SwimFinsSF

Why Marriage Matters

Tags: aclu, gay, gltb, prop8, video

Third Grade Gay

Tags: gay, gltb, prop8

Charming

So it seems the yes on 8 folks have taken to blanketing neighborhoods with their signs.. My mother woke up this morning to find every yard in her Sacramento suburb neighborhood with a Yes on 8… *sigh*. Needless to say she was disgusted. I guess the next interesting test in her neighborhood will be how many people pull down the signs (and burn them).

It really amazes me the ends people will go to see to it that I’m denied basic rights. I just hope that the No on 8 folks are acting with respect even when dealing with the other side cuz in my book the ends don’t justify the means. We gotta treat everyone with respect even when we disagree - after all, isn’t this what its all about?

happy friday!

Tags: gay, gltb, Politics, prop8, sacramento

Time to Step up

It was bound to happen… As we get closer and closer to the election the ads and tactics get worse and worse. I kind of expect that but every year it takes a new ugly turn. The thing I don’t expect (though why I don’t escapes me) is the direct correlation between the amount of money spent and the success of a particular candidate or initiative. I guess I was raised with this twisted idealized view of America that is based around an assumption that the system protects the rights and freedom of every individual, people educate themselves to vote for what is right and fair for all Americans, and that the whole process will happen with integrity. Like many things in life, as we mature we discover the world isn’t as perfect as we’d like but even still I’ve managed to keep a pretty positive attitude about our system of government. Poor choices are made during the process but i hoped they were made with the best of intentions. (Amazing that I could do that given the last 8 years huh? but i won’t digress).

All that said, this current race is really testing my faith in the system and the people of this country… Proposition 8 on the California ballot in particular is very close to me as a Gay man in San Francisco. To me its fairly black and white. Kevin and I have been together for more than 9 years (more than many other couples i’ve known, gay or straight). Part of this relationship is being able to formalize with our friends, family, and others how much we love and mean to each other and be able to expect that the laws of the land will help us protect and help each other throughout our lives. This has nothing to do with any other couple.. This has to do with being there for each other through sickness and health.

Simple - right? Not so much… There are people around who don’t believe that two men or two women should marry based on personal or religious beliefs. Thats fine. If you don’t believe in same sex marriage then don’t marry someone of the same sex.

Again - simple right? Nope. These people also don’t believe that Kevin and I should have the right to marry with the same rights that they do. But even that I can deal with (begrudgingly). What I can’t deal with, and what is making me begin to loose faith in the political system that I hold dear, is that they’re willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money spreading DOWN RIGHT LIES to support their case. Right now there are literally MILLIONS of dollars pouring in from around the country (a very large percentage from outside of California) to spend money on TV Ads that are just outright lies expecting people that will believe these out of hand without thinking or checking… And, the sad thing is, history has shown that people will.. The more money the have the more eyes they can put these deceitful ads in front of…

Current polls are showing over $25 million coming in from around the country to support this proposition and the polls are beginning to show that it is gaining steam. This absolutely breaks my heart. It kills me on so many levels. That people could be so dishonest. That others will believe these lies without thinking .. And, most importantly, that people believe that Kevin and I deserve any less happiness and security than any other couple in the world..

So this leads me to my request. I know elections shouldn’t come down to cash… But they do… and the No on 8 folks ( http://www.NoOnProp8.com/) need our help… So if you can spare even the smallest amount I would really appreciate it… Even if you’ve given already… Kevin and I gave at the HRC dinner this summer and I thought that was enough.. but its not.. so we just dipped into our pockets again yesterday to help out….

Sorry for the rant… And, more importantly, thanks to EVERYONE that can help… Seriously… no really… :):)

http://www.NoOnProp8.com/

Tags: california, gay, gltb, prop8

Quick Thursday Update

Its been a bit of a crazy week so i’ve been falling behind once again.. but a quick update seems like a good thing…

Home wise its been a little nuts… in the process of dealing with a move, selling a house, and other topsey turvey stuff around that. I really should be more relaxed about all of this because I know at the end of it all things will turn out great however while everything is in process i can’t help but stress out a little.. My little sis reminds me that it runs in the family. Without going into a bunch of details in a public forum we had a deal fall through that flipped me out initially but now i’m thinking it was a great thing from multiple perspectives… Its really funny how your gut instincts prove to be the best….

Other than that we’ve been trying to have a little fun. Last weekend we went to see the new Batman movie which was PHENOMENAL… Disturbing.. But GREAT.. I walked away just feeling giddy and oogey at the same time - how weird is that.. Something about Heath Ledger in Scary Clown Nurse Drag that is just not right.. but DAMN…

Weekend before was the HRC Dinner and Dore Alley Street Fair - both of which were great. The HRC Dinner was a little odd because of the drama around the HRC position on ENDA. It kind of breaks my heart because there isn’t a clear good answer here and I hate seeing people that would normally be on the same side of the issue being divided so badly.. its a shame.. But the dinner was fun and it was great to have my parents join us for it. Dore Alley was the usual stuff… just a lot of tawdry fun which would shock the hell out of most people but is kinda boring to me these days… unfortunately it was also a little cold so we didn’t last very long…

This week we’re having a few house guests to keep us busy. Kevin’s friend Laura that he met in Guatemala got here Monday and left this morning. Then on Saturday night Kevin’s Niece from NC arrives for a week. It will be interesting to see what Kevin plans for her. Last time she was here he took her EVERYWHERE - they did tourist stuff in SF that i’ve never done which is impressive - she was EXHAUSTED by the time she left..

I think thats it at this point - probably more soon but that’ll do for now…

Peace

Tags: california, family, gay, hrc

Gay Marriage in California

HOT DAMN!!!!

State Supreme Court says same-sex couples have right to marry
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, May 15, 2008

(05-15) 10:31 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

….

If you want to read the full LONG text is here…

read more | digg story

Tags: california, courts, gay, legal, marriage

A few things for a Monday morning

On my shuttle on the way into work so figured i’d throw a few things out there… All completely unrelated and random - but what the hell! :)… Weekend was good but not many good stories to tell.. Dinner with R&R friday night was great… Chores and work Saturday.. Brunch and the park with Audrey and Brian.. Then walks in the GORGEOUS weather yesterday.. And watched Balls of Fury last night after dinner… Very nice.

Trip back east

Kevin and I spent Saturday morning booking a trip back east to visit family. When we first started looking at this it was stressing me out - not because I didn’t want to see folks but rather just because of all of the variables we had to plan around. We wanted to go to Gettysburg to visit my family, North Carolina to visit Kevin’s family, Washington DC for a set of HRC meetings, and Kevin wanted to stay longer and maybe go to Atlanta. Well we skipped the last part but we managed to find a great set of flights that pulled it all off.. Kevin is going to visit his family on a monday, I’m meeting him there that friday and staying for a few days before we head north to visit my family. after a few days there we’re heading to DC… Now that its all taken care of the trip actually is sounding like a lot of fun to me and i’m really looking forward to it.. I can really use the break.

High Class

We saw the trashiest example of drunken behavior yesterday afternoon… We walked out the front door to go to an early dinner to hear some woman spewing profanities with a slurred voice.. I rolled my eyes and wrote it off to drunks on a sunday coming back from the bar. But when I got a glimpse I saw her unbuttoning her pants and I assumed she was mooning her friends. New but still random drunken-ness so I kept walking. Then I glanced back to see if Kevin was coming only to see that that same girl was doing some strange crab walk with her pants around her ankles - and peeing.. Dear lord… A drunken slutty girl with a foul mouth peeing on the sidewalk about 10 feet from our front stoop - right where our dog craps on a daily basis… NICE…

Hypocrisy

In reading this article on John McCain trying to distance himself from the endorsement of a Texan pastor. Aparently, in addition to this guy being anti-gay, he’s also spoken about catholics conspiring with Nazis against Jews. Because of this American Catholics have been leaning on McCain to renounce this guy… Thats all well and good - but what I found interesting was this quote:

“By publicly addressing this issue, you will reaffirm to the American public and to Catholics that intolerance and bigotry have no place in American presidential campaigns,” Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, wrote McCain in a letter sent Thursday.

Is it just me or is a quote like this kinda funny coming from a representative of a catholic organization - particularly after things like this coming from the head of that church.. I don’t know.. i’m just sayin!

Tags: family, gay, hrc, mccain, north carolina, pennsylvania, Politics, religion, travel, washington dc

Acceptance or Phobes

Ok.. So maybe I’m being too sensitive.. but i’ve seen a couple of things in the media lately that have really bugged me.. The first is this video floating around by Jimmy Kimmel as a response to the I f-ed Matt Damon video that his lady did (I’m not gonna link to it but just search YouTube and you’ll find it). So I know its intended to be funny and they’ll say they didn’t mean anything by it.. But to me it came across an awful lot like white actors doing black face back in the day.

The other case was on Make me a Supermodel (I’ve gotten sucked into it by Kevin - kind of like watching a train wreck..). Last night there was a scene where one of the guys decided to start calling two of the other guys on the show gay and women. There is a lot of back story that makes it not entirely surprising that it happened - this guy seemed to be having his masculinity threatened by some of the modeling stuff and having his gay roommate hitting on him. But regardless the producers and editors found it an interesting thing to show but kind of presented it in a ‘well thats not cool but its no big deal’ kind of way which I thought was shitty. It really rung awful similar to people calling us ‘fag’ in high school and then brushing it off…

It just feels some times like because we’ve gotten some more acceptance in the media we’ve also made it OK to parody but they haven’t quite figured out when parody is actually funny and when its just obnoxious…

Anyway - I’m probably just being silly but it bugged me…

Tags: gay, gltb, media