A little more than three years ago, I went to my first Jewish wedding. Although it was fascinating to see rituals I’d never seen, hear prayers I’d never heard, and experience new concepts such as the chuppah, the ketubah, the breaking of the glass, and the yichud room, the best part was that it was one of those weddings. The kind where, as a guest, you can see that this is a marriage of two people who truly love each other in a way that promises a lifelong relationship. The rabbi had known the bride since she was a little girl, and he’d understood the first time he met her beloved that this was “the one.” Their parents looked on with utter joy and pride during the ceremony. Afterward, families and friends mingled. People met for the first time, or got reacquainted, over the meal at the reception. There was dancing. Storytelling. Raucous laughter. Quiet moments when everyone felt bathed in the happiness of the couple and all those who loved them. It was magic, that night in 2006, and I left the reception with renewed appreciation for the way romantic love helps the rest of us feel a little more hope, a little more charity, a little more faith.
Love builds us as a community. One manifestation was how, the next day, while the couple was flying to Jamaica for their honeymoon, their wedding planner decided to take all the beautiful flowers from the reception tables and distribute them among patients at a local hospice—a beautiful and compassionate gesture that brightened the day for the hospice staff, as well. Thus the love celebrated at one intimate ceremony spilled over into a larger world, touching the lives of even strangers. That’s the great gift that is love, and when we receive it, it’s as if the entire universe pauses for a moment to bask in it.
I often draw on my memories of that wedding weekend and the hope and comfort they give me about our capacity to love. I needed that hope and comfort so much a few weeks ago when I read a story about another couple that broke my heart. I didn’t know them, but they easily could have been neighbors or friends of mine. They were the parents of three adopted children, and in 2007, the entire family was about to depart for a cruise from Miami when the mother fell ill. She was rushed to a hospital, where she was admitted.
This is when the real nightmare began.
The hospital refused to take medical information from the woman’s partner because the partner was also female. According to a hospital spokesperson, they were in “an antigay city and state,” and the woman’s partner and children would receive no information about the patient’s medical condition, nor would they be allowed to see her. The partner managed to contact people in their home state who were able to fax all the legal documentation that unmarried couples put in place to protect them from just such an ordeal—including the medical power of attorney.
A medical power of attorney is a document that will allow any person so designated by the patient legal rights regarding medical decisions, but it was not honored by this Miami hospital. As the patient slipped into a coma and eventually died, her partner was allowed only a five-minute visit while a priest was present to administer the sacrament of anointing of the sick.
The patient’s doctor admitted there was no reason why her family shouldn’t see the dying woman. No reason except the cruelest kind of bigotry. Even after her death, when the family returned home, the county refused to release the death certificate to her partner because they weren’t married.
I’ve been present at the deaths of five people I loved. Those hours, even minutes, before and when someone dies are profound. The words, the touches, the gestures we use to comfort and express our love as we say goodbye are sacred. I can’t imagine being in a situation in which my husband would be only a few feet from me, his life slipping away, and being forbidden to be at his side. Even thinking of that makes me cry. But it wouldn’t happen. If it were physically possible for me to be with him, no doctor, nurse, social worker, or hospital administrator would block my way. Nor was I, as a daughter, kept away from my parents during their hospitalizations, and I was with my mother when she died. Custom, the law, the very essence of human kindness protect me from the agony of being kept from a family member who’s dying.
But custom, the law, and human kindness didn’t protect those two women in Miami. And my friends, the Jewish couple? They wouldn’t have been protected either, had they ended up at that Miami hospital before taking their honeymoon trip to Jamaica. Because though their families and friends witnessed their wedding ceremony, and though their rabbi blessed their union, they also are both women. There is no civil law that honors their commitment to each other.
So please don’t tell me that the bigotry that overturns or denies protections and equal rights to gays and lesbians in places like California and Maine doesn’t affect me. It does. And please don’t tell me how you really do love your gay friends, but you think that “marriage is between one man and one woman,” because as far as I’m concerned, that isn’t love. I’ve never yet been told of one single incident in which a minister or priest or pastor was forced to marry any couple that he or she didn’t feel comfortable marrying. This isn’t about religion. This is about civil law, and treating all people with equality and dignity.
When you tell me that my gay and lesbian friends and family members don’t deserve to be married, don’t deserve to be part of decisions regarding their spouses’ medical care, don’t deserve to stand by their spouses’ hospital beds as they’re dying to say that last goodbye, don’t deserve to live full lives without fear of being denied the most basic respect and rights a marriage bestows, then you’re saying the power of love to build and sustain us as individuals, families, and communities doesn’t deserve to exist.
And you are wrong.
This is about civil law, and treating all people with equality and dignity.
Yes. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you.
Becky…
*hugs*
This entry is marvelously written and you have expressed yourself (and my thoughts, also!) beautifully. Both of my boys wanted to know why I was crying as I read it.
May I please link others to this entry?
Thank you, and yes, please feel free to link to it.
This was a very well-written post
This post made me cry. May I link to this post as well please?
Love & Soul Always, Kay
Re: This was a very well-written post
Yes, of course. Thank you.
Nothing much to say really, except “AMEN.” And I love you. And thank you for being such an amazing advocate and friend.
Thank you for being another person who teaches me about love.
Ditto. Major ditto. And you made me cry at work!
If you’re going to reward me with dinner from Barnaby’s, I’ll have to make you cry more often.
Heartbreaking
Well said Becky.
I only know two out gay people in real life (they’re friends of my daughter), but this cause means a lot to me. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating and infuriating to read stories like this.
Re: Heartbreaking
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We allies and advocates need each other, too.
beautiful
So articulate and true… I hope everyone shares this link!
Re: beautiful
Thank you. I know you are a tireless advocate for justice and truth, so this means a lot to me.
From someone who lives in California and was absolutely disgusted by the passing of Prop 8, thank you.
Thank YOU. Two of the people I love most in the world are from California and Maine. I wish some of the voters of their states respected their equality as much as I do.
Eventually, justice will prevail. But how great if it didn’t have to assert itself over the kicking and screaming of bigots, huh?
Beautifully said, Becks. I decided not to write about this today because I would have been too angry, swore a lot, and frankly, could not have said it better than you did.
It will happen, and hopefully in our lifetimes. The young are overwhelmingly on our side, and I tell myself the heartbreaks we have all endured throughout our lives as we fight the good fight are all worth it, as change can not happen without it.
See you tomorrow.
With luck, I will live long enough to see equal treatment under the law apply to everyone. Thanks for your encouraging words.
Drive safe!
Like Greg, I am too angry, swear a lot, and can’t say it better than you have. That said, I can’t keep my mouth shut. And I am getting old too fast to be patient.
I understand your anger and wish with all my heart that your fellow citizens would treat you and your relationship with respect.
As much as I believe the argument that time is on our side (our opponents cannot claim landslide victories in CA or ME) I think Cleve Jones is right; we need to take this fight to the federal level. Can you imagine if the issue of racial segregation were left to states to decide? There would still be places in this country where you’d find “White Only” bathrooms.
This is a heartbreaking story.
Equal treatment under the law, fairness–these are not matters in which the majority should ever be allowed to vote against a marginalized citizenry. Our government was set up as a republic to ensure that liberty could not be doled out at the whim of the many. It is for ALL.
These people who think they’re “winning” some kind of victory may one day find their own freedoms threatened by a majority. Many of the people they want to shut out now would be the first to speak up for them.
In the end, I believe you’re right–justice will prevail.
Okay, this is a British perspective – and I hope I don’t offend my friends in the States.
These things make me realise how ignorant I am of American society. I always thought the US was a progressive country – way ahead of my country. Didn’t Stonewall happen in the States? I can only imagine that the law in some states doesn’t reflect the opinion of the people? In the UK, we now have civil partnerships, which are a union of a same-sex couple, but not full marriage (that’s still be worked on, but it will happen – eventually). If my partner and I ever enter into a civil partnership then we will be each others next of kin – ergo, no-one could stop me visiting him in hospital or him me, etc., etc. On the flip side, if we decided to split-up the divorce lawyers would make a fortune. Don’t get me wrong – homophobia is rife in the UK, but the law is getting there (and still has a very long way to go). Marriage doesn’t guarantee happiness, but it should be an equal right. I don’t know what you guys can do to make change happen, but I know the will – and the love – is there. Equality will happen.
I’m not offended. For the last thirty years, I’ve watched my country take three steps back for every step forward. We were fairer and more willing to listen in the 1970s than we are now.
I have so many thoughts about all of this, but these days, if you can’t show someone in a hundred words or less why something’s good for THEM, they generally don’t listen or see why they should care.
I’m ashamed that a majority of my generation, given so much opportunity, so much freedom, so much of everything, has turned into this bitter, hateful mob of people driven by self-interest, self-righteousness, and greed.
There are many gay people who don’t have the slightest interest in getting married. But to live in a country where you are told and shown, time and time again, that you and your relationships are not valued is soul-deadening. It’s cruel. It’s just WRONG.
For the last thirty years, I’ve watched my country take three steps back for every step forward.
I have to to disagree with this, at least as it pertains to LGBT rights.
Thirty years ago, there were almost no LGBT role models. Thirty years ago, most heterosexuals could honestly claim they didn’t know any gay people. Thirty years ago, the representative gay images were a very small handful of local politicians and the Village People.
Thirty years ago, not only was I closeted, but so was Barney Frank… even a “minstrel show” like Will & Grace (which is not a book) would have been unthinkable… Liberace won lawsuits affirming his *cough* heterosexuality.
Thirty years ago, the concept of gay equal rights in employment, housing, and public access was floated in only a handful of locations with concentrated gay populations. The concept of hate crime laws to protect the community came later… the concept of domestic partnerships came after that… and same-sex marriage? Thirty years ago — hell, ten years ago — that was so far removed from reality that it was inconceivable.
Today, there are bitter disappoints and a lot of unbridled bigotry and ignorance, as witnessed in recent years in Maine and California, among other places. I make no excuses for that, and I don’t attempt to justify it.
But we are also in a much better, different place than we were thirty years ago.
In 1979, would any rational person have predicted there would be same-sex marriage in Iowa and Vermont? Would any rational person have foreseen a lesbian finishing first in Houston’s mayoral race? Or two gay city councilmen from blue-collar Queens, NY? Or gay mayors in Oregon and North Carolina? Or that transgendered people would be a visible and influential part of our own “Rainbow Coalition.”
It has been a very bumpy ride, admittedly, and none of what I’ve written is meant to deny the realities of gay-bashing, AIDS, religious bigotry and fear-mongering, fractured families, and countless internal squabbles that have often crippled our collective ability to be effective.
But I would submit that, on LGBT issues and visibility over the past 30 years, we’ve actually taken three steps forward for every step back. That doesn’t mean we’re where we should be, and it doesn’t mean we should be happy with our gains. But it’s progress… and progress at a notable pace.
My two cents.
–Famous Author Rob Byrnes
FARB, I know you’re right. I’m just frustrated and impatient and tired of having to FIGHT for things that shouldn’t even be up for debate. There’s no such thing as “some people are more equal than others.”
In the 1970s, there was some cultural progress. We were starting to see gay characters on TV–or at the least, hear gay people mentioned–on shows like “Soap” and “Maude” and “All in the Family.” A dialogue was beginning. It opened up a debate about concepts like “gay liberation.” The women’s movement was dealing with acrimony over lesbians/straight women, but at least lesbians were part of the debate.
The climate of anger and fear created by AIDS in the 1980s slammed the door on something that was fragile but in existence. We’ll never know how things might have progressed. If any good came of this dark period of history (which we are STILL in, whether or not anyone talks about it), it was the way it galvanized GLBT people to act on their own behalf–and the way many straight people’s compassion led them from ignorance to awareness and acceptance.
Those are matters that will be understood better by future historians and sociologists. For me, living here and now, it just sometimes feels like every time there’s a nudge toward equality and justice, the populace gets whipped into a frenzy of ignorance and intolerance, not so much by little weasels like Phelps, but by what are essentially corporations operating under the guise of religious institutions or organizations.
I don’t have the energy to open that can of worms right now.
I know that in the end, truth and justice will prevail. But when I also know that half of the people in my life live in oblivious bliss of things they think have nothing to do with them, while the other half are being damaged every time their right even to exist, and exist as fully included members of society, is being PUT TO A VOTE–I just want to shriek sense into people’s heads.
Despite what I wrote above, I agree with everything you said. It’s wrong, and it’s ridiculous, and I feel a bit silly writing that incremental improvements are better than NO improvements.
But it’s through those increments that we’ve already seen a lot of change, and will see more. Our obstacles are not unmovable, but education and knowledge are the keys to attaining real equality.
–FARB
PS: None of the above should be interpreted to suggest I’m complacent with small gains. I’m just as angry and frustrated as anyone else. But age — and individual circumstances, I suppose — have mellowed me a bit.
You know, I just don’t understand the actions of that hospital. Where I work, we never demand to see a marriage license before someone is allowed to visit. If someone says that they are the ‘significant other’ or boy/girlfriend, that’s good enough. Now, it might get sticky when it comes to decision making without a designated durable power of attorney. No matter the sexes of the couple, if they don’t have that piece of legal paper a blood relative would be the one to make the decisions if they are unable to. You can only hope that the next of kin is in sync with what the couple would want.
In every single situation I’ve personally been involved in, that durable medical power of attorney is sacred. It protects the wishes of the ill, the choices of the designated decision maker, and the actions of the medical staff. To ignore it out of some misguided sense of “morality” is reprehensible.
All that aside, what kind of humans would allow someone to die ALONE when people who love her are right there, ready to comfort her, ready to gently usher her out of this world with words of love and kindness? It’s beyond cruel, for both the dying woman and her survivors.
So disgusted… thank you so much for taking that feeling away and putting something positive in its place. : )
It’s time for every straight person who knows a gay person to stop cowering at the noise of a bunch of wrong-headed bigots.
I don’t even know what to say, Becky. I’m sitting here with tears running down my face reminded that I am not alone in my desire and fight for this simple right. Thank you for being one of those people.
Thanks, Gary. One day they’ll be tears of celebration.
And you are wrong.
And you are so right. I am very proud to be a citizen of a country that has allowed same-sex marriage since 2005 (has it been four years already??). I always shake my head when some holier-than-thou bigot screams about how gay marriage will ruin the institution of marriage. No, committed people who love each other will not ruin the institution of marriage. People like Britney Spears who marry for sport are the ones ruining the meaning of marriage. Not once has anyone’s marriage, gay or straight, infringed on my rights to get married or not get married.
They spout their hateful rhetoric about how it’s unnatural, and how they’re not bigoted, but it’s just not right. Yet, if you suggest they switch out the word ‘gay’ for the word ‘black’, they’d be appalled at the suggestion that black people not be allowed to marry. But that’s racist! they’d cry. Well, decreeing that two people who love each other cannot get married just because they are the same sex is just as bigoted as the black suggestion is racist.
And it’s no less appalling. If you love each other, you should be allowed and encouraged to spend the rest of your life together, with the state’s blessing and benefits. Period.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Canada gives me hope.
Yes, but ever since that passed here we’ve had to suffer through horrible, long winters where the temperature drops to 30 below.
😉
Wonderful post.
Thank you.
Don’t blame those winters on the gays. You can look to where a large number of Americans like to look whenever they’re trying to cast blame:
Becks,
I have been thinking of what I wanted to say to this entry all day. I have never understood how anyone who has a happy marriage, and had a loving family could NOT want every single person, gay, straight or left handed to have that same thing. Perhaps because I come from a “broken” home, I don’t quite get why there is a fear of the “unconventional” family, in whatever guise it may take. It makes me sad to think of how many people, not just gay couples, could benefit from marriage equality. Isn’t it something that could strengthen our families? I know I had a fun single uncle growing up … and how nice to think that my Uncle Larry could have had the same relationship that the other married adults in my life had! Heck, there would have been another person there to enrich my life! What kid wouldn’t benefit from a little more love?
I do have hope — and a great deal for it. Washington’s “everything but marriage ” law ( I think it passed ) would be a HUGE victory. The rights of domestic partners will be the equivalent of married spouses. And most importantly this will be the first time any such law came directly from the people, and not from the courts or the state legislature. This is something that the people of Washington decided, not what was decided for them – and later voted down. The people of Washington State said they felt it was the right thing to do…In 1997 a gay discrimination law was rejected by a landslide.
It’s slow, way to slow – but it is progress, and with people like you, the beautiful brides, and ever single person that posted their thoughts here – that will change. Love has a way of winning out … I just wish the race wasn’t so long.
I just wish the race wasn’t so long.
Me, too.
So well said.
If people truly believe in Christ’s message, what about
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?”
Then there would be no problem knowing what the right
thing was.
It seems so simple, doesn’t it?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you, Becky. I cried when I read this. I wish the whole country would read this post. Thank you again.
Thank you for your kind words. I wish people would open their eyes to see there are good people like you all around them who they are treating unjustly.
The greatest moment of my life was my wedding day.
I’m sure people say that of their marriages in general, but honestly, as much the event itself was fantastic, it wasn’t the marriage ceremony, it was after the wedding, and during the speeches.
I was sitting with my – squee! – husband, and his father, my – squee! – father-in-law, got up to the podium, and led off the speeches.
The first thing he said was, “Not many parents are lucky enough to be blessed with two gay children.”
At that moment, I realized not only had I just married this wonderful, intelligent, fantastic, and incredible man, I had just gained an entire family. I literally couldn’t breathe, my eyes welled up, and I lost track of everyone around me for a second. When I recovered enough to hear the rest of my father-in-law’s speech, he was speaking about how lucky we were to be in a country that recognized love as love, and how happy he was that his son found someone who lit him up in a way they’d never seen before.
Realizing he meant me, I pretty much lost it and sniveled from that point on.
Point being, I can’t wrap my head around people that don’t get it. I don’t understand how there are individuals who think that adding to the sum of love can subtract anything from their lives.
I always end up crying whenever you talk about your wedding. If every bigot in the world could open their minds and hearts to know two such fine men as you and Dan, all this nonsense would stop. Yours is one of the most loving, supportive, affirming relationships I’ve ever seen. I’m so delighted to know you both.
One day
One of the joys of my life is yet ahead of me. One day, I’ll get to meet ‘Nathan and his husband. I’ve come a long way online with ‘Nathan, living through tragedy, grief, loneliness, hatred, friendship, joy, love, marriage, triumph and – perhaps above all – contentment.
And yes, I wish that everybody could know ‘Nathan’s story. So many minds would clang open.
Thank you!
It’s about love. No, not between the same sex partners, because we can take it for granted that love is involved as much as for heterosexual partners.
It’s the love of one’s fellow human beings that matters. If someone looks on another with love, even though that person is different in race, political outlook, gender, gender preference, faith or whatever, then that is a positive for the community. We need more love in our world.
And we need fewer people hating each other over the same things.
Let us hope that love will prevail next time the question is put to the community.
Thank YOU for sharing your thoughts. “Love of one’s fellow human beings” is the whole thing in a phrase.
I was ashamed to say I was from California when Prop 8 passed, and appalled by the sheer gloating I saw from many of its proponents. Thank goodness one of the judges now hearing the latest court challenge asked the Prop 8 attorneys the hard question: “How does same sex marriage cause harm to heterosexual marriage?” The attorney’s answer? “I don’t know.”
Duh.
You’re welcome to drop in here anytime. I know you through ‘Nathan, too.
I really want someone to try to prove in court that same-sex marriage will lead to the ruin of the institution. There’s absolutely nothing that can back up such an assertion. As Tim once posted in his LJ, his mother said, “The only people who can ruin my marriage are my husband or me.”
There is simply nothing to add to this, apart from Brava!
Thank you.