Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
Okay, today is a big, big day. I have a few things to say.
First, if you're not happy with the way the Presidential Election played out, well, you'll survive. I lived through all 20 years of Reagan and the Bushes, after all. We may not be better off, but we're still standing. Or, tottering, at least. Somewhat upright, shall we say?
For those of you who are ecstatic,molly_may posted a link that will put it all in perspective. The Onion's "Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Change" article is cry-out-loud funny.
Yet another downer is the probable narrow victory of California's Prop 8, the constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. eurydice72 has posted on how she is dealing with this. Here's what I told her:
This defeat is awful, but it's just prolonging the agony. This lingering form of discrimination will fall, and it won't take long, either. This issue wasn't even fully on the radar until a few years ago. In the '90s, there was a lone (het) woman standing at the corner of Market & Castro (the capital of gay America, for those outside the area) for months, trying to get people to sign her petition to make same-sex marriage legal. People just laughed, and told her "who cares?" and "what for?" and generally acted like idiots. Then Mayor Newsom came along, and in 2004 bam!, it was a cause celebre. Rightly so.
Tell your kids this true story:
Back in 1964, a friend of my mother was living with her husband in Georgia, where he was stationed while serving in the Army. She was having coffee with a neighbor lady, and mentioned that she had lived in Hong Kong and was 1/2 Chinese. Her "friend" called the cops to report this incidence of miscegenation! Interracial marriage was against the law there (and in many other places) at the time, and they were forced to flee the state. By 1967, it was all over, and heterosexual people were allowed to marry who they liked anywhere in the US, for the first time. The epilogue: the couple from this story are still happily married, unlike vast numbers of other people from their generation. Boo yah!
And last, but not least, Happy Birthday ms_scarletibis! It's a bright day in America! We did it for you, girl!
First, if you're not happy with the way the Presidential Election played out, well, you'll survive. I lived through all 20 years of Reagan and the Bushes, after all. We may not be better off, but we're still standing. Or, tottering, at least. Somewhat upright, shall we say?
For those of you who are ecstatic,molly_may posted a link that will put it all in perspective. The Onion's "Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Change" article is cry-out-loud funny.
Yet another downer is the probable narrow victory of California's Prop 8, the constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. eurydice72 has posted on how she is dealing with this. Here's what I told her:
This defeat is awful, but it's just prolonging the agony. This lingering form of discrimination will fall, and it won't take long, either. This issue wasn't even fully on the radar until a few years ago. In the '90s, there was a lone (het) woman standing at the corner of Market & Castro (the capital of gay America, for those outside the area) for months, trying to get people to sign her petition to make same-sex marriage legal. People just laughed, and told her "who cares?" and "what for?" and generally acted like idiots. Then Mayor Newsom came along, and in 2004 bam!, it was a cause celebre. Rightly so.
Tell your kids this true story:
Back in 1964, a friend of my mother was living with her husband in Georgia, where he was stationed while serving in the Army. She was having coffee with a neighbor lady, and mentioned that she had lived in Hong Kong and was 1/2 Chinese. Her "friend" called the cops to report this incidence of miscegenation! Interracial marriage was against the law there (and in many other places) at the time, and they were forced to flee the state. By 1967, it was all over, and heterosexual people were allowed to marry who they liked anywhere in the US, for the first time. The epilogue: the couple from this story are still happily married, unlike vast numbers of other people from their generation. Boo yah!
And last, but not least, Happy Birthday ms_scarletibis! It's a bright day in America! We did it for you, girl!