Like so many others today, I am speechless with impotent rage and disgust. I don't know really, how to use it productively. But when I think about you, what I think of is how you always find things in common with other people and focus on those things instead of differences. I really admire that. So I thought I'd take a page from your playbook.
It is obvious, that you really, really, love your wife. You think she is awesome, spectacular, and you would probably lay down and die for her. Am I close?
Because, that is how I feel about my partner. Please, let me tell you about her. She is solid middle class, with solid American values. She grew up in a mid-sized town in Kentucky. She has never voted for a republican. She rejected her parents attempts to teach her their class and generation derived racism. She, does not have a bigoted bone in her body.
She married in her early twenties. She knew she was a lesbian but it would have been certain rejection and the family equivalent of death to be what she was. So she decided she would marry and have a child, because she wanted to be a mother. She married believing that she would stay married all her life.
The marriage did end, but it was because of her husbands undiagnosed mental illness and irresponsibility, not because of her sexuality. She had the son she wanted, who is now in his early twenties and is a Marine. How ironic, that she is good enough to let her only child risk his life for his country, but not good enough to marry who she pleases. She devoted herself completely to being a mother. She endured 18 years of staying in the closet because of her son.
She met and partnered with a woman that she loved, but they maintained separate bedrooms and the illusion of simple friendship because of her son. Her separated husband would have taken him from her. I wonder, could you pretend to be "just friends" with your wife? Could you hide that adoration that you feel? How would it feel to you to have to do that?
After 14 years of that, the illusion had become habit, and then fact. The love was gone. They separated after having raised a child together. My partner would never stay with someone for convenience. Can you guess why? I'll tell you. It is because she is too honest. She has the most integrity of anyone I have ever met, and, I suspect, anyone I will ever meet. I have never known her to tell a lie. I have never seen her break a law. Any law. She goes the speed limit, she wears a seat belt. She has never smoked a joint. The list could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
She cares about her community. I have seen her work all night shopping for hundreds of cases of food for the local food bank, loading and unloading them into our van and the local facility. She provides hundreds of needy children with backpacks and school supplies every year. And she doesn't just write a check, she finds the biggest bang for her buck and does the shopping herself. it takes weeks.
So those are just some of the reasons I love and admire her. Why I think she's incredible and amazing. And why I am outraged today for all my brothers and sisters in California who have the same deep, abiding love for their partners that I have for mine, and have had their hearts broken again, today. I live in Kentucky, which will probably be the very last state to grant equal marriage rights. But I cried for all of us today. It changed something and we are so not done.
I am especially heartbroken for the teens, it is such a difficult time anyway, and when you are constantly told that you are not good enough, you are different, you are not equal under the law, it is just not ok to treat our gay teens this way.
I realize that you have a lot of very serious problems. But people are important too, and I think you know that. We are people. We pay taxes. We contribute, and we deserve a little respect. We deserve a president who will put himself out there and at least say, "this is a tragedy". Because it is. I'm sure it would be a tragedy for you if you couldn't marry Michelle. If you had to live in fear of losing your children. And if your love was somehow not good enough. Love is always good enough, its all that matters, in the end.