Finally… A new years post
Happy new years folks… as is typical, the holidays wizzed by and i immediately got thrust into the tempest of my regular weeks and haven’t gotten around to posting till now. And even now i don’t have much to say but i got tired of the last post lurking there. So here is a quick update…
Lets see – holidays were fantastic. Kevin and I spent Christmas out in Granite Bay with my parents and my sister and brother in law who drove out from Colorado. Drive you ask? Well they also brought their new puppy Calvin who is a gorgeous Yellow Lab pup. So we had a very Canine Christmas – 4 dogs romping and playing like crazy dogs. Nina was in Heaven. Christmas was very nice and relaxing which i enjoy..
After Christmas Kevin and I drove down the coast to spend a couple of nights at Costanoa to get a little quiet time… If you haven’t been there you should go – its kinda pottery barn camping. Camping without the hassle or the dirt. We went hiking along the beach, drove to santa cruz, had nice dinners, and relaxed… VERY Nice!
After that Katie and Nick drove into the city from Sac-to to spend a few days for new years eve. They crashed out with us and got to spend time with Nick’s mom who was visiting for a conference. Highlight was new years eve where my parents drove out from Sac-to for the evening (such a long haul for such a short time – we really appreciated it) and we all went to a really nice new years dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in the ‘stro…
The next day, after Katie and Nick left my step sister Haylie and her beau Ross came out to visit for a night. It was REALLY great to see her and meet Ross – he was a really nice guy. The only regret was that I was so tired by that point in the holiday that I don’t think we were very good hosts. but it was wonderful seeing them.
So that was the holidays – then i dove back into work… As usual i can’t talk about the details of that aside from the public stuff (you know – macworld last week… FCP supermeet last wednesday which was cool… some health issues with our fearless leader… blahh blahh blahh)…
Ok… Now you’re all up to date.. More smaller updates later.. but that should hold ya for now! 🙂
A quick update
I think its been a while since i’ve posted anything… No real excuses aside from the usual ones – just super busy with a zillion different things and not a whole lot of time for much else… I have been keeping up with twitter (see the sidebar) but not much time to actually pull together a post… Its Sunday night now and i figured i’d pull together a quick post…
Reader’s digest is work work, Christmas, work work, Baby Shower, work work, hanging out, work work… We had a baby shower at our house for our friends Drew and Adrian who are having a baby just after the new year. We had a house full of people and amazing food thanks to kevin… Was a lot of fun. Since then work has been super busy with things that I can’t talk about as usual..
This past weekend was pretty good. Had dinner with Alex at a restaurant called Sauce in Hayes valley that was super good. Kind of funky variations on old classics… Meat loaf. Tater Tots. That kind of thing.. Was really good. The rest of the weekend we spent working and christmas shopping. Boring I know but such is my life lately – and i’m OK with that 🙂
We did manage to see Milk this weekend. If you haven’t seen it you NEED to see it. I expected to be touched by it because i’d heard good things and because we’re surrounded by signs of that part of history living here in the Castro – but I had NO IDEA how moving it would be. They do an amazing job of combining new footage and historical footage to put together an amazing story. I came out completely exhausted and looking for more information (which is always my sign of a good movie).
Anyway.. thats it for now… more later
So there isn’t confusion
There are a bunch of people who still seem confused about why we’re upset about not being granted the same basic rights of civil marriage that other straight couples are granted simply by dropping into a chapel of love in Vegas. People seem to think we’re either being uppity and subversive, or trying to attack their churches, or any number of related distortions and lies.
Well lets clear this up. Its not about any of that. Its about the ever increasing number of basic rights our society ties to Civil Marriage. Wikipedia does an excellent job of listing these out out:
Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States
These are just the federal laws that treat married couples differently than unmarried couples. And this doesn’t even include state, local, and corporate rights and responsibilities. And, to be even more clear, these aren’t rights defined by the ‘liberal’ wikipedia – these are directly from a report produced by the General Council of the Government Accountability Office. These are basic allowances and responsibilities granted and expected of married couples.
And if you don’t want to wade through these here is a simple one. Kevin receives medical insurance through my domestic partner benefits at Apple (THANK YOU Apple). Those benefits for us are taxable income because to the government we are not married (We’re still not sure the effect of 8 on our CA marriage but either way the Feds still don’t recognize us thanks to DOMA). THese benefits are NOT taxable for my straight co-workers. So I’m being fined for being gay by our government – plain and simple. The State and Federal government is taxing me based on religious justification.
Sure, some of these i can reproduce through significant time and expense in a wide variety of legal documents, powers of attorney, conversations with family, and other means. But not all of them – yet EVERY ONE is legally granted and binding by any straight couple that gets drunk and goes to the chapel of love in vegas to get hitched. And, for my simple example – there is nothing I can do about that. Without marriage I will continue to be fined.
The other side can claim all the religious justification they want but until someone unties basic rights from religion I’m gonna keep demanding the right to protect my family. They tied religious marriage to personal rights and federal law – not me and no matter how you spin it separate is NEVER equal. Domestic Partnerships DOES NOT EQUAL Marriage in the eyes of the law. If something happens to me Kevin deserves all of the protections under the law as any other survivor does. Any arguments to the contrary are missing the point and if people don’t know that they need to.
So yea.. Still pissed…
(I promise more positive posts soon – I swear! ;))
Join the Impact in SF
Kevin and I went down to City Hall this morning to be a part of the nation wide protest against the passage of proposition 8 here in California… It was an AMAZING day out and it was really great to see the number of people turn out to make themselves heard.
The rest of the phtos are here
Weekend Roundup
Ok… more of a normal post this time… less of a rant… This weekend was a kinda surreal good bad weird sad kind of one… Whole weekend started friday around noon when Kevin picked me up to go to Lori’s funeral. While the funeral was profoundly sad and touching event it was truly AMAZING to see the sheer number of people who came out to say goodbye. Seems everyone thinks as much of her as we do and came out to help Ric, Bill, and the rest of the family cope. And to top it off it was an amazingly sunny day – you could feel her in the wind and sun! 🙂
Then that night we made it back to the city to walk the dog and just in time for the HUGE protest / march / rally against the passage of Prop 8. Seems there are one or two of us that are a little upset about that (more like 15,000 of us – at least thats about the number that came out en masse to take over the city). It was actually really great seeing everyone come out and make a stink. The march went from civic center, through the castro, and then over to dolores park. It turned out the march lasted all night with people camped out in the Castro until the morning (we pooped out WELLLLL before that).
The rest of the weekend was more mellow. Saturday was rainy and I just got a haircut and a Massage and then we went to dinner at the beach chalet. Yesterday was a little busier.. Dog walk at Chrissy field, brunch with Alex, Scott, and Adam, and then a photo walk with Randy and Rick. But still nice and mellow after the way things started off..
Anyway.. Told you it was boring. But after the roller coaster of last week I’m REALLY READY for a boring week.
later tater!
Lori Ann Turek: 1970-2008
One of my longest and dearest friends in San Francisco Bill lost his sister Lori this Tuesday. My heart goes out to her husband Rick, her son and brand new baby as well as Bill, Matt and the rest of her family and friends. Everyone who knew her will see to it that her two kids know what a ray of sunshine she is in all of our lives!