Beneath a Cloudless Sky

Shortly after we moved into our house in 1996, Luisa and I hung a rainbow flag off the front of our house.  It felt like staking a claim - we were creating a home together - and every day I'd come home from work and smile as I saw that flag fluttering in the wind. And then one day, we came home to find that the flag had been burned.

I could not believe that someone would walk into my yard and set that flag on fire, could not fathom that kind of hate. So, I stood under a cloudless sky and wondered aloud if the flagpole had been struck by lightning.

I have always had an irrational belief in the goodness of people.

This story came back to me this morning as I drove my kids to school and the conversations turned to the anti-marriage amendment once more. They talked about the most recent polls and the places they have spotted "Vote Yes" yard signs.

The discussion is inescapable.

Yes, I want to marry my partner - not because it will change our lives but because it means something to our kids. But, I also know that the anti-marriage amendment is about more than marriage. It is meant to frighten and divide us. It is meant to drive conservatives to the polls in a presidential election year. It diverts our money and attention from the real issues of poverty, housing and health care.

It is a distraction.

It distracts all of us from the the broader issues and it distracts me from my family.

That is the irony here. While people around the state talk about whether or not I should have the right to marry my partner, we are busy raising a family.

The kids need pants now that the weather has turned colder. We are out of bread. The kids have soccer practice and martial arts classes and guitar lessons. There is homework that needs to be done. We have a fundraiser for the kids' school that we need to plan. Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up. Both kids need haircuts. There is laundry to do and we really need to clean out the fridge.

I am tired in all the ways that parents are tired. I am tired from balancing work and family. I am tired from the sleep lost when your children have insomnia or nightmares. I am tired from early mornings and late nights and trying to get everything done.

And I'm tired in ways that only some parents know. I'm tired of my relationship and family being used as political tools. I'm tired of feeling guilty because I should be doing more to fight. I'm tired of explaining anti-marriage billboards and yard signs to my children, of trying to help them make sense of bigotry. I'm tired of having to reassure my children that no matter how people vote on the marriage amendment, we will be fine. I'm tired of trying to teach my kids compassion and kindness when they see so little shown to their family.

After the election, no matter what the results, I will get up in the morning and love my partner. I will wake my kids and make them breakfast and take them to school and tell them I love them.

Nothing will change.

I will remain defiantly optimistic. I will still be the kind of person who can stand beneath a cloudless sky and believe that the flames licking at my heels are caused by lightning. Because, when I can no longer do that, when I can no longer tell my kids that people are basically good, that's when I'll know I've truly lost.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.  ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A Bitch, a Ho and a Feminist Walk into an iPod

Growing up, the men in my family came and went but the women were constant. My mother. My sister. My aunts. They were my role models and by watching them I learned how powerful women can be. They worked hard, loved hard and fought hard. They taught me that women could do anything but I never heard the word "feminist" until I went to college. My lefty liberal arts college gave me the language to explain every lesson I'd learned from the women in my family but this intellectual feminism pushed me to question everything - my appearance, my relationships and my language. In some ways, becoming an intellectual feminist made me rigid and guarded. When you sit down with your girlfriend to have a serious conversation about whether or not buying a dildo will make you a bad lesbian feminist, you've gone too far.

So, how does that kind of feminist suddenly become enamored with rap in her 40's? This is a question I've been wrestling with for months as I have listened to Nicki Minaj, Eve, M.I.A., Jay Z, Kanye and yes - even Eminem. How do I reconcile my politics with music that can be, at times, so filled with misogyny?

I finally have the answer - I can't.

Music has always been important to me. It is pure emotion. It is cathartic. It inspires. Rap is no different. It is all about confidence and power. Rap dares you to claim your worth and dares everyone else to doubt it. In the past year, I've pushed myself to do things that I had been afraid to do and rap has been my soundtrack, the beat helping to keep my self-doubt at bay. Also - rap lyrics are hilarious and clever and I am always a sucker for that combination.

My mother worked as a typesetter at a printing company. The company was owned by a married couple but my mother was the only woman who worked with the press operators who were all men. She would occasionally mention that it was hard to hold her own as the only woman. She never complained but simply said, "Sometimes, you have to be a bitch." When she retired, the woman who owned the company gave her a necklace that said, "Bitch" and told her, "Bitches have to stick together."

Nicki Minaj would say that my mother was a "bad bitch doin' it". I can live with that. I aspire to be the same.

Lines Will Be Drawn

The headline reads "Amendment to ban same-sex marriage moves closer to ballot in 2012" and, this time, they are talking about Minnesota. This time, the state government that is trying to legislate discrimination is my own. For most of my life, I have been ambivalent about marriage. I grew up believing that, while love may last forever,  relationships rarely do. Nearly every person in my family has been divorced at least once which instilled in me a deep cynicism about the institution itself. I never imagined myself getting married, never looked at my mother's dress and imagined myself wearing it as I walked down the aisle. After coming out, marriage was definitely not an option anymore but I felt no sense of loss.

The truth is that not all LGBT people want marriage equality and the reasons vary.  There is no hive mind in our community which is partly why we can't actually agree on that Homosexual Agenda you hear so much about. I have friends on both sides of the issue - friends for and against - and I have managed to walk some sort of middle ground. I have always understood both sides, felt kinship with both sides, but I've never taken a position.

Today, as I read about the proposed amendment here, I cried. I cried a lot. I eventually pulled myself together because I had a lunch date with Zeca. As I sat in her classroom in that tiny chair and chatted with her and her friends, I realized why I had spent the morning in tears. I have never needed legal recognition to legitimize my relationship. I have never needed it to deepen my commitment to my partner. I still don't need it but, today, I realized that I want it - not for me but for my kids. 

Our kids talk about marriage often. It matters to them. Just last week, I asked Miguel why marriage equality was so important to him and he said, "Mom, it is wrong that you can't marry the person you love. It's just wrong." Zeca agreed and then told me that she wants to see us get married. She believes in marriage because she believes that both love and relationships can last. And why wouldn't she? Her parents have been together for 18 years.

When you live outside the law long enough, you begin to accept inequality. You find ways to work around it. If you have money, you hire attorneys to help you protect your relationship and family. If you don't, you hold tightly to those you love and hope for the best. But, protecting your family shouldn't require economic privilege or good fortune. Legal protection should be a right.

If this amendment makes it to the ballot, the fight will be an ugly one. Hateful words will flow effortlessly from the mouths of people previously considered to be reasonable and my family will be forced to bear witness to it all. Luisa and I have done all we can to protect our family legally but how will we protect our children from the war of words that will take place when our civil rights are placed on the ballot for popular vote?  How many more times will I have to explain to them that such actions are born of fear and ignorance?

I have always clung to the belief that people are basically good. When my children are hurt by others, when times are difficult, this is what I tell them. I can't help but wonder how much longer they'll believe me when faced with so much evidence to the contrary. My only hope is that the love we share every day will teach them kindness and compassion and help them believe that love will always prevail over hate.

In the coming days, we will all need to believe that more than ever.