It's the third Thursday of November. No, that does not mean "only 1 week till Thanksgiving!" It means that the Beaujolais Nouveaus are released today! Gotta love super-new wine that has a law on when it can be distributed. My aunt and uncle in California celebrate this day every year. On Thanksgiving we would try as many different bottles as they could get their hands on in Menlo Park. This meant I'd try nearly 10 different wines over the course of the day. And they don't 'try' wines, they drink the whole glass. One year I spilled a full glass of BN on Jake's nice grey pants. Whoops. I miss celebrating this tradition with my uncle and aunt.
But have no fear! I'm planning on commemorating it with Kevin and Paul next week. Hopefully I'll be able to find a few bottles in Chicago before we head to their house. Nate and I will be going to Minneapolis for the holiday weekend to attend the Alternative Family Thanksgiving: a lesbian couple, gay couple, and unwed straight couple will be passing plates and drinks around. Audrey will be in tow. She loves the car, so I'm excited to bring her along. She also looks exactly like Kevin and Paul's dog, Sally, only 40 pounds smaller. I can't wait to take a long drive, get out of town, and relax.
The march - the march was a bit messy at first. The cops on horses refused to let us march. It was a bet tense at first because the cops were herding us into these gates where there'd be no way to get out safely if shit happened. When they did let us go, they only wanted us to march on one side of the sidewalk, stopping at all traffic signals. That lasted about two blocks before they gave up and we took over. Then we didn't go any route that the organizers told them. We ended up winding through the loop and up to the magnificent mile, where tourists were gawking. It was incredible to be a part of, and Christy and I were crying for much of the march.
This video shows a good part of how we were stuck, then how we became unstuck:
Here is where we crossed the bridge and went down mag mile. All traffic was stopped and most of the cars were high-fiving us and honking.
It was fucking cold out and windy as hell, but we stuck it out for four hours. I think about how many people in four states just got told by their peers and their government that they can fuck off and are truly second class citizens, and it breaks my heart. I think about my gay and lesbian friends that got married in SF over the summer (four of them) that are now being told their marriage is illegitimate and how devastated they are. The complacency surrounding this situation is disgusting and disheartening. There was one poster that said "I can't believe I'm still protesting this crap" then had 3 check boxes, women's rights, black rights, gay rights, and only the first two had checks in them. That poster sums it up - not that women or black people have everything fine and dandy - but that the gay civil rights movement began with stonewall and still forty years later there's been almost no progress. Not just no progress, but active groups lobbying against gay rights and actually succeeding. Money talks: Find out who near you donated for or against 8 (I can't find similar lists for AZ, FL, and Arkansas).
From Keith Olbermann's incredible speech on November 10th, which is youtube'd below.
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.
posted by Alexei "Mr Clutch" Ramirez for President @ 9:58 PM0 Comments
Friday, November 07, 2008
Change
I feel an obligation to write about going to Grant Park for the Obama rally on Tuesday, but I also don't know what to say that hasn't been said a thousand times about the victory and the event. I was there with this guy, so I'll let his excellent recap serve as mine.
I do know that I'm concerned his victory will overshadow some of the truly heinous and hateful propositions that passed on Tuesday such as gay marriage bans Prop 8 in CA and Amendment 2 in FL, and Act 1 that makes it illegal to be an unwed couple, gay or straight, to foster or adopt in Arkansas. Also my home state of Nebraska passed Initiative 424, which rewrites the state constitution to eliminate equal opportunity programs. So while we all celebrate the end of GOP control of the White House, millions of our fellow Americans are being given the finger in the state law books and constitutions. I hope people remember that not all tears shed on Tuesday came from joy. I hope that the momentum that propelled Obama to the White House continues and rallies behind those who's lives are devastated by those propositions. Nobody deserves to be a second class citizen.
I told my grandma I was at the rally and that it felt really special to be a part of that event. I told them about how touched I was by seeing grown men cry in public, multi-generational hugs, and everyone being friendly and jubilant. It was like New Years Eve, only sober and meaningful. My grandma emailed me back, and as usual she continues to be one of the coolest 85 year old lived in Idaho and Nebraska her whole life lady on earth. In Omaha identifying as a democrat carries as much stigma as saying you have AIDs, and she writes me this:
We were just as thrilled and we imagined you there -- as one of those heads that extended into the distance. It still doesn't sink in that it is true. We in this county, and district 2 [Omaha], are waiting for the early mail-in votes (like your 5 family members) and provisional votes to be counted, to be finished next week, and that could give an electoral vote to Obama---proud !
I risked my reputation as "One of the good people"" and my continuing friendship with 2 of my "good" friends by defending and supporting Obama to their ear (over the phone) and telling them that he IS NOT a MUSLIM and Socialist, and there is not anything SCARY about what will happen to the U.S. if he was elected. And I can feel proud of not "going along" just to be agreeable. I've known that I am not in tune with them in other ways too. In Omaha we saw only one Obama sign and Grandpa was the only one in his coffee/golf bunch that is a democrat---that was Omaha ---the young and blacks and a few of our kind really fooled Omaha!
