Feeling Hurt About This

My post-election eve euphoria has given way to a deep melancholy that is not related to the election of Barack Obama. Instead, I am finding that I am distressed and heartbroken over the passage, in California, of Proposition 8.



On the ballot, the text of Proposition 8 was only 14 words long: "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Its passage nullified the California Supreme Court decision that made it unconstitutional to deny the right to marry to same-sex couples.


In the wake of the vote, gay couples and their supporters have mourned, held rallies, filed legal challenges and, in some cases, rushed to the county recorder's office to marry before the state stopped allowing it.



Paul Waters is among many who have expressed their feelings like this: "Straight couples don't have a way to be able to truly understand the depth of what this means." I do understand how easy it is to assume that there is no way for those who are not gay to really "get" what this defeat means, but for at least a few of us, this is a set back to a dream that we hardly dare to even give voice to... "That someday we might be given the right to be joined to our loves in a legal and publically accepted union just as couples can be." The truth is that, even as those in the GLBT community believe that their genders should not be barriers to their forming legal marriages, some of us, who are involved in love relationships with multiple partners believe that our numbers should not bar us from the benefits of marriage. Our road is probably much longer than that being traveled by the GLBT community, but hope is a sturdy thing.



Many who voted against Proposition 8 spoke of the need to protect "traditional marriage." Many were clear that their views on this were shaped by religious beliefs. So many continue to believe that marriage is and always has been defined as they seek to define it in these laws and ballot initiatives and constitutional modifications: "between one man and one woman." It seems to make no difference at all to these "true believers" that through the centuries, human societies have created domestic arrangements in all different configurations -- and raised their children and maintained their societies, and cared for one another just fine. Perhaps, we'd do well to create laws that hearken back to King Solomon and allow a man to have up to 700 wives, as 1 Kings 11:1-3 indicates Solomon did. Maybe, that would satisfy the fundamentalist believers who insist that we all must love and marry according to their religious view. The Mosaic Code doesn’t include the much touted “one man, one woman” definition of marriage. It does include laws governing how multiple wives are to be treated (Deuteronomy 21:15-17).



It all makes me sad. It means that for as far into the future as I can imagine, I and we will have to continue to live lives that are not fully expressed because our love is considered "wrong," and not as good as all those "one man and one woman" types. It means that I need to hide the reality of my love and my life for fear of losing my livelihood. It means that we are continually at risk that some malcontent or vindictive soul could destroy us entirely by making our lifestyle public. That is the fact.



As of today, our lifestyle and our love is not only "not sanctioned" within a society that only endorses "traditional marriage." Ours is within the realm of "moral turpitutde;" a legal construct that would be sufficient to prevent us from being able to enter the country if we were trying to do so as foreigners. Our way of living and loving is categorized right along with a whole list of other "moral" failings:

• Assault w/ Intent to Commit Abortion


• Attempted Assault w/ Intent to Commit Carnal Abuse


• Statutory Rape/Rape


• Indecent Assault/Sexual Battery


• Adultery


• Bigamy


• Prostitution


• Sodomy


• Gross Indecency


• Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor/Sexual Acts


• Taking Indecent Liberties w/ a Child


• Incest


• Oral Sexual Perversion

What can I say?



I usually skim the surface of all of that and pay no attention, but it is never very far from the breaking through. For the last few days, I've had an invitation in my email box from a co-worker to a party at her home: "spouses and significant others" the invitation reads. Not for me. I can't bring my spouses/significant others to this sort of gathering. It would create a scandal and end my career. So, I am faced with the dilemma -- go alone, or don't go. And, if I decide to not go, I need to figure out some sort of explanation for my lack of sociable behavior. Soon, we will be into the holiday season. Soon there will be family gatherings all over the place, and of course, I will be there -- accepted and welcomed, but as ever, unexplained and unexplainable. My logical, reasonable mind understands the necessity for all of that, but somewhere deep in my heart, there is sure knowledge. I know. I know how disastrous it would be for the real, whole truth to come out. It won't happen, and that hurts.



Oh well. What is will continue to be the reality. This hurt does not overwhelm. This hurt does not overcome the good and rich and amazing joys of our lives. It is simply a hum that goes on in the background -- a wanting that has no way to be fulfilled.



swan