will stand for the courage real leadership sometimes demands. You each command enormous respect from all of us and we do appreciate the difficulty of balancing a variety of competing demands. But the correct course in this case and on this legislation is strikingly clear. We oppose legislation that leaves part of our community without protections and basic security that the rest of us are provided.

You told us you supported a fully inclusive ENDA and would bring it up for a vote this year. We expect that you will honor that commitment and we look forward to working together to pass a bill that we can all be proud to support.

Sincerely,

National Organizations
National Association of LGBT Community Centers
National Black Justice Coalition
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs
National Coalition for LGBT Health
National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Inc.
National Stonewall Democrats
National Transgender Advocacy Coalition
National Youth Advocacy Coalition
ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
American Institute of Bisexuality
BiNet USA
Bi Mental Health Professionals Association
Bisexual Resource Center
Bi Writers Association
COLAGE (Children of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere)
DignityUSA
Equality Federation
Equality Project Investor Advocates
Faith In America
Family Pride Coalition
Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders
GLSEN – the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
The Gender Public Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GenderPAC)
Freedom to Marry
Immigration Equality
International Federation of Black Prides
Keshet
Lambda Legal
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch
Matthew Shepard Foundation
Metropolitan Community Churches
Mautner Project: the National Lesbian Health Organization
New Ways Ministry
Out & Equal Workplace Advocates
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
Pride At Work, AFL-CIO
Reconciling Ministries Network (United Methodists)
Transgender American Veterans Association
Transgender Law and Policy Institute
Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund
TransYouth Family Advocates
Unid@s, the National Latin@ LGBT Human Rights Organization

State Organizations (grouped by state, alphabetically)
Equality Alabama
Equality Arizona
Equality California
Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center
Transgender Law Center (California)
AMBI (California)
Equal Rights Colorado
Love Makes A Family (Connecticut)
Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C.
Equality Florida
MEGA Family Project (Georgia)
Idaho Equality Committee of Your Family Friends and Neighbors
Equality Illinois
Indiana Equality
One Iowa
Kentucky Fairness Alliance
Equality Maine
Equality Maryland
Triangle Foundation (Michigan)
OutFront Minnesota
Equality Mississippi
PROMO (Missouri)
Montana Human Rights Network
Forward Montana
Citizens For Equal Protection (Nebraska)
Garden State Equality (New Jersey)
New Jersey Lesbian & Gay Coalition
New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition
Concord Outright (New Hampshire)
Seacoast Outright (New Hampshire)
PFLAG-New Hampshire
Equality New Mexico
Empire State Pride Agenda (New York)
New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)
Equality North Carolina
Equality Ohio
EqualityToledo Community Action
Kaleidoscope Youth Center (Columbus, OH)
TransOhio
Basic Rights Oregon
Equality Advocates Pennsylvania
PA Diversity Network
Northeastern PA Rainbow Alliance
Marriage Equality Rhode Island
Alliance For Full Acceptance – South Carolina
Trans Carolina (South and North Carolina)
Equality South Dakota
Tennessee Equality Project
Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition
Equality Texas
Equality Utah
R.U.1.2? Community Center (Vermont)
Equality Virginia
Equal Rights Washington
Center Advocates (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

This week, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi decided to split it into two separate bills, one covering sexual orientation, and the other gender identity. They figured, let’s take care of the Ls, Gs, and Bs now, and come back for the Ts later.

Why? Because while Republicans think LGBs are depraved, self-serving, sinful perverts trying to steal their children and destroy the American way of life, they really dislike the Ts. So, in order to appease the fears of people who like to use terms like “she-males,” our Democratic leadership has decided to cut loose the very people who are probably most in need of this legislation.

I have great respect for both Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, but in this case, I think they are simply wrong.

I’ve spent the past couple of days talking about it. Michelangelo Signorile made some of the points I’ve been saying:

I’ll be writing more on this, including the politics around it and the actions of gay groups, but suffice it to say that I think it’s a difficult position to defend and a huge mistake to remove gender identity from the bill. Those who’ve argued that it’s “pragmatic” or part of “incremental” gains are making all the wrong comparisons, and I think they know it. They say, for example, that this is equivalent to accepting, where possible, civil unions for now over marriage: Even though we believe marriage is the goal we herald civil union gains as an interim measure. But that doesn’t wash: Whether it’s marriage or civil unions it’s still for all of us and not just some of us. (Or did I miss the part where some genius said, Let’s pass civil unions for lesbians first and come back to the gay men later, since lesbians might be less threatening than gay men?) Incremetalism does not mean cutting out whole groups of people.

Another comparison I’ve seen from those who support dropping gender identity from the bill is that their action is similar to the supposedly pragmatic activists during the black civil rights movement who understood that they needed to start small and grow — they started with employment, and then moved on to housing and public accommodations in later years. That, again, is a disingenuous comparison. First off, we have already made those concessions: The original gay rights bill of 1974 was a sweeping bill that included housing and public accommodations. But more to the point, African-Americans did not say, Hey, let’s put forth a bill to protect all the light-skinned blacks — those who can pass and are less threatening to whites — and we’ll come back to the blackest of the black later. And make no mistake: the trannies are the queerest of the queer; they are the ones who need protections more than anyone else.

Pam Spaulding had a great post that goes even deeper and really helped me think about not just ENDA, but politics more generally, and what she calls the purist/pragmatist split:

My two cents: trans inclusion should not be dropped from ENDA.

That said, I certainly understand that this position represents the “purist activism” point of view — the principle is that if one falls, we all fall. The pragmatic view is that incremental gains can and should be taken to move the civil rights bar forward. As Barney Frank’s office noted, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 failed to address voting (added in ’65) and housing (added in ’68).

I struggle with this split sometimes. I tend to fall on the purist side most of the time, so I frequently get questioned by friends–and by myself. The pragmatic side always seems so reasonable, so practical. It seems like the way more likely to get things done. The end of Pam’s post reminds us of why pragmatic attempts at compromise sometimes gain no more than the purist position, or even less:

The latter point brings me to a thought that immediately came to mind when I heard trans inclusion was in jeopardy. The concern of Pelosi and others that there would be a “bruising” debate on ENDA that focused on the “T” seems like a red herring. Of course it will be bruising. No matter when this came up for debate, the usual suspects — the professional anti-LGBT forces — would blast disinformation and bigotry non-stop. There would be high volume bleating and hysteria based on “she-males,” transvestism, drag queens, bathroom paranoia, etc.

Quite frankly, I feel like this needs to come out in debate on the House floor, and better that it does under the mantle of the Bush Administration and the legacy of a Republican run Congress, which has done everything to foment anti-LGBT sentiment for years. They should own this. The Democrats don’t have the juice to undo years of this BS in the short time that they have been in power.

ENDA will fail, no matter its configuration because George Bush and allies on the Hill have shamelessly obtained their power by cultivating political support on a base of fear, hate and ignorance. The bill might as well fail now, and hold up its defeat as the first step in reviving a commitment to unite, not divide, and to move the civil rights bar forward.

But it isn’t going to be pretty or painless.

If by some miracle the new gutted version of ENDA were to pass, it would truly be an empty victory. ENDA was supposed to be a triumph of the belief that people should not have to fear losing their jobs or suffering discrimination for being who they are. If the law only applies to some people and not others, it means that for no one.