Prop H8 & DOMA

So next Tuesday the Supreme Court is going to hear arguments for and against Prop 8. On Wednesday they will do DOMA. Having grown up in California and lived there for my first 30 years I feel Californian to the core. It's probably because I live somewhere else now that being a Californian has quintupled in importance as part of my identity. I will never forget the 2008 election. It was my 30th birthday. My wife (at the time, fiancee) and I were living with my uncle and aunt in New Hampshire while house hunting 30 minutes away in Vermont. I had gotten Rock Band for my birthday and along with my two teenaged male cousins formed the band Stool. We had moved from California that summer thinking that prop 8 didn't stand a chance of passing. Thanks largely to the Mormon church, we were wrong. As it neared 1 a.m. and the results didn't look promising I went off and cried myself to sleep.

In the weeks before the election I did what I could from afar to persuade people to vote no on 8. Mostly this was through facebook. I lost a few friends, mostly people from high school. I still don't understand who they think they are to vote on my rights! What about the separation of church and state?! Not every church thinks we are an abomination, why the assumption that one can't be religious and gay?! I still have bitter feelings toward these people. One said to me, "Why can't we agree to disagree?" My response was that if that was the case then she would vote no on 8. She wouldn't have to get gay-married, I could do my thing; seemed like a win-win. Imposing her religion on me and my government does not much feel like "agreeing to disagree."

In the weeks after the election the anti-8 people rallied. Oh boy did they rally. I saw it all over the internet news, facebook, and television news. I viewed the photos my friends posted, protesting from the Oakland Mormon Church and downtown San Francisco, with such envy. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted so badly to be a part of that history. So on Tuesday, if the Supreme Court decides in our favor (and it really helps that all they have to do is uphold the lower courts' rulings) and there is rallying/partying/celebrating in the streets I am going to be a part of it.