09/01/2005
California Senate approves legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.
Posted 4:10 PM EST by Andy Towle in Elsewhere | Permalink
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Oh shit! I guess God will be striking down The Gays with a major earthquake in the next few days. Either that or Bush will declare civil war (isn't that an oxymoron?) on Cali...
Posted by: Wayne | Sep 1, 2005 4:24:33 PM
Get Happy, Wayne!
Posted by: Billy | Sep 1, 2005 4:27:14 PM
Please don't call it Cali.
Posted by: Leland | Sep 1, 2005 4:55:45 PM
Marriage? Oh, that's just great! Now, we have to deal with weddings, rings, joint checking accounts, alimony and divorce, just like the breeders. What's next? Will we be expected to adopt children? Buy houses in the suburbs? Drive a mini-van?
Excuse me, but part of what I enjoyed about being gay was because it wasn't about any of those things. Now we'll just be.... normal?.... average?..... that couple next door? We won't even be queer anymore. Just gay.
I guess this is the end result of decades of struggle for equal rights. Finally, our spouses can screw us in bed, and in court. Goodbye romance, hello matrimony.
Posted by: jay | Sep 1, 2005 5:07:34 PM
"Sometimes the chains of matrimony are so heavy they have to be carried by three."
Eugéne François Vidocq
Posted by: David | Sep 1, 2005 5:19:24 PM
Jaded much?
I personally applaude California.
Posted by: Rob | Sep 1, 2005 5:56:04 PM
Civil rights are about choice. I too applaud California, even though my partner and I will likely not choose to get married. I like being able to create my own relationship paradigm... it's one of the best things about being gay. But if others want to have the traditional wedding, then more power to them.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 1, 2005 6:54:05 PM
Well said Brian.
Posted by: Rob | Sep 1, 2005 10:07:06 PM
hey Jay - my husband and I adopted a kid because we wnted to parent. then we got married in Canada - and our home State accepts it at full value - because it was the best way to plan estates for our kid. both decisions were choices, but I am glad they were available to me. now I can work for those 'special rights' the far rightwingers keep harping on about!
Posted by: WindReader | Sep 1, 2005 10:13:59 PM
Windreader,
Two men raising a child? You gonna name him Herman and make him wear a bowtie to school? You are being selfish, and the kid will pay for it. He'll never fit in because he has gay men for parents. You might as well tattoo "kick me" on his forehead. Is that your idea of freedom?
I grew up in a very "progressive" household. I know what it is to have all the kids in school make fun of you because you are different, or your family is odd.
I hope the kid forgives you. I've never forgiven my parents.
Posted by: jay | Sep 2, 2005 12:44:01 AM
Good job California. Way to keep our state in the blue.
As for you Jay,
I would like to say that I grew up in a town where my family was different too. In school, I was made fun of as you say you were. At home, our house was vandalized with hate messages telling us to "go back home". I ended up growing up hating who I was. All because my parents escaped Vietnam so that they could enjoy the things that people in the US had, like freedom and hope for a better life.
You're so right, they're selfish b*tches. They should've known that life would've been hard for ME. And that I would have to face hardships that were soooo much more difficult than them having to give up a life they've known to move to a city where they were put at the lowest rung of the societal ladder. Geez how selfish were they.
:: That last paragraph was meant to be as sarcarstic as a person could possibly be::
The truth for me is that I realized that the struggles I faced growing up were a fraction of what my parents dealt with. And to say that we shouldn't fight for a more understanding world, because it might put some hardships on our children is asking for a world that doesn't develop. I know with each new Vietnamese family that came in after us, a little less teasing and violence was done.
As for Windreader and his family's situation I respect your efforts in this. And maybe your children will too if it so happens to he/she is gay and wants to adopt children.
*side note* - I don't know you Jay, or know what you've gone through. I just wanted to point out that not every kid who was made fun of as a child as a result of their parents' choices holds an undying resentment towards them.
Just my two dimes (darn, gas prices are making everything cost more :)
Posted by: Trung | Sep 2, 2005 5:10:28 AM
Being a Californian, I've always felt the tide here to be a bit different. It possesses a far more libertarian philosophy among the younger generations (a mindset that small New England states have had for a long time), while the older status quo is slowly being phased out.
With the fallout from Katrina, I wouldn't be surprised if legislators looked at the bill and suppressed a chuckle. "You want us to argue about what???"
To quote Brookings scholar (and NFL columnist, incidentally) Gregg Easterbrook:
By legal tradition, marriage is a union between "a man and a woman." At various points in legal tradition, women could not vote, slaves were three-fifths of a person and children could work in mines. Legal traditions change all the time, and what a relief that they do.
Posted by: RDiggy | Sep 2, 2005 6:37:55 AM
Jay, you've got some severe issues and should seek psychiatric assistance immediately. How old are you? I hope you're under 18, because if you're not, and you're still blaming your parents for your issues then you REALLY need to get some help as fast as possible.
I'm also guessing that your straight and Republican since you have such an issue with two men raising a child. Let me tell you something. My parents, and my best friends parents, were killed in a car crash when we were both 17 years old. I was just about to graduate high school. We moved in together (I'm gay, he's straight) and we held our "family" together. I had a 7 year old sister at the time and he had a 12 year old brother. We still consider ourselves a family today, and we never faced discrimination for being two men raising kids together.
I'm 42 years old now and my sister and "brothers" are healthy, well adjusted, and both have families of their own. Anyone seeing us would have probably assumed we were a gay couple because we were very close, and had no problem with public displays of affection for each other. We were the mom and dad of this family, and it turned out just fine.
Shame on you for spitting such vile speak at Windreader...him and his husband should be respected and admired for helping a child find a life in a world full of bigots like you.
I'll say it again...SHAME ON YOU!
Posted by: Wayne | Sep 2, 2005 8:37:14 AM
Wayne,
I've got real psychotherapists, and I'm on real medication, so you can stop pretending to be helpful.
FYI, I'm over 18, and quite gay. I'm a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, and if you ask your mom, she might explain to you what that means.
Posted by: jay | Sep 2, 2005 10:22:17 AM
Jay, as I said in my previous post, my mom died when I was 17 years old. Perhaps you were unable to read that because your head is so far up your own ass.
You obviously need MORE, or DIFFERENT medication, and an etirely new team of therapists.
God help you, because no one else will.
Posted by: Wayne | Sep 2, 2005 10:46:54 AM
Jay,
I thought your first post was all sarcasm. Wow, wrong.
As a same-sex parent in Sacramento, CA in the process of adopting from the county a 4-year-old boy who we've parented for over a year, I'm officially on alert that the biggest judgments and threat to our family will come from those who'd assume as allies, like you. How wrong we were. Thanks for letting us know we should be on the lookout for you ilk.
Our son is adopted, triracial, in a transracial family, with two dads. And, from the looks of things at his first week of kindergarten in this relatively conservative area of California, he is far from different.
Posted by: Aaron | Sep 2, 2005 1:42:39 PM
Aaron, what we found is that those that were "different" were those like Jay, that pointed fingers and called us names, and that was a VERY small minority.
It's been 25 years since we were forced to become our own family, and what stands out most in my memories are how accepting and helpful everyone has been. The positive's so far outweigh the negatives that I can't even cite a single example, with the exception of Jay, where families like ours have been verbally assaulted.
Congrats to you and your family on making a difference!
Posted by: Wayne | Sep 2, 2005 2:22:30 PM
Fine. Live in your own little world, and pretend that your children will never face prejudice because you have somehow created a better universe where gays are accepted and kids are kind to one another. I hope you find that sort of acceptance, but I can't imagine where it actually exists.
Here, in my world, half of all marriages fail. Maybe more than that. Children from broken homes are dragged through divorce court and child custody fights until they are old enough to remove themselves from the fight. Do you think kids with gay parents will fare any better?
Kids here in my world are cruel to each other when other kids are different. It doesn't matter if that difference is parental, financial, racial, political, or simply ideological. Kids with gay parents will be targets for the kind of hatred you know exists, but is more restrained in adults than it is in children. I hope your kids don't face that, but you ought to expect it anyway.
I don't care about gay marriage. I don't care about marriage at all. It's a flawed institution, doomed to failure. I do care about kids. Any time you set a child apart from his peers, you add to his burden. Gay marriages will eventually be accepted, but it will take years, and it will take a major change in the way society thinks. Social engineering is risky business. The kids involved don't know when they are being used as test cases, and they don't get a choice whether or not to vounteer.
Yeah, I like being gay and single.
Posted by: jay | Sep 2, 2005 5:05:25 PM
>>>"Gay marriages will eventually be accepted, but it will take years, and it will take a major change in the way society thinks."
When do you plan on being part of that change?
Posted by: james | Sep 3, 2005 12:26:40 PM
Wow Jay. What a mess your life must have been. I am so sorry for that. I am a counselor and I'll tell you this. You need to find a counselor who is more supportive of your life style and can help you find happiness. Life as your living it must be very difficult and no one deserves that. I am happy to hear you say clearly that you are gay because it is a start to taking responsibility for your life.
I am not sure why you feel that being ABLE to marry will so horribly affect you. Don't you like to have choices? Why can't others have those same choices and be able to choose differently than you would. I hope someday, if you need it, someone is there to fight for your rights to do as you would like. I most likely won't marry again as I have done that once, loved it, but now my new partner and I are comfortable without it. But I'll be damned if I will stand back and let someone else take away the possibility. Where does that line stop? You have already reaped the benefits of someone fighting for you by the simple fact that you can get on the internet and state without fear that you are gay. No one is coming to take you away. (At least not for being gay.)
You have bought into the right wing line that being gay affects kids negatively. It's not like gay parents are new or anything and the far majority of people raised by 1 or more gay parents are well adjusted, normal people. At some point, every child gets teased in school. And I mean every child. That will never change. I am sorry you didn’t have a shoulder to cry on and get over it, but it high time you try. (Sorry, I'm a counselor, not an enabler)
As for me, I believe we find what we seek. And I have found supportive straight friends, in laws, employment, and my own family was present at my wedding back in 1989 to my male partner. You too can find it if you want it. Or you can continue wallowing in the past and future misery. Wonderful thing about having choices. You can not blame anyone else for your situation if you choose not to change it, and if you choose to change it, there will be no need to blame anyone any more. Good Luck.
Posted by: Wes | Sep 3, 2005 2:00:24 PM
Amen to that Wes. Beautiful. I've come to known many teenagers born into Gay households and their strong individuals, stronger then I am. Sometimes I wish I had gay parents.
Posted by: Damon | Sep 3, 2005 4:57:26 PM
I'll never understand you provincial people who cling to heterosexual traditions as if there were no other way of life. Adopting children and raising families, baking bread at home and putting tinsel on the Xmas tree. How terribly quaint and Amish.
The kind of marriage you seek is something dreamed up by the church, and mandated by society. I have never sought acceptance by your kind of society. I believe gay people, eventually, will realize that their own traditions and values are just as important as those of our parents.
In the seventies, when gay men could be arrested for holding hands in public, I fought for gay rights. I did not fight for acceptance of gay values, because it's not important for society to accept us. People don't have to like us, but they do have to let us live. We must have equal rights.
After nearly a decade of struggle, I left the fight to those that followed. I left the organization I helped to found, and I have no regrets. Because of my work, and the hard work of many people who worked with me, those who followed were better prepared to deal with the AIDS crisis. If everyone gave a few years of their life to something they really wanted, we'd all be happier.
I don't choose to imitate a heterosexual lifestyle, or to create a lie to make my life easier. I was openly gay in the US Navy, and still managed to get an honorable discharge after five years. I have been openly gay with every employer, and you can bet that it has cost me a few jobs. I don't apologise for having a different set of values than my heterosexual neighbors. Those that can get past their fear of gay people, will find we have a lot in common.
Leave childbirth and parenting to breeders. It's why god made them. Gay people were created for a higher purpose.
Posted by: jay | Sep 4, 2005 11:58:30 PM
Jay, get some help please. The bitterness, the hate, the fear, the ignorance...jeez, I don't know that I've ever felt more sorry for anyone in my life. YOU are the problem here, not the Gays, not the Straights, not marriage or breeding...it's your attitude about what is right and wrong. Someone has obviously done a horrible number on you, and you need to know that you can get past this.
And don't say that you don't want to get past this, that you enjoy your life, because it is way to apparent that you are unhappy and depressed.
Please seek help immediately.
Posted by: Wayne | Sep 8, 2005 2:37:40 PM
I agree with Jay totally. He is living in reality.
I live in L.A. one of the gayest paces around and STILL see Jay's reality. A self-induced oblivian may help YOU, in your own small home, but Jay is talking about the bigger picture.
Posted by: Devine | Feb 23, 2006 2:53:58 AM