California Prop 8

Let me start by saying that I'm a God fearing Christian. As such, you can probably guess how I'm voting on Prop 8. But this isn't about my view of the issue. If someone wants to discuss my view of the issue, just send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to engage. A very old friend of my sent me an e'mail regarding her view of Prop 8. I may not agree with her but I've decided to share it hear. It was intended by her, to be heard by the masses.

So without any adieu and with names edited, here be her story.

I'M GETTING MARRIED by an old friend
I’m getting married. Not right now, but I actually want that prospect and it wasn't always this way.

When I was younger –5, 6, 7ish—my mom made a comment.

“Aye, my girl. You’d better marry a doctor or lawyer because you’re too expensive.”

To put the comment in context, my family was poorish, but my mom allowed my bro and me to each get one thing just for ourselves from the grocer every few weeks when we went shopping. My brother went for the sugary things like Apple Jacks, Cocoa Pebbles and Fruit Roll-Ups. Me: I gravitated towards Musilx cereal, import salami and shi-shi cheeses –the more expensive things, hence the “you’re too expensive” remark.

Why do I have to get married to get cheese, I thought. I’ll just be a doctor or lawyer and get everything myself.

Get-it-myself and do-it-myself pretty much summarized my M.O. and it was in that moment on that “marriage” wasn't for me.

Over the years my mom would tease me by saying things like “I going to get Mariachis for your wedding” and “I’m going to give you my wedding ring, but you better not loose it like your earrings.” She’d imagined my wedding and the happiness was visible in her dreamy eyes, her relaxed posture and heard in the ease of her breathing. She was sad/ depressed/ anxious so often for years and years… I did the "Snoopy dance" inside when she was happy. Those times when she was happy BECAUSE of me… I LOVED making mi chiqita happy.

Then one day during my 10th and 11th grade year (15, 16ish), I made her unhappy; very unhappy to the point of distress. Something came on TV. A public service announcement maybe. Something about treating people who are different than you equally. My bro and mom began throwing around the word “faggot”. A cold sinking feeling came over me, but I said in a clear and firm voice what I’d said only to myself the summer between 5th and 6th grade year: “I’m gay.”

“You’re WHAT? WHAT? REALLY? No you're not,” my bro said in an pubescent voice that hop-scotched four octaves.

“Oh no. But I had a GIRL,” was all I remember my mom saying as her voice began to crack.

In realizing I'd pushed my mom to tears… in realizing that she confused being gay with wanting a sex change… in realizing that I was not AB-SO-LUTE-LY CERTAIN that I was gay, I quickly ended the hysterics by saying “I’m just kidding” and went to my room to cry and find my resolve. For the remainder of high school I had a smattering of boyfriends and spent those years praying myself into migraine headache-inducing frenzies that at the end of “confusing” adolescence, I’d be normal; be straight; not gay. Not,
not,
not.

I was banking that KROQ’s Loveline radio show hosts Dr. Drew and The Poorman were right: adolescence could be a confusing period for some teenagers and the majority of people are not gay. I refused to be gay and I was going to not give my mom a reason to cry out of her shame of me.

“God, you’re so Mexican,” she said one night as I cracked open and ate salted peanuts from their shells with one hand and shoved in my mouth a tamale with the other. “I didn’t raise you to be a Mexican.”

“You can’t help who you are,” I said both laughing and dismayed. She was quite thoroughly brainwashed as a little girl by orphanage nuns in 1950's New Mexico and in the resulting assimilation, Azucena de Jesus became a more socially acceptable “Susie”. We are who we are and it was the truth.

Early in college, I met my first girlfriend. In our 3-year relationship (and those ensuing), I learned the difference between infatuation, admiration, an arraignment-of-convenience and a love that heals profound emotional wounds. I am still learning the difference between "baggage" I can work with and "deal-breaking" characteristics/habits I, personally, cannot.

My dad told me a few weeks ago that my bro and his girlfriend of two years, Jen, were planning to get married and I was THRILLED. Even strangers could see very clearly that they were happy and "right" for each other. But I also felt a sober sadness. Ever since I attempted to assert myself in my teens, my mom stopped teasing me about getting married. After dad told me about the engagement, he headed out of the room, but stopped to add one more thing in his halting, pensive way.

“You know, life has its ups and downs. Your mom and I know this and without her, I don’t know where I’d be… Life is just better when you have someone to share it with, ok, knucklehead?”

I don’t know exactly what he intended; whether he was trying to convince himself that it’s ok to let go of his little boy who became a full-on man before his eyes or whether he was, in a gentle way, trying to bring to my attention that I am a difficult person. (I use “complex,” but I’m not disputing the latter.)

What I DO dispute is that marriage and the family unit is threatened by activist judges pressured by radical activist gays and lesbians. (Well, I consider myself “cool” not so much radical, but then again I can be pretty awesome, so maybe “radical” is appropriate after all!)

For real though: marriage and families are in jeopardy because of my very delayed day-dreams of getting married to a woman by a judge in the awe-inspiring and ornate rotunda of San Francisco’s City Hall? My little girly dream of donning an elegant, flowing dress (sans the fluff) or maybe a couture, fitted tux before a small group of family and friends threatens or is a affront to the marriage of James and Alice NeedToMindTheirOwnBusiness in Weed, CA? Hope for my independent, personal growth means less or a flimsy happiness for my bro? Me: having a “wedding” to get “married” instead of having a “same-sex union” to get “domestically partnered” will continue societal “destabilization”? I didn’t know I had so much influence! Perhaps it could be put to greater good by fixing the economy (because measures and propositions curtailing, rescinding and/or preventing the expansion of civil liberties tend to come before voters during periods of prolonged, wide-spread economic disruption --um, like now).

What’s actually exaggerated are the claims that 1.) all places of worship will be forced to perform gay marriages, 2.) churches will loose their tax-exempt status if they refused to do so and the latest unfounded fear message is that 3.) little impressionable kids are going to be taught about gay marriage. All three are compelling lies, but lies none-the-less (check www.hrc.org or www.eqca.org or even the California State Secretary Deborah Bowen’s website searching key words like voting, 2008 General Election, proposition 8).

The claim about the kids really gets me. My mom and dad weren’t taught one way or the other about marriage –interracial (such as theirs) or otherwise –during the not-too-distant past when people risked being disowned for what is now a common feature in American society. Me: all I know is that I want to be with someone who accepts the grand majority of "me" for an indefinite amount of time to raise well-adjusted, thoughtful, expressive little people so they can grow-up and make their own honorable place in life. And rub my corns when I'm old and too arthritic to do so myself.

My point: Vote NO on Prop. 8 because it will take away a civil right that I,
and all California gays and lesbians just got (with help from moderate-conservative Regan Era appointed judges, by the way).

I didn’t poll all the gays and lesbians in CA, so I can only speak for myself: I have as much intention to mess-up/ disrespect/ undermine marriage as what my dad had in mind when he slid a ring on my mom’s finger 35-years-ago at the start of a marriage as controversial then as what gay marriage is now.

“Mi chiqita, I like Jen. I think she’s a nice person and she makes Keith happy, but, uh, you’re still giving me your ring, right?”

My mom’s ring is an almost gaudy, thick 24k gold band with a diamond bling-bling rock securely fastened to it. It’s so not my style, but in my mind it’s inextricably associated with her. I see it and I remember singing next to her in church when I was small (ok; smallER), and it reminds me that time passes quickly and I won’t have my parents forever.

She reassured me it’s mine, but also mentioned that she won’t be on-hand to see me get married to the woman who "really does it for me" like Jen does for Keith. Although I want the ring for sentimental reasons, I’d rather have my mom at my wedding. You voting NO on Prop. 8 gives me time to get a very stubborn, traditional Catholic woman to “come around” and embrace a more inclusive definition of marriage. –Hey, she referred to my recent ex as my “partner”. As sterile as the term is, it actually means progress.


p.s.: for more info on how you (even if you're out-of-state or ineligible to vote) can help the NO on Prop 8 campaign go to:
http://www.noonprop8.com/

Early voting is now underway in L.A. County at the Norwalk County Clerk's office (M-F; 8am to 5pm) until Nov. 3rd, btw.