A while back you met Mary, our very first Guestivista. Turns out Mary has loads more to say about a whole lotta things, so when the mood strikes she's gonna opine on her favorite topics right here on Activistas. Yeah! Different issues, different angle, different voice. Bring. it. on. Today, she's got marriage on her mind:
I pray that my children will be able to marry, at least to have the choice. I don’t ever want to have to utter the words: “You can get married, but you can’t,” or “You can get married, but you’ll have to go to Canada,” or “You can get married, but you’ll have to wait, I’m so sorry.”
My partner and I have a 10-month old and are planning for our second. As lesbian parents, planning is a bit creative. Foreplay usually entails visiting our attorney. Alyson and I have been together 8 years. We met in NYC, fell in love, moved to PDX, bought a home, and started a family. On March 4, 2004, we got married in the city we love and call home. Months later, we received our refund check in the mail. It sits among the smiling photographs in our wedding album.
A few weeks ago, we returned to the County building to get our domestic partnership. We woke early, feeling giddy, hopeful. The same clerk who married us presided over our paperwork. She didn’t remember us—we had been one of the thousands. Our son came with us this time and served as witness. I hope he never has to endure the same. By the end of the day, Alyson and I felt depleted. Too many steps backward. We greatly appreciate and value the rights we have been given and the incredible work and efforts of those who have helped us attain them. We have no choice but to get what we can—the law is vital to our existence, to our family.
Basic Rights Oregon recently emailed me regarding the latest effort to repeal the domestic partnership law. The fight for full equality and humanity continues. How many more lawsuits and court battles and ballot measures before I can have what my neighbor has, what my brother has? To learn about the domestic partnership law, the repeal, and Basic Rights Oregon, read more. Please consider supporting Basic Rights Oregon’s ongoing efforts to ensure that all Oregon families and children are safe, secure, and justly served.
Some friends of mine, two men who I love dearly, registered as domestic partners this week. It made my cry. A few of those tears were from joy--joy that they had made this committment to one another and joy that we are living in a time and place that made that committment possible. Most of the tears were angry and frustrated ones, though. I am angry and frustrated that, in the United States in 2008, my friends are not afforded the same rights I am--the rights I have to to marry someone of the gender I prefer and all the legal protections that infers.
We, as Americans and (presumably) as thinking human beings should have learned by now that separate is not equal.
Posted by: Sheryl | March 06, 2008 at 01:55 PM