I have no idea how a result of a vote in a city in a country so far away can break my heart and make me wanna cry. But it happens. It breaks my heart that gay marriage is officially illegal in California. It's suppossed to be the most gay friendly state in USA. Moreover, have you ever seen the videos and photos of the happy couples there who got married as soon as possible while it was legal? It's a crime to take that kind of happiness from them, believe me. You don't know how many hearts are breaking since it was announced that proposal 8 passed. Worse, it happens not only in California but also in Florida and Arkansas. Arkansas even went as far as ban children from being adopted by anyone except married couple - which means of course that a single person cannot adopt and gay couples cannot adopt. How clever is that? How many children need a home, and now their chance of being adopted by a good, loving people is even less than before.
I decided that I didn't want to write a post about this prop 8 before I got the result and I'm so very sad to give this bad news. Ironically, I have absolutely no relation with America.Right now I am in a country where gay marriage is legal, and I'm from a country where I doubt gay marriage is ever legal (because not even an underwear advertisement with a model is legal there right now). It's so stupid that the people who are pro prop 8 fought so hard to ban gay marriage when you look at the countries that have legalized gay marriage. Is there anything bad happened to any heterosexual marriage? NO! Are the children taught at school to practice same-sex marriage? NO! There are only more happy people. The children aren't taught to practice same-sex marriage, but to treat everyone equally or at least based on their character, not on their sexuality. Sure there are still ignorant people, as there are still people who hate black people or Asian people, or even muslims. But in the face of law, they are equal. It's beautiful and it's how it's supposed to be.
Through the years, some things haven't changed, have them? I've just known a shocking fact. The homosexual was not recognized as the victims of the Holocaust. After the liberation, they still lived as criminals. It was crazy. In the camp, they were treated as worse as the Jews, but not only by the guards, also by their inmates! Some also became an experiment for the doctors in the Nazi who tried to find a 'cure' for homosexuality. The rate of death in homosexual group is approximately 60%, compare that to Jew's 35% death rate! And yet they weren't recognized as victims because the number is so small compared to Jewish people. Until now, when there are so many holocaust memorial everywhere and it was taught in history class at my school, there was only a very small mention of the homosexual group being victimized.
I've always hated discrimination. It does nothing but hurt people. Yeah, it's easy for straight people to discuss about the word 'marriage' and 'sin' and such. It's not their lives that would be affected by the result. I think it's only fair if the word 'marriage' is banned from the constitution and all couples, gay and straight refer to 'civil union' cause the word 'marriage' belongs to church, rite? Because if only straight couples can get married and gay couples have to be civil union-ed, it will be 'equal but different', like Ellen put it, "You can sit here, you just can't sit there." Remember the part of the bus where black people had to sit in? Yeah, all of them had the same right to ride the bus, but black people had to sit in the back because the front had always been for white people only and had been that way for decades! Exactly the same argument. Bah.
I thought other minority groups in America would be more tolerant about this cause since they've been there, right? They've faced discrimination, especially black people, and interracial marriage wasn't legal at one time. But noooooo! Black people are even more intolerant about gay marriage. It's ridiculous. I think they don't like that gay people often compare our fight to their fight years ago. And I think they just think it's unfair, "Being gay is a choice, it's completely different than being born black." A choice, huh. If it's a choice, who'd choose being a second-class citizen? Who'd choose being a minority, being condemned by the religion they hold dear, facing the fear that they people they love would hate them... Being gay is like being black, except if you're gay, you kinda have a magic paint that can make you white. The choice is only if you're going to live your life as a painted-white man or as a black man. But no matter how you paint yourself white, you're still black inside. Oh, and if you're black, you don't have to stand in front of your parents, scared as hell, and tell them, "I'm black," and face the possibility that they may throw you out of home because of that.
Well, who am I kidding? Until now the intolerance is still intact, look at what happened to Prop 8! And as if there is not enough bad news, Brooke Smith is fired for playing gay. Well I've just discovered a like for Grey's Anatomy for about three days before I found out she was fired. And not even in a classy way! Dammit, that was officially the worst 'walking out of the show moment I've ever seen - granted, I haven't watched that many shows, but still, it's really really horrible. Xena's death in the end of season six seems like a happy ending compared to this. Bah. And you thought it's been 10 years since Ellen's show was cancelled.
The only one spark of joy I could find in this situation was when I found Melissa's blog:
You Can Forget My Taxes
by Melissa Etheridge
Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California—and she won't be paying the state a dime.
Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.
Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either.
Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.
…Really?
When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?
I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, dyke. Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then. The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the immigrants. "Them.” Now the them is me.
I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them". We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.
Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.
Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too...
Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter.
See why I adore this woman? See why I said that if she were going to go to hell, I'd be happily going there with her? I know the post is rather anger-filled, but it's, in my mind, a justified anger. Who wouldn't be angry if their rights is taken away from them? I only hope that she'd do some research first before really dodging her taxes. I'd rather she doesn't do it than watching her going to jail, but it's a really considerable act of protest. What the fuck that she did to her country that she deserved to have her rights (and a basic human rights, even) taken away?
Oh whatever. I'll continue later. I'm tired of being sad. Bah.
