Paper Thin Rights for our First Year

Today is Wednesday, June 17, 2009 and one year ago today, Skip and I were legally married in West Hollywood, California. Tonight we’re going to celebrate with dinner at Comme Ca, the French bistro in West Hollywood we celebrated at the day we tied the knot. But the celebration will be muted due to the constitutionally bullshit ruling by the California Supreme Court that left us married, but denied the same right to thousands of others. Now this confusion has to be worked out in the courts, probably the Supreme Court of the United States, and that’s going to take a while. So once again we’re forced by haters to sit and wait for the rights that logically should be ours. In the meantime, at least I can take solace in the fact that my marriage to Skip is continuing to undermining heterosexual marriages, especially those of straight black men.

It’s hard to be happy about a President who promised to end two discriminatory policies, DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), that the government has been practicing for the last decade thanks to the cowardice of our last Democratic President, and now is turning his head away from those promises. In the meantime, qualified soldiers are getting kicked out of the military, which is ruining their lives and hurting the quality of our Armed Forces, at a time when quality is really needed. It’s not just a gay issue, people.

Despite its claims to want to end DOMA, the Obama administration sided with it in court this week, arguing that it was needed and comparing homosexual relationships with incest and pedophilia. When the expected outrage happened, Obama announced that he was going to sign a proclamation giving limited benefits to partners of same-sex federal workers, but stopping short of the really important benefit of full health insurance. Thanks for the bone, Obama, but pardon me if I don’t grovel and lick your hand.

The reason he can’t give full benefits to same-sex partners is because of DOMA, so the discrimination folds in on itself.

Now, I know Obama is only six months into his administration, but so far he seems to be a whole lot of good talk and not very much positive action. And not only on same-sex issues. I’m not really happy with the way he continues to bail out big business while ignoring the real people hurt in this economic depression. And I’m not happy with his about-face plans for the wars in the Middle East. His health care plan just isn’t enough. His Supreme Court nominee is too centrist. And…and…and…

Right now “change we can believe in” just seems to be business as usual. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Well, at least he can construct a logical sentence and has good speaking skills, which is more than can be said of the evil moron he replaced.

We’ll see where the rest of this term takes us. He may still surprise me and actually act on the promises he ran on that got him elected. If he does, then I’ll owe him a big apology for being so impatient. But if he’s just another Clinton, then next time I’m voting for Nader.

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That’s all I have for you this week. I’m still overwhelmed with stuff I need to get done and it doesn’t look like its going to end any time soon. This can be a good thing, because I’m bringing in much needed money. We’re hoping we have enough now to carry us to the end of the year, but our credit cards are maxed out and we have little remaining equity in our house. So I’ve still got to do a lot more. I’ve got plenty to sell here; I just need the time.

So while I’d love to get a new blog up every week, I can’t promise anything. I have a whole list of topics I want to write about and eventually I’ll get to them all. I just ask you to be patient with me.

Last week was my 55 birthday. June 9. Since that day is the same birthday as Donald Duck, although he’s 75, I decided to spend the day in celebration at Disneyland. This year, Disneyland has a marketing celebration allowing everyone to get into Disneyland for free on their birthdays. I already have a season pass, so I got a $69 gift certificate instead. I bought a brand new “Grumpy” hat to match Skip’s hat that says “I ‘heart’ Grumpy Guys” and still have a good portion of it left to spend. I’m sure I’ll find something in the near future.

I’ve got a lot to write about growing older and feeling young and I hope I can get to that in my next blog. I’m going to try to start writing it this weekend, so I can post it next week.

As always, thanks for reading and for your support. I hope all of you are doing fine and that life is treating you well. See you in a week or two.