Today, the British House of Commons passed a marriage equality bill by a vote of 400-175. Prime Minister David Cameron, a supporter of this legislation, is expected to sign it, calling the measure, “an important step forward.” In honor of we Americans, taking our sweet and entirely too slow time, I give you this video. Feel free to use this as a reminder that there are consequences for inaction. REMINDER.
Thank god for The Upworthiest for dropping this gem in my mailbox.
I mean first, elephants are just cuter than donkeys. They are. And there are all sorts of precious elephant accessories, baby elephant videos and stuffed animals that just scream “I have a trunk and big eyes- come cuddle me.”
Second, every once in a while I hear some articulate Republican talking, (usually on NPR, poor thing,) about how alllllll they want is their freedom and for government to stay out of all of our lives.
Wow- What a patriot! What wonderful protector of our liberty and rights!
And- wait… Wait. Me too! I want all those pesky government types to stay out of my lady parts (sometimes literally, in the case of Virginia) and to let me worship, not worship, or dance around naked to my own freaking chants, if I so please. I’d prefer they stay out of my bedroom, although sadly, not a thing goes on in there they disapprove of but, I’d also like them to stay the hell out of my friends’ bedrooms. Also- come to think of it, since I’m allowed to marry whoever I please, as often as I please, I’m sure these freedom loving patriots would like the same for everyone else.
But at just the point where I think, Yes! Sign me up for this Grand Ol’ Party, I’m smacked over the head with a story like this- lovely Indiana state representatives wanting to pass a gay marriage ban, something that feels suspiciously like an infringement on freedom and rights and all the other buzz words they use. It also doesn’t seem all that representative of their “we the people” sentiment, with Indiana people strongly opposing a constitutional ban, and pretty well divided on the sentiment in general.
So… I sometimes have a feeling I can be a Republican (Or maybe even just find some common ground with the other, sometimes cuter, side), but then I think “Mmmmm… Better not.”
Thank. God.
I won’t lie. I’ve now watched this half a dozen times. He’s just so super kick ass.
For some reason, I feel like I just keep having name discussions lately. Whether naming future hypothetical children, or gauging my feelings on being called by a cutesy nickname (let’s not), it just seems to keep popping up, which inevitably leads to me wanting to write about it. (You know this blog is just a manifestation of everything I boredly contemplate, right?)
Taylor’s Name Game:*
Stacey had bouncy strawberry blonde hair. As a child, with sad, sad, mousey hair… Oh how I longed for bouncy strawberry blonde hair. It sounded like so much more fun than anything I was working with.
Beginning top left: My t, from a handwriting font I made- Christina Hendricks- my curvy T necklace that I almost always have on- Mindy Kaling.
And that has been me, doing my part, for super useless sharing.
* Not as much fun as last week’s, rather demented, American Horror Story Name Game, but whatever.
** Bitsy is not usually the name my mom uses in this example. But, for the sake of not offending one of the 4 people who might happen to read this, I’m choosing a name that leans toward silly. In the event you know a highly successful, Bitsy, try not to take too much offense- ok?
*** Yes, I heard how that sounded. You know what I mean. Shit- if any family members read this, please don’t report back to Grandma. There is substantial proof that I like men, yet Grandma gets incredibly edgy at the slightest implication my LGBT passions could be personal.
My name is Taylor and I am a cynic.
I come from a long line of cynics and, like most people with a problem, I surround myself with people who have similar vices. Some may rely on narcotics and booze- we come armed with cynicism and snark.
So this morning, when I was sent me link from my friend Lindsay titled “18 Joyful Declarations of Love,” followed by “60 Moments That Gave Me Chills,” I couldn’t help but laugh. Lindsay is the girl who inspired “How To Know If You’re In A Relationship,” one of my most read blog posts. Ever. She is also the girl who made secret “hidden” wedding/baby/relationship boards on Pinterest after we, her friends, discovered that she had been “liking” pins with a sentimental bent. She’s not exactly a fan of warm and funny.
But she commented, as she sent me these, that she hadn’t been prepared to tear up and as i scrolled through the pictures, neither was I.
I’m not wedding’s biggest fan. I’m not a fan of should-do’s and pomp and circumstance. I hate the way weddings and proposals and the like have a way of sucking the point out of a relationship. I hate big productions and the stress and dysfunction that comes with it.
And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little callous about the institution of marriage too. I’m a child of divorce. I can make a laundry list of my questions, comments and concerns for married couples, especially when those married couples get tense, get bitter and fall apart into once-again-singles with kids I probably end up projecting my own hang ups onto.
So what is different about the gay couple’s lining up in Seattle for the privilege of getting married? Why am I in tears?
Love is beautiful. I don’t think there is any denying that a demonstration of people’s commitment to the people they care about is a moving thing. And where we straight people have been taking for granted the institution for years- jumping in and out of marriages, treating it as a to-do, instead of a celebration of a shared desire to build a family and life together. It’s as much a stepping stone, a societal expectation as anything else.
And that’s not to say that there isn’t gay divorce, and 20 years from now, we all won’t be in the same dysfunctional marriage pool together. But for the time being, you can’t look at these people and not see a joy and a level of gratefulness, uncommon in straight counterparts. And that? That seems to warrant a bit of misty-ness, even from cynics like me.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written here.
I almost wrote its been a long time since I had rage but as my family, friends and next door neighbors who sometimes probably hear me yell can confirm, that’s just not true.
It’s just that, with all the election stuff, with being busy at work and being busy working on my New Years resolution of saying yes more, I’ve been far more busy doing than writing.
Until today.
As I scrolled through my Twitter timeline this morning, something I do several times in a day, a tweet caught my eye.
It read, “Addison [the tweeter's daughter] just saw a rainbow flag in a neighbor’s yard and said, “I want one of those in my bedroom.” Oh the challenges of parenting today.”
I debated a lot about responding to the Tweeter, but I do not follow him, nor do I know him personally. I also thought about posting the actual tweet here and linking to the Tweeter on here- his account is public which signifies to me that he is fine with being open about what he is teaching his child.
But my anger isn’t really about him, specifically. Nor do I think that my feelings or my beliefs could affect his. So instead I turn here, where I turn in moments of sheer frustration, to let it out.
First of all, there are only aren’t a lot of things I’d consider myself an expert in. Little girls? Totally one of them. Addison, whomever she may be, wants the flag because it’s pretty. It’s colorful and it’s bright and she wants that to decorate her bedroom because, if I had to guess, she loves bright colorful things the way most little girls do.
What this father did, through his reaction to her as well as broadcasting to the world through his tweet, is to give the impression that there is something wrong with flying a rainbow flag. He’s projected his intolerance and judgements onto what is arguably just a symbol, no different from the cross he may wear or the American flag outside of his house.
But I guess the real issue here is the larger implications, the ones his daughter couldn’t possibly understand yet.
The line from Dennis Leary’s stand up act that has been floating around the Internet (See Below.) immediately popped into my head as I thought about the world this man is creating for his child.
Because while Dennis Leary’s sentiment discusses race, the principle isn’t exclusive to it. Parent’s views shape children’s views and that goes for hate and intolerance of all forms. Intentionally or not this man just planted the seed that people- people who may be gay, may support gays, may have a son or daughter just like his who is gay are wrong. These people, willing to show their pride in who they are and the ongoing fight for equal rights, are bad and not just that, but they are to be avoided.
And to take it one step further, while I don’t know the child in question, I can’t help but wonder “What if?” What if that child someday realizes she’s gay? What if her best friend confides in her about his or her sexuality? Should her reaction to be to recoil as her father’s was at the mere mention of a rainbow flag? Should it be to cast this person out, as something she shouldn’t want in her life just as she was taught to over a simple flag? Why is this father making his daughter carry around the burden of his own judgement and discriminatory ways?
In the man’s Twitter bio, he quotes a popular Christian hymn, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love, Here’s my heart O, Take and seal it, Seal it for thy courts above.”
Can someone find me the passage of the bible that instructs us to judge our neighbors, to teach intolerance and to turn what is arguably a beautiful gift of nature and view it through the prism of hate? I seem to have misplaced my copy that contains that.
This video makes me tear up a little- I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone make a case for marriage equality as eloquently as this guy, especially not in just under 5 minutes.
God bless people like this.
My friend Matt is smarter than me.
He sings better than me, he writes better than me and he is continually funnier than me.
He also has a blog that is much better than mine because 1) He remembers to write on it on a consistent basis and 2) Did you not read the part about being funnier, smarter and a better writer than me?
The only time I beat him is on the rare occasion when he posts weird singing videos. I’m sorry Matt but I kick your ass on those “vlog” days. Brief classical training does make strumming a ukelele and creating your own songs ok.
Anyway, the other thing Matt has going for him is that he legitimately loves to write. He has a gift. I’ve kept just about every note he’s ever written me (including one where he outlines how I’m actually a gay man trapped in a woman’s body) because I’m convinced one day he’ll be famous.
While my blog posts usually take a sharp turn to the heartfelt and sarcastic, Matt always manages to make me laugh so hard I cry. He grasps brevity, where I blather on for 700 words.
Perhaps most of all, while I’m a card carrying crazy liberal some (most) days, his pieces are so funny, it’s almost impossible to find fault.
Almost.
Yesterday, after a particularly funny post that may or may not have suggested that, “Mitt Romney burns a $100 bill every time he sees a homeless person peddling for change” his mom decided to have a “carefrontation.”
She’s concerned that with his business degree and corporate dealings, someone might find him offensive.
While his response involved the assertion that if Fox News got away with so much hyperbole, then so could he, it really got me thinking: How much is too much?
Once upon a time, Miss Manners used to demand that people not discuss money or politics. It makes for bad conversation and for ill-feelings. But with the internet, a giant blank wall, awaiting all of our respective work vomit- where do we draw the line?
To the concern of future jobs- I can’t imagine working somewhere that cared who I voted for or how giddy I was when Rick Perry couldn’t seem to count to three. It’s part of who I am- I don’t want to ignore that.
Plus, I’m in a field where there are tons of creative people. I could make some generalizations here but instead, let’s just say that while I’ve never done an industry wide poll, I’m going to guess there are more than two people who would identify as being LGBT (or LGBT friendly) working in ad agencies, public relations firms and other communication fields- all across the country. (Possibly many more than 2.) So I think everyone can be ok with me expressing my beliefs in equal rights, or at least not SEEM too intolerant.
Other than that, I’m not sure.
How much is too much?
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge of controversy.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
I had always equated my passion for LGBT rights to the old Nazi Germany quote by pastor Martin Niemöller:
“First they came for the communists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
As someone who’s family would have fallen in a couple of those categories circa 1930′s- I always found it a particularly powerful reminder of why saying something is important when people’s rights are being infringed on.
Yesterday’s 2-1 court ruling that California’s Proposition 8 was unconstitutional is a victory, but it is just one of many the LGBT community has to weather for a right I often take for granted.
When I was little, my mom used to tell me you can never be nice to too many people and you can never make too many friends.
When it comes to the fight for equal rights in the LGBT community- there can’t be enough friends, gay or straight.
Yay for yesterday’s victory- and know that we’re all, gay and straight, ready for the battles to come.
I believe in marriage equality. And research, in recent years, shows I’m far from the only one.
On occasion I run into someone who disagrees with gay marriage, and inevitably they begin talking to me about the many MANY reasons it shouldn’t happen.
Examples include:
It ruins the sanctity of marriage, to allow gays to do so. (Note: My parents, a woman and a man, didn’t exactly preserve any sort of marriage sanctity with their perfectly heterosexual marriage.)
Or God doesn’t want gays to marry. (Also of Note: This argument forgets that we don’t all subscribe to the same God. We are all not all Christians, nor does one person’s God and their hypothetical judgement dictate our governing body.)
And as you can imagine when people begin saying things like this to me, my reaction is not as measured and rational as it should be. Instead, my head usually spins around and steam comes out my ears. I get so impassioned by the topic- by the need for my friends to have the exact same rights I have, for people to be allowed to partake in the age-old institution, who believe in it, and fight for it, so passionately.
And I believe it is this passion and equality fervor, that makes it impossible to make sense to anyone who doesn’t speak Taylor’s-liberal-crazy.
And then I found this-
Any questions?
