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So I’ve held off on writing about the ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker in California that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. Of course I was excited, no THRILLED that it was struck down, but I wanted to wait to see how the religious right would respond.

The Absurdity of Proposition 8 (to begin with)

2008 was a year of great victory for progressivism in America. We elected Barack Obama – our first non-white President – something unprecedented in American history. But on the same night – in California – arguably the most liberal state in the Union, citizens passed a law that amended the California constitution to make  gay marriage illegal. The Yes on 8 campaign was filled with lies and scare tactics to entice the ignorant-majority to vote in opposition to Prop 8. I even heard of people so confused by what Yes and No actually meant in regard to the proposition, that they voted opposite of how they intended to.

As Rachel Maddow so eloquently said this week on her show, when you put minority rights up to vote by the majority, the majority will subjugate the minority 100% of the time. 31 out of 31 states that put gay marriage up to a vote, voted against it. Rights should not be put up for vote, they should not be a matter of public opinion, even if many MANY people think they should be. Rights exist to protect people – if we didn’t NEED protecting there would be no need for laws. For example, look at universal suffrage for minorities and women as well as the civil rights battle in the 50s and 60s for minorities and women. Previously, they had a similar position in society as LGBTQ Americans and it took the government intervening to give them rights. Clearly the same was true in the case of Prop 8.

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The Overturn of the Discriminatory Law

Judge Vaughn Walker in California overturned Proposition 8 on Wednesday, August 4th 2010. An appointee of George Bush Senior (AKA Daddy Bush), Walker is assumed to be a conservative-leaning judge. Among other things, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that “Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.” He also believes (and I agree with him) that “Denying marriage to gay people does not make heterosexual marriages stronger; it does not protect children; it does not have any ‘rational reason’ at all”. He further went on to say that it violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution on the basis of not providing equal protection.

Taken from Change.org:

“Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to legitimate state interest,” asserted Walker in his decision yesterday. And, in a direct strike to social conservative arguments on the “sanctity of marriage,” Walker ruled, “tradition alone, however, cannot form a rational basis for a law.” The old paradigm of rationalized, “reasonable” sexual norms was thus struck down, replaced by a new order, for now, that emphasized our historic “rationales” flaws.

To bolster his point, Walker contended, “The evidence shows that the tradition of restricting an individual’s choice of spouse based on gender does not rationally further a state interest despite its ‘ancient lineage.” Times have changed, he’s saying, and American law needs to keep up.

There’s no way Walker’s decision won’t be debated and discussed for years, perhaps even generations, to come. He totally reoriented previously entrenched ideas about “rational” sexuality and gender identities and placed them in a new context, a more relevant context.

Walker’s Proposition 8 reading totally revolutionized the nation’s idea of “rational reason,” and now there’s no turning back. Not that a reasonable nation would want to in the first place, right?

The Aftermath of Justice

Not unusual for the religious right, all was quiet on the bible belt front. They were so shocked that, for once, that they were silent. At least for a day. Now people on the religious right are calling for the impeachment of Judge Vaughn Walker. On what grounds, I’m not sure. I’m sure something along the lines of denying religious liberty – however, what they really mean is not passing laws derived from the chaos and brutality of the Old Testament.

According to the American Family Association, anything but an organization dedicated to preservingfamily, Judge Vaughn Walker should be impeached because:

(Taken from The Examiner)

• Walker’s decision overturning Prop 8 “frustrated the express will of seven million Californians who went to the polls to shape their state’s public policy on marriage;”
• “Judge Walker is an open homosexual, and should have recused himself from this case due to his obvious conflict of interest. “
• “Federal judges hold office only ‘during good Behaviour,’ and …Judge Walker’s ruling is not ‘good Behaviour.’”

While 6.8 million Californians voted for the Prop 8 gay marriage ban in 2008, more than 6.2 million voted against Prop 8. Moreover, the issue before Judge Walker was whether Prop 8 violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically, the 14th Amendment’s guarantees against deprivation “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and of “equal protection of the laws.” As Judge Walker pointed out in his ruling, these Constitutional protections for minorities of all types are not subject to the whims of a majority of voters.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides for the impeachment of “civil officers of the United States” (including federal judges) for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Judge Walker did not do anything illegal or even unethical. He will not be impeached. Stop wasting time and costing the tax payers money in order to force religion on Americans.

As usual the religious-right is just a bunch of idiotic buffoons who are unable to come to terms that society has changed since the Middle Ages. It’s time to move on. The rest of society, including many moderate Christians, have already moved on. It’s time for the far right to do so as well.

I’m sorry if conservatives disagree with gay marriage. In the 1940s, the majority denied the minority (blacks and women) rights. They disagreed that they were deserving of civil rights. In that case as well as this, the government had to step in. Now civil rights for women and minorities are just a fact of life.

I’m sorry if conservatives hold deep religious conviction that homosexuality is deviant behavior. But that’s just too damn bad. Church and State are separate in the United States. If they’d prefer a theocracy, they should move to Iran. Enough said.

Awesome parody video from The Onion -

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don’t Love Each Other

I would love to know your thoughts on this.

Edit 19:20 August 6, 2010:

After posting my article I found an awesome article concerning Arnold Schwarzenegger and how he is an LGBT hero. Even the Republican governor of California supports marriage equality. You’d think, being Republican of all unpleasant things, he could be adamantly opposed to marriage equality. However, he praised the decision by Judge Vaughn Walker! And he’s not even up for re-election this year; it was genuine. Schwarzenegger pleaded that gays be allowed to marry immediately, opposing the stay requested by the far-right nutcases. You go Arnie! I love you and I’m proud to be a Californian and an American today!

Today I was reading an article on Change.org about a church in Michigan who outed one of their gay parishioners and socially isolated him. Having been through similar treatment at a church I went to in high school, I found this article infuriating. Like a lot of Christians, I was very unhappy being gay. In fact, I was self-hating from about 13 years old until late high school. It took me until I was 20 to come out. When I went to this church, I got very involved and became a youth leader. I spent most of my summer volunteering at the church and working hard for – not what I believed in – but for a feeling of belonging, a purpose.

I don’t know that I ever actually drank the Judeo-Christian kool aid. I think it was more of a socio-cultural thing for me. I was born and raised as a Christian and went to church a lot, so I thought that’s just what you do. I never much cared for the church I grew up in, but was very enthusiastic about a church I found in high school. As I said above, I got involved quickly. Like most Christians, I had perpetual feelings of guilt. I never felt like I was good enough for God (read: conservative Christian far right culture) so I was went up for alter calls almost every week at church, trying to make myself worthy in the eyes of God. Talking to friends and family, I’m not the only one who felt like this. But it made me feel very guilty to be gay; I wanted to be cured. So I talked to my “mentors” at church about praying with me, etc.

Like most Christians, they subscribed to the belief that homosexuality is a “choice” and that the “gay lifestyle” is a very negative thing. They prayed with me for some kind of divine intervention to cure me. When no divine intervention came from their fictitious God, they removed me from every program I was involved in and socially isolated me to the point of excommunication. Since it is a big church in a big town, they couldn’t go as far as publicly excommunicating me but they made it uncomfortable to the point of forcing me to (voluntarily?) leave.

In the end I’m just thankful I live in California or I may have been sent to one of those horrible deprogramming camps that permanently damage people for the rest of their lives.

Here is the article in question, entitled: Michigan Church Outs, Then Expels Gay Man:

A man from Williamston Michigan is battling her church over his sexuality.

The man, who wishes not to have his name used, says that by discussing her sexuality with the pastor of Lighthouse Community Church in Williamston, a small bedroom community east of Lansing, he has been targeted for excommunication from the church.

In a June 28 email to the man, Pastor Thurm Payton wrote, “I want to make one more appeal to you to turn from the lifestyle you’ve chosen to deal with the feelings you have wrestled with for many years. I can’t escape the truth that you’ve taken a severe detour in God’s plan for how your life is to be lived.”

He further states,”I would deeply regret it if the effect of my trusting friendship with you was to slowly enable you to accept a lifestyle that is against God’s Word.”

But the man was not interested in denouncing his homosexuality, as Payton plead with him to do.

So when the man declined, Payton, evidently worried with accidentally “enabling” his homosexuality, decided in conjunction with pastoral leaders Jimmy Gretzinger, John Newman, Mark Harbison and Tom Blaylock that it was necessary to excommunicate the man.

Sounds like a story that happens to hundreds of thousands of LGBT people everyday. Except the “leadership team” decided that excommunication was not enough. The sent a four page letter to the congregation announcing the man, as well as a person accused of adultery, would be subjected to a public excommunication.

The letter outed the man to the church.

“This is literally a scarlet letter, designed to isolate and humiliate the members accused of impropriety,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is absurd that the church claims that its intent is not to injure the alleged sinners. They are clearly engaging in a vindictive game of mean-spirited psychological attacks causing grave harm to the individuals singled out and targeted.”

“This church has the right to hold self-righteous and backwards ideas on sexuality,” said Besen. “However, what they are doing is immoral and their actions should be brought to light. With such a medieval mindset, it should be no surprise that many Americans are turning away from such barbaric churches in droves.”

And the kicker to all this? The Williamston Public Schools are renting the middle school cafeteria to the church, thus supporting the group with tax payer funded locations.

Editor’s note: The gender of the person involved in this case was accidentally identified as female, when in fact the victim of the church’s excommunication is a male. We apologize for this error.

This is truly sad, that in this day and time, middle Americans are still so ignorant about LGBTQ issues. The worst part is that they don’t care about LGBTQ issues; most of them do not WANT to become educated on LGBTQ issues. In general, Christians pick and choose the parts of the bible that they want and ignore the parts that inconvenience them. I still fail to understand why Christians make such a big deal out of homosexuality but eat unclean meat, wear clothes of mixed fabric, work on Sundays, tolerate divorce and allow their wives to leave the house. If you read Leviticus all of these things are mentioned, but on these issues they take a liberal approach to Leviticus and decide that the things they dislike are no longer relevant. Maybe homosexuality is irrelevant today too?

Jesus was a loving man who never mentioned homosexuality once, on the contrary he blessed and loved Mary Magdalene – a prostitute. So why the witch hunt on “fags”? Shouldn’t Christians be focused on preserving marriage within their own church and preventing divorce? If marriage is such a sacred institution that they want to deny it to homosexual couples, then why not focus on making marriage more successful?

Here are some comments that were follow ups to this article, these two I found especially profound

The first one is by Dave Hershey:

Dear Pastor Thurm Payton,

I just read on a website about a gay man that you and your church excommunicated. I understand that you wish for him to change his sexual orientation. However, according to the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, and nearly all other various medical, psychological and psychiatric organizations have stated that it is dangerous to alienate people based on their sexual orientation.

There are two things that your treatment of this man leads me to believe, you are not only going against what Jesus taught, which is love and acceptance (remember the prostitute Jesus saved from stoning?) and that by outing him to the entire congregation you are also a very vindictive person and untrustworthy person. (The shame should be ALL on you!)

I’m sure you have wondered why so many LGBT citizens have turned away from the church, it is this VERY reason! Because of the hatred shown toward them, and the lack of love and acceptance.

You and the pastoral leaders of your business (I refuse to refer to your business as a church because it is far from being a place of solace and peace as it should be) ought to be ashamed of your actions, but somehow I know you are likely not.

I would like to recommend a piece I read months ago that I think explains why so many LGBT citizens have left the church. And I also think it may help you understand more about the LGBT community as a whole and why we have rejected your “hate the sin, love the sinner” meme that you like to use. It can be found here: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/04/02/21575

It is my hope that you will read this piece and open your eyes to the truth, and that is we are very loving and caring people. That we come from all walks of life. And no matter how much you want us to conform to YOUR worldview, that will never happen until you start accepting us for who and what we are, your fellow human beings, your neighbors, and members of your earthly family.

By the way, I would like one question answered for me, when did you make a conscious decision to be heterosexual? My guess is that you never had to make a conscious decision to be heterosexual, just as we never made a conscious decision to be LGBT.

Best Regards and may YOUR God have mercy on your soul!

The second one is by William Stoddart:

Right on, Dave.!!  I am in total agreement with your post comments.  There is absolutely no such thing as a, ‘GAY LIFESTYLE” anymore than there is a. “STRAIGHT LIFESTYLE.”   Homophobes delight in constantly using the word “lifestyle” as a part of their demagoguery.  To them “lifestyle” revolves entirely around whom a person is sexually attracted to.  I am positive that if you were to ask any straight male, “What kind of a lifestyle do you lead?”–that their solitaryanswer would not be, “I like to have sex with women.”  Any person’s sexual orientation is just one very small part of the tapestry which defines their life.  The homophobic use of the word “lifestyle” when referencing gays and lesbians is offensive and demeaning.  In a way it conveys the warped idea that all we think about, or do, 24 hours a day is to have sex.

Then, the equally offensive word constantly used by these homophobic evangelists is, “CHOICE..”   Scientific, medical, and biological studies have consistently concluded that being gay or lesbian is not a ‘CHOICE”—no more being born black, or being born with blue eyes is a ‘CHOICE”   Unfortunately, hard core homophobes, will never have the capacity to understand that sexual orientation IS NOT A CHOICE! It is the way are born.  Note that I did not use the phrase sexual ‘PREFERENCE”.   By sometimes using the word PREFERENCE instead of ORIENTATION, they intentionally confer the idea that we CHOSE to be the way we are.   When a homophobe engages me in their demented “choice” philosophy, I always ask them how they went about “choosing” to be straight?  I ask if they perhaps “flipped a coin.”   Or I may ask if they tried both types, and then decided that being intimate with a female felt the best. (kind of like trying on a pair of shoes)  Invariably, they are not able to explain why they are either going with, or married to a person of the opposite sex.  They will usually simply end the discussion with, “That’s just the way I am.”   So, if it’s so very easy for them to understand that “it’s just the way they are” why then is it so difficult for them to understand that our sexual orientation is, “just the way we are.”   If being gay or lesbian was truly a choice–there most likely would be none.   If it was simply a matter of choice, who would consciously choose to be gay—knowing in advance that they would face a life of constant ridicule and rejection?

Hopefully these articles are eye opening to you. Hopefully it helps you to see that homosexuality is something, although maybe not natural, isn’t a choice. Where do people get off thinking they can tell us to reject our innate urges and live a lie?

With Pride season among us, I was feeling festive and decided to read a book with LGBTQ themes. I was very impressed with Alex Sanchez. He wrote a book that was geared at high school kids but it had enough depth for adult readers as well. I found myself really relating to the characters in this book, especially Kyle, in ways I never have in other books. This is a true coming-of-age classic that should be required reading in high school. It is clear that Sanchez writes to show the world that LGBTQ Americans are just like anyone else. They have the same problems, the same falling in love and heartbreak, the same blood and bones and skin.

I look forward to reading more of his work and I would really love to see him write some adult novels as well. Alex Sanchez is changing the world and making it a better place by writing his books. Here’s to hoping that in my lifetime we’ll have a world that has full equality under the law.

It is a shame, in this day and time, especially in a place as liberal as California that Proposition 8 was upheld in court. I would think that everyone, even super conservative christian bigots would want others to be happy. Equality should be for everyone, unconditionally, not just for people who support the conservative agenda.

Ok so maybe romance is an overstatement. Short lived casual dating is more like it.

Anyway, since I’m not all that fond of flaming types when considering guys to date – and despise our mainstream American gay culture – I have had a hard time meeting people who are worth my time and effort to date. In the end I’ve decided that my choices are either meeting someone at church (unlikely with sites such as http://godhatesfags.com out there) or meeting someone on an online dating site. For my own safety, I chose the latter.

I should preface this with saying that I’ve always considered online dating sites for lame fat people who are unable to get laid – or people looking ONLY to get laid – so I’ve never taken the time to get involved with one. However, I finally took the time to join OKCupid which is a fairly effective (and free) dating site. It asks you a series of questions about yourself and how your ideal match would answer the questions and gauges a relationship compatibility based on your answers.

I met a few people people on there right off the bat, two guys who seemed to be different than the stereotypes, perhaps deep, and worth my while. The first guy I met is called Ryan and the second is called Jose.

Ryan and I hit it off almost immediately – but then I met Jose who asked me out before Ryan and I got a chance to talk too much. I of course said yes even though I felt a bit uneasy about meeting online people. We met at Hillcrest Cinemas and saw the movie Revolutionary Road, went to a hookah lounge to watch belly dancing and finally ate breakfast at 1:30 in the morning.

I thought the date went very well. It was a bit long for a first date but it was fun. And, as I would have it no other way, it ended with a kiss on the cheek. Our society is so cliche for ending up in bed on a first date and I just find that ridiculous and low class.

Throughout the date and throughout the pre-date and post-date text/phone flirting, Jose was the perfect guy. He knew the right things to say, remembered little details such as me having a test or interview and seemed to really care. I really liked that. In short, he did the mushy well. But regardless of any other aspect of him, I just didn’t feel the chemistry – I was not attracted to him. And that isn’t to say that he is unattractive. He’s decent looking. Just…I don’t know, couldn’t get into him.

As cliche as this sounds, I thought to myself that I was the problem, I’m shallow or something and maybe if I gave him more time I could come to find him attractive. It never happened.

When I went to San Francisco the weekend of the 14th, he and his friend Christopher also happened to be up there that weekend. My friend Carrie and I met them at the corner of Haight/Ashbury and went driving around. We had random adventures around the city, went shopping, went to Starbucks, etc. But the entire time, Jose and Christopher were making comments about everything we passed. Some of them were funny like “oh my GODDDDDD. That maternity store is so fucking cute!” and “oh my GODDDDDD woman, are you waiting for a better paint job” when a lady hesitated at a light. They were truly hilarious, in true flamboyant fashion – but flamboyance is a huge turn off to me.

In the end, I just decided that Jose’s conformity to gay mainstream culture was a turn off to me. His need to go to gay bars and clubs to pick up guys, even while casually dating me, was a turn off. His need to comment on everything in a super obnoxious way, be it positive or negative, was a huge turn off. Ultimately, he was a huge turn off.

All of it was a huge shame though because he really is a genuinely nice guy. He has long term potential. He’s very good at the mushy.

When I got home from San Francisco I lamely told him by text message that I don’t think we should continue dating each other – that I am not attracted to him and that he seems to be attracted to me – and that I don’t want to lead him on.

This was the extent of our interchange:

Jose: Morning! Don’t know if you’re working this morning but I hope you’re having a good one. PS: We still need to celebrate valentine’s. Just the two of us.

Me: Jose I really like you, but I’m just not feeling the chemistry with you. Maybe I’m still hung up on a past relationship. Maybe you’re just not my type. I don’t know but I know you are interested and I don’t want to lead you on. So I do not want to continue dating. Sorry. And I’m sorry to do this by text but I can’t talk at the moment.

Jose: My friends told me to end it after the first date but I thought you were different. I guess you don’t know what you want or aren’t mature enough for a relationship. I don’t think we were in a situation to really get to know each other on Saturday so that was probably not a good idea but had hoped to get another chance. I guess you don’t want that. You’re missing out.

Me: Maybe. I guess I’ll see.

Jose: I need to get something off my chest. 1. What happened to “you’re prefect”. And 2. That trench coat was so tacky! I guess that’s why I didn’t wanna be too close to you on Saturday you looked homeless.

Me: 1. You really are perfect. You do all the mushy stuff well. Are generally attractive, etc. But I’m just not attracted to you. I think its due to the obnoxious flamboyance. Or maybe the need to talk about every person you pass. I am not and never will be part of the gay mainstream culture. I have too much self respect. So like I said, everything you did was right. It’s just who you are that I can’t deal with. And I’m not naive enough to expect someone to change who they are for me. 2. Trench coat I think goes hand in hand with the whole shallow gay mainstream need to put people down. I don’t see it as relevant, but ok sure?

Jose: I’m pretty sure you made snarky remarks about the music playing in the car and made negative comments about burning man and coachella, both things you know nothing about. Also starting you were going to start drama with your family is not very mature and just as queeny and flamboyant. I can’t take your closeted views of gay culture seriously. It exposes your internalized homophobia. It’s not that you’ll never be part of the culture, you won’t allow yourself to be part of it until you let go of the negative stigmas and embrace who you are. Good luck with that. You’re holding yourself and others from coming together and fighting for equality.

Me: Sounds like I’m going you a favor then

Blogging about this makes me upset all over again. I started out, being sensitive to his feelings, being kind, not really saying what I mean, beating around the bush, etc and he comes up with all of this mean bullshit.

First of all, he told me that he told his friends about me and they were all happy for him, that he found someone who isn’t like everyone else, who is different. He and they as a group found that refreshing. So what is it? Why either lie to begin with or lie to try to insult someone. It was two dates! Hardly a dramatic break up.

My trench coat made me look like I’m homeless? HAHA. That is just an overly childish attempt at a below-the-belt insult. My trench coat is hot. Carrie said so. And I trust her judgement. I look like Neo from the Matrix. Jose is just jealous. He should be focusing on professional fashion rather than “gay” brands like Abecrombie & Fitch, American Eagle and Aeropostale that very much do not fit his frame. Does he not realize how obnoxious a form fitting polo shirt looks on someone who weighs 300 pounds?

Snarky comments about music playing in the car? I didn’t even know what the songs were! Never heard of them. How is that snarky asking who a band is? Coachella and Burning Man. All I commented was that I would die if I was in the desert for 3 days without a shower. Yup, that’s queeny, I’m guilty!

Finally, I do not see how not wanting to be a statistic makes me internally homophobic. A public image of gay males as being obnoxious, crude, overly sexual and flamboyant to the point of social isolation into places like Hillcrest, Castro, Province Town, etc. Yes, that kind of image is going to bring us equality. That’s what we need. More flamers marching in parades and making complete fools of themselves. I’m the one holding the LGBT population back from equality. From change. By being a socially acceptable and successful member of society. Who isn’t on fast track to AIDS from hooking up with guys from bars and clubs.

Anyway, rant done. Now I have taken the time to connect with Ryan, the other guy from OKCupid. I see real potential. He is not a flamer. Has a lot of the same interests as me. Definitely has an attraction factor in there. And even in the beginning, he accepts and desires me as I am. What more can one ask for?