52.8%

Now that the emotions have calmed a bit, I needed to blog about this.

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On Tuesday, approximately 52.8% of Maine residents voted to repeal gay marriage. While I’m personally at a loss as to why a narrow margin of voters can do something like take marriage away from an individual mostly out of religious beliefs, it’s also important to note that we are on a tipping point. Something dramatic is about to happen on a national level and I can feel it coming.

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A huge battle is being waged and I sense a great deal of turmoil ahead. It’s important to step back and put emotions in check on this issue. And PLEASE…before I go any further, let me say that I appreciate the support I have had from my friends and family. Plus, I have had many Catholic, Mormon, Jewish, and friends from other faiths who do not understand why many churches are supporting this legal discrimination disguised as morality. It sickens them…as well it should sicken all Americans who believe in freedom. But, the conservative and religious right have decided their religious freedoms are under attack by gay marriage (as if no one else’s rights are as important as theirs). I personally believe that if there is a hell, people like James Dobson and Maggie Gallagher would burn in it for the pain they have caused millions of gay and lesbian Americans…but fortunately, I don’t believe in hell. I simply think they will learn their lesson in the form of karmic retribution. And from where I sit, I focus every day on sending them love and positive energies that they may see how much pain they are causing in this world and stop.

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But here are the reasons I am seeing a turning point…

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We now have five states in which gay marriage is available and several others that offer domestic partnerships or civil unions. Washington state has apparently preserved ‘everything but marriage’ and California has the same plus approximately 18,000 gay couples who remain married after prop 8 passed.  Also, we now recognize marriages from other states that happened before prop 8 and any others afterwards are automatically viewed as civil unions.

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The result of all of these different legal arrangements is a hodge-podge network of laws regarding gays and lesbians in this country. They differ from each other from state to state and a gay couple only has to drive across a state line to find they are without any rights at all. Such was the case with a lesbian couple who had a domestic partnership in their home state and happened to be on vacation in Florida. One suffered a life-threatening conditioned and even though her partner, Janice, provided the hospital with a medical power of attorney, Janice was not allowed to see her partner for the 36 hours she was in the trauma center because she was not family…nor would the hospital allow their children to see their mother before she died. The woman died alone in a trauma center in a strange place far from home. Her partner was told by the hospital official that she was in "an anti-gay city in an anti-gay state"…and the worst part is that a federal judge ruled the hospital was under no obligation to let Janice or the children have visitation. Now, that should be enough to piss off even the most anti-gay person in the country, but apparently they don’t care. Their rhetoric is they don’t mind us having civil unions but preserve marriage for a man and a woman …but in truth, they really don’t want us to have any rights as families as they just proved trying to vote down civil unions in the state of Washington.

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In Texas, a gay couple who had married in another state filed for divorce. The Texas AG intervened in the case and would not allow the divorce to proceed because Texas does not recognize gay marriage. So, what are these men supposed to do? They had agreed on an amicable arrangement and filed all the necessary papers, so are they stuck in a marriage they no longer want? A Texas federal judge recently ruled that Texas’ constitutional amendment against gay marriage was invalid based on the 14th amendment of the US which undoubtedly riled up a lot of conservatives in that state. It is now working its way through the courts. In Wisconsin, the religious right is fighting domestic partnerships for 900 couples because their state constitutional amendment prohibits arrangements that are similar to marriage and similar fights are going on in Utah as well.

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In California, there are 18,000 legally married gay couples. We now have 5 different legally recognized family arrangements: heterosexual marriages, civil unions performed in the state, civil unions or domestic partnerships performed in other states, and gay couples married between May and November of 2008 (the group my husband and I are proud to be a part of) either in California or another state prior to Prop 8.  Now the state has to manage all of these arrangements and determine the legality of each one. I personally have to carry my marriage license to prove that James and I are married when filling out paperwork for any work benefits and I know that if he and I were to visit my family in North Carolina, it wouldn’t matter if I have the license or not. We would be at the mercy of their laws…though; they would have to arrest me to keep me out of the hospital room if something were to happen to my husband and even then, I would not go quietly or without one hell of a fight. Trust me.

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On a positive note, Congress has recently passed a gay hate crimes bill in the form of the Matthew Shepard act. They are about to vote on adding gays and lesbians to the list of protections against discrimination in employment and housing and it should pass given the current makeup of the House and Senate. New Jersey and New York are possibly about to embark on new gay marriage legislation as is the District of Columbia…and in the wake of other anti-gay legislation, some states are introducing more “everything but marriage” laws to give gays and lesbians most of the benefits of marriage without the name. Perhaps the most important thing to remember in all of this is that the next generation is on board with gay marriage. Most of them realize that this is not an impact to their lives and don’t understand why it’s such a divisive issue for everyone else. Gay marriage is going to happen in their lifetime.

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All of these scenarios have led us to a fork in the road and now it’s just a matter of which way we go. There is a lawsuit to overturn prop 8 in federal court going to trial in January. Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit against the federal government to overturn DOMA. There is a bill to overturn DOMA in Congress right now, but there isn’t enough support to bring it to a full vote yet but IF the Democrats are able to push the anti-discrimination bill through, it will put us on new legal standing. At some point in the very near future, the US Supreme Court will have to rule for or against gay and lesbian equality because this hodge-podge is not working. How can the promise of freedom and equality for ALL Americans be realized if we lose our equality at a state border? How am I equal if the federal government refuses to recognize my marriage or I have to spend half a million dollars over my lifetime for benefits hetrosexual marriages get under the law? People like Justice Scalia would have no problem overturning every gay marriage and civil union law in this country, but if they were to do that, there would be hell to pay because gays and lesbians will be out in the streets with torches and pitchforks. I personally wouldn’t want to be anywhere close to a Mormon or Catholic church if that were to happen because there would be no stopping that mob.

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But on the other hand, if they rule that all states have to honor gay marriages in other states, Gallagher and Dobson will rally their troops in a holy war as well.

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This is a very divisive issue even though it really shouldn’t be. So, you see…one way or another, something major is about to happen and all hell is about to break loose in the next 2 or 3 years. Get ready because this could be the next “civil” war. I don’t see either side giving up regardless of what happens in courts or legislatures or the ballot box any time in the near future.  Maybe NOM is right...there is a "gathering storm."  If so, they created it!

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Maybe this is what 2012 is really all about!!

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Blessings and light to you!