Yellow and Red

My heart pounded watching this and my breath caught in my chest. Each successive tear the streaked down my face was wept for my sisters. As they dried on my cheek, or on my pillow, as my lungs again filled with air, and my heart returned to its normal pace I was struck by what I was feeling.

I laid in bed for a few hours after watching this and felt a way that I have not in months.

I have found myself falling asleep with ease the last few months, which if you know where I was in January, in February, is a very big deal.

Tonight sleep did not come so easily. I feel that I won't find dreams so quick to come. Tonight my heart hurts for the nameless, faceless masses who have been told they are not equal to me. That their love matters less than mine.

This has been gnawing at my insides for five days. I knew I wanted to write something but I have taken some time to focus my thoughts.

Friday morning I was sitting in a staff meeting at work. I work in a office with eight other people, all of whom are African-American. We were discussing the election and what it meant for the world.

One of my co-workers, who refused to say who she voted for, but whose refusal was as much as an admission that she cast her lot with the losing team, justified her vote on the basis that Obama did not represent her values.

No one argued, no one questioned her vote, she seemed to be justifying her choice to herself, as much as to any of us.

She went on, unprovoked, to announce that she is not "For" Gay Marriage, or Abortion.

Not wanted to get into a heated political debate at a staff meeting, being one of the new guys, and feeling that I would be hard pressed to stay civil, I let it go.

What I wish I had said, and what I will say if the subject comes up again is something like this:

How dare you? How dare you relegate the people I love to second class citizenship. How dare you attempt to impose your religious beliefs on those who may or may not recognize your god.

We are not looking for your churches co-signature on our right to love who we chose.

Under the constitution of the united states all citizens are grated Equal Protection under the Law. Not just those who are of one color, or one gender, or one sexual orientation.

On the very night that the promise of the civil rights movement was realized, the very night that four hundred years of ugly history saw the beginning of its end, American Citizens were stripped of rights that they were previously granted.

And your not "For" Gay Marriage.

We are not looking for you to be "For" it, what we want is for you not to be against it.

I stood on a beach in late June, my back to the pounding surf, and watched as two women embraced each other, Yellow and Red becoming so much more than color can define.

I stood on that beach, and watched as two women were recognized as equals. They stood toe to toe with convention, and the quote un quote definition of marriage, convention blinked.

Am I to believe that the love and devotion that I witnessed is illegitimate because your church is not "For" Gay Marriage.

This is not a religious issue, or a moral one, it is an issue of basic Civil Rights. I will be the first person to stand up and recognize yours, how the FUCK DARE YOU question mine, or my sisters, or the woman that she loves. I ask you again, with all the force that this insignificant man can muster, HOW THE FUCK DARE YOU.

I propose a simple, non-religious resolution to this question. All people, gay straight, or otherwise, who want to enter into a LEGAL UNION in any state that is under the jurisdiction of the Constitution, will file for a Civil Union License. This will be the document that is recognized by the Government for legal purposes. This contract will define the rights of those people, and will be the document that is dissolved in the case of divorce (which happens more than 50% of the time in your so called sacred institution).

Anyone wishing to enter into a religious union above and beyond the legal union that was the original contract is welcome to. It will be up to the individual Churches to recognize, or not recognize the marriage based on their specific dogma. What they won't do, is deny others the right to have Equal Rights in a country whose Government is representative of all of us.

The irony here is that marriage is described as a "Sacred Institution", words so similar to "Peculiar Institution" as Slavery was described in the American South. It is ironic because those who defended the institution of slavery turned to the bible to defend their practices, just as those who now "defend" the institution of marriage now do.

I ask simply that you not define this is terms of morality, but in terms of civil rights. Yours and Mine.



Perhaps now I can fall asleep. Perhaps.

I love you two. Yellow and Red.