Category Archives: gay

Mad Vow Descends on New York — And How Wonderful It Was!!!

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It was overcast.  It was pedestrian.  It was a long line on Worth Street.  I bet a few wondered if they could get their driver’s licenses renewed while they waited.  It was spectacular.  It was thrilling.

It was a jumble of emotions.

It was, except for the lines (and that it was a Sunday),  so unremarkable in its normality, that I wanted to cry for joy.  Yet a whole community celebrated standing in line for a marriage license — something that everyone else, until now, took for granted and, frankly, groused about.  Young and old, of every nationality and race, same sex couples stood on that line.  Four couples with whom we are especially close took their vows yesterday.  We couldn’t find them.  G-d bless texting and emails because we all knew we were there somewhere standing as witnesses.

Even Samantha Bee and Jason Jones from the Daily Show were on hand to mock the events.  That is how you know you have arrived.

Some sang and danced around and under the rainbow chupah (wedding canopy) [see above shot, looking up].

There was a lone protester.  He said terrible things that TLP (our son, the little prince) asked about.  TLP also asked why I said, “Shame on you!!” to the protester.  I told him that the protester used bad words and is spewing hate in the name of Jesus who was a man of love.  “Well, E-Mom, maybe it is because you and Mommy won’t be married until June.”

G-d bless TLP.  He thinks the problem is that we are living in sin.  But all will be ok once we get married in June.  In fact, he told some people on the subway who got married, “don’t worry, WE are getting married in June!!!”  Yep, the whole family.

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I was unfriended

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The danger of Facebook is that someone can unfriend you.  Or defriend you, I am not sure.

I was hurt.  I was confused. No explanation.  Just  — one day — IFOB (Italian friend of blogger) was not among my friends.  And this, after POB (partner of blogger) showed up to make sure that I was not swooning over his elegance and grace in a moment of heterosexual weakness.  Indeed, IFOB is handsome, charming and so very intelligent and well-read.  But I don’t have moments of heterosexual weakness; I am for my beloved POB and she is for me.  IFOB is a good catch for those of you straight women out there who are single.  (Just FYI.)

Being the straightforward person that I am, I emailed IFOB and asked, “Did you unfriend me?”  He did.  He was angry that I was ambivalent about the equality in marriage legislation.  I should be happy.  In truth, you have to stand in my shoes to understand. When you are discriminated against, it is hard to be thankful when people realize that they ought to stop discriminating.

Of course, I am happy.  And, I am grateful to those who championed the cause.  Mostly, I am happy because I have POB and, with TLP (the little prince), we are a family.  And, love and family cannot be legislated.

POB and I were planning a ceremony before the legislation seemed possible.  Now, it will be a marriage.

IFOB: next time, talk to me if you have an issue with something.  After all, we seem to navigate being political opposites.  Besides, if you are not my friend (forget FB, just generally), you can’t come to the wedding (in 2012).

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President Obama, Save the Date

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Dear President Obama:

I know, deep down, in your heart of hearts, you are not anti-gay marriage.  In fact, I think you don’t understand why people draw the line in the sand on this issue.  Given what a mess heterosexuals make of marriage, who should care if more people want to get married and then pay the marriage tax, to boot.  If some crazy gays want to do this, then G-d bless, right?

But you’ve missed the point.  It’s about taxation.

People don’t want to subject us queers to the marriage tax because the problem in Washington is spending, not revenue.

How about if you have a special tax code exemption for us so we don’t have to see our hard-earned dollars go into social programs? Maybe speak with Majority Leader Boehner (and how come his name isn’t pronounce “Boner” anyway?) about this.  I am sure that he will drop his Defense of Marriage Act defense once he realizes the gay marriage is not back door taxation.  (Don’t even think that was a clever pun for those who are male.)

Look, the GOP standard bearers want to protect our lives and our incomes.  Why else would they not want us to serve in the military?  And not marry?  Well, aren’t we the unanticipated darlings of the far-right?

This is the triple negative political action play that is making my head spin.  But never mind the GOP.

Andrew Cuomo, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have all stepped on the bandwagon.  Now I know the Clintons aren’t running for political office anymore (maybe a seat on the Supreme Court . . . ).  But Cuomo figures by 2016, equality will be a non-issue.  And he is right.  But you are in the “here and now” where it is gutsy to be a sitting President and lead by example.

You’re in a tough spot.  Let me sweeten the pot.  POB (partner of blogger) and I are getting married next year.  We had planned it well before the vote because we just wanted to celebrate our family and friends.

There’s an invitation with Michelle’s and your names on it if you just say. . .

“Yes, gays can.”

 

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My son’s 9th birthday party

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It is so hard to imagine that TLP (the little prince), is turning 9 years-old.  Because his birthday is in the summer, we have his party before the end of the school year.  So, today, we had a bowling party for him and invited his friends and family.  I think back to the days when he couldn’t navigate a mainstream class or party.   And then I see him connecting with his friends today.  Night and day.

The other night, POB (partner of blogger) took him to a pre-camp orientation meeting.  In previous years, these were unmitigated disasters.  Yet, this year, TLP was engaged, engaging and actually enjoyed the event.  POB told him how proud she was of how he navigated that social situation.  He replied, “Mommy, I have evolved.”

Evolved, he has.  In so many ways.  Today, my young son is a gracious host, laughing and enjoying time with this friends and happy to see assorted cousins, aunts and grandfathers who all wore ear plugs to brave the event.  Night and day.

Yesterday, at the end-of-Hebrew-school picnic, another mother came up to me to tell me what TLP had said about what he learned at religious school this year.  (Generally, we like to give TLP space and not sit in on classes, so it is good to get information from the even more neurotic parents.)  TLP said, “I learned about the meaning of social justice and I am really happy that my moms can have more than a ceremony — we can all get married.”  (Yes, TLP refers to our 2012 nuptials as our wedding.) Night and day.

Back to today and the party.  The kids are screaming at a decibel level heretofore unknown in humans.  They are wild, obstreperous, very physical and sometimes even rude.  In short, they are normal 9 year-olds.  It is a two-hour party that seems to last for days.  POB and I need a nap when we get home.

So, as Gay Pride floats down Fifth Avenue, I celebrate all that I already have: an exhausting 9 year-old, a birthday party with his friends, an extended family who come to share these milestones and for Sunday night dinner, life-long friends, and my partner in life, POB.

Thank you, Governor Cuomo, because you made sure that, with your signature, the law recognizes the universality of our aspirations and the ingredients of our happiness. Night and day.

 

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Pride, 2011

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I have been glued to Yahoo and Google News for a week waiting for the gay marriage vote in New York’s Senate.  Tick tock, tick tock.  Apprehension turned to despair as Friday morning turned into afternoon turned into twilight.

POB (partner of blogger) and I went to synagogue for Pride Shabbat.  It was standing room only, as it often is, but there was something hanging in the air.  As we sang hallels (songs of praise) and chanted the ancient affirmation of faith, we knew that change was in the air.  The air was thick with anticipation, with hope and promise and maybe a little resentment that our love and commitments needed legislative legitimacy.  (Especially in a time where we don’t hold our elected officials in the highest esteem.)

The rabbi, who eschews modern-day devices on Shabbat, was not displeased to be informed by those on their gadgets about the minute by minute developments, which she dutifully conveyed to the congregation.  I think she also wanted to keep people seated as we all yearned to be at Stonewall on Sheridan Square (in mind if not in middle-aged body) to celebrate.  She told us that our services would conclude before the New York Senate vote was finished, and she reminded us that the Stonewall riots didn’t start until Saturday morning, after Jews were finished at synagogue, saying the Mourner’s Prayer for Judy Garland, whose funeral that day probably sparked the patrons of Stonewall to fight back against the police that night.

I have been a privileged white woman all my life.  I am Jewish, a minority for sure, but I live in New York City where the public schools close for our major holidays.  I wasn’t a second class citizen until I realized I was gay.  And then realized that there were groups in the country — and the world — who foisted every societal failing on our “evil” love: divorce, plagues, wild fires, floods, etc.   How evil could we be if we contribute more in tax dollars, charitable giving, cohesion of community, and frankly, good parenting than most?  And still these, these, “righteous” people wielded power over my life, livelihood, legal rights and happiness.

I wonder now why people were rejoicing when the Civil Rights Act was passed.  I think people should have been seething that degradation and abuse should have taken so damn long to be outlawed.

While I applaud Governor Cuomo, and those who voted their conscience on Friday, I am not grateful.  If I were grateful, it would imply that I received something possibly undeserved.  Actually, my anger at having to be “protected” is oozing from my pores.  “Why did anyone have this power over me in the first place?”

I am here, I am queer and, no matter what, I am too old to be at Stonewall celebrating anyway.

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Rule No. 1: Don’t check me out if you are receiving social security benefits

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I have been wallowing in old and recent pictures of the family.  You know, the end-of-year auld lang syne thing, except without the drunken protestations of undying friendship.

Jews, as a rule, are not innately happy, because if you are happy, then the Evil Eye will visit some horribleness upon you and your loved ones.  Preventing the Evil Eye from coming is hard work when you’re up against all the Yuletide cheer.  It requires devotion to cynicism (which is extremely difficult this time of year — as you may remember, even Ebeneezer Scrooge gave in to the Yuletide cheer), remembering every lost loved one, predicting doom and gloom in the New Year, and staying up nights thinking up disaster plans if your family is suddenly homeless.

While I was protecting my family and the world from imminent disaster (say Keynahora — don’t ask why, just say it) by tearing up while looking through photos of my mother of blessed memory (don’t worry, no bringing in the Joni here), I noticed in the pictures that over time, the muscle tone in my arms went from “awesome” to — er — “pretty good for middle-age”.  I decided that I needed to return to arms — not to “awesome”  but — to “omigod, your arms don’t look like they belong on a middle-aged woman!”   I determined that if I said “keynahora”, the incantation said by my grandmother right after she kissed the mezuzah and put money in the pushke (box for charity) enough times, no harm would come to my family if I indulged in a little narcissism.

Turns out I didn’t need to say “keynahora”, kiss anything or anyone because the Evil Eye got the last laugh.

Background:  I have silvery hair, and have taken to “glamming out” a little (earrings, lipstick, scarves, jewelry) to balance the harshness of “going gray”.

TWICE tonight at the gym, men who are easily 20-25 years older than me were checking me out.  I noticed they tried to meet my gaze and I looked back to see if they needed something.  Seeing that they were holding my gaze, I turned around to see if there was someone else intended for the gaze.  Just my reflection.  Uh oh, I think.  I am gray but I could be your daughter.  Eeeeeewwwwww.  Besides, you are at the gym either because you were too speculative in the last years and need to continue to work (greed is a boomerang) or you are just here to check out the women (shame on you because, statistically speaking, you have a wife at home with sagging arms).  In either case, I don’t date MEN — and therefore men on social security — and I am married (as much as one can be in New York) to woman with whom I have a family.  And does Medicare pay for that Viagra?

The other thing I noticed is that all young women (gay or straight) have tattoos just above the cracks of their tushies, and they make sure those tattoos are visible to all by wearing revealing gym wear.  (I can look.)  You can tell the non-straight girls because they are doing military pull ups and the really hard kind of push-ups.  And some don’t even have that ooky muscled-up with no breasts look.  But I digress.

The harsh truth that hit me is no girl was even glancing in my direction.  So, what I am saying is that women may gender-bend, but they don’t generation-bend, although I look fabulous for 50 (I am 46-almost 47).

So, I didn’t need protection from the Evil Eye.  I need protection from REALITY.

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Holiday Photos

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Most every other family can get it together to take a photo, get prints done, put in envelopes, address the envelopes and mail them.  We can’t. 

In fact, POB (partner of blogger) would rather do laundry and I would rather destroy the house under the guise of “home improvements” than undertake this gargantuan task.  (As an aside, we have had to contract repairman to correct my home improvement projects, but I digress. . . )

So . . .  Not happening until our son is of an age where he can do all of that.

But we love getting the holiday pictures from our friends and family.  (Note to friends: we love seeing your kids, but we also want to see you in the picture as well.)

SOPOBAB (son of POB and blogger) especially likes the pictures of the kids he knows.  Even he says stuff like, “wow, they’ve grown!!”  There is one family with an adorable little girl and two younger twin boys (you know who you are) whose card was particularly of interest to SOPOBAB.  (I think he likes the willfulness in the girl.)  But he is betrothed to another (this, he decided at the tender age of 7, so his interest in the willful one is merely big-brotherly.)

He also likes to see pictures of my college friends’ families.  A group of us female friends have remained tight-knit (the “Soeurs”).  SOPOBAB asked POB, “when are the Soeur kids getting together?” 

He also asked POB, “[Blogger] is a Soeur, and I am a Soeur kid, then what are you?”  POB responded, somewhat sheepishly, “I am a Soeur Consort.”  Since not everyone has a spouse and partners may change from time to time, it seemed like a suitable name — heck, Queen Elizabeth’s husband is called “The Queen Consort” (I think). Unfortunately, it sounds a little tawdry.  Maybe we will all get married by the time he is old enough to think the name is ooky and then “Soeur Consorts” will be “Soeur Spouses”.

But our boy is used to eccentricity.

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Who am I; What am I?

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For over 46 years, I was an American.  I was one of us — even though I am Jewish, an unrepentant liberal, and gay.  There was room in the tent, even if a few people called me unpatriotic for opposing the Iraqi invasion.

But this year, things are different.  Was my grandmother a citizen when my mother was born?  Yes.  Does it matter?  Maybe I get dispensation because I pay in taxes what most people earn in a decade.  I thought that in this country, one no longer had to buy freedom or the right to be protected from government interference.  But if neo-fascists get their way, birthright citizenship goes away.  If that happens, hell, I am moving because I am not paying my tax dollars into a system that makes me prove my mother’s citizenship.  I bet that America would find that most of their tax dollars comes from second generation Americans and not the Tea Party Express members who fear that their status as descendants of European conquerors doesn’t buy a loaf of bread.

Then there is this talk about the oppressive Atheists who deprive Christians of their right to pray in schools.   News flash:  it isn’t just the Atheists.  It is every mainstream of every minority religion that wants breathing space from fundamentalists — of whatever religion.  As religious as were the founders, they believed, and the case law of our nation’s highest court supports, that there be a separation of church and state, mostly for the protection of the minority against the tyranny of the majority (thank you, Thomas Jefferson).   Chew on that, Christine O’Donnell.

Protest is the hallmark of our nation.  We were founded upon the belief that we had a right to protest the edicts of King Charles of England.  So when video captures a campaign aide stomping on the head of a protester, one has to wonder who has hijacked our nation.  I disagree with the campaign aide’s candidate on more things than I can count but I support his right to campaign on his ideas.   If his staff cannot support the right of the opposition to protest, then they are totalitarian thugs.  They don’t belong in the great experiment in democracy that is America.

Also in this election cycle, we learned that there are those who believe that if this nation were to allow gay marriage, it would be tantamount to allowing a person to marry a piece of furniture.  No joke.  Try telling that to your girlfriend.

Where did the ideals and dreams of America go?  I am a stranger in my own land.

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Uncommon Honor

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Our god-daughters come over every other Friday night for family dinner. (I think “goddaughter” doesn’t sit so well with one, but it is just too impossible to explain the depth of our relationships, so it will have to do.)

We’ve been through a lot together. J. started out 9 years ago as a perfectly lovely undergraduate with lovely light brown hair. One day she came over having gotten a blond buzz cut and some metallica in and around her face.

Then she started playing rugby which is football without all of the protective gear (and we know that even that doesn’t help much).

Then she came out as a gun owner (her family is from out in the country where hunting is the norm).  This was a difficult issue because we are good New York liberals and my mother helped found New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.  She probably enjoyed the irony of my playing with light sabers yesterday (see prior blog entry).

Then, as a senior she brought home a peppy young undergraduate for us to meet.  (See below about K.)

Then, there was the living on our couch for a while (she can come back in a New-York minute).

Then, she decided, contrary to my better advice, to go to law school.  Nooooooo comment.

Most recently, she came out as a vegetarian (remember, she is from a meat-loving, hunting family).  We are fine with that, really, we just would have preferred to know ahead of dinner that evening.  So now we are searching for good, vegetarian recipes for Friday nights. (I bet you thought I was going to say that she came out as a lesbian, but that is soooo old school.)

So, K. came into our lives about 8 years ago after we had gotten a little too much information about her for any self-respecting godparents to handle.  Also, I think I intimidated K. in the beginning or, more to the point, she didn’t really “get” me.  Maybe I was too over-protective of J.  (Ok, I was too over-protective of J. but sometimes family is a burden in that way.)

Anyway, K. schlepped J. out to New Jersey (which was beyond the three-mile radius rule I thought I had set down firmly).  Already not good.

But as time and life enfolded, we love and adore K. and she loves POB, and even I am growing on her (like moss).

Now she tells us about her crazy externships and the dangerous crisis circumstances (without breaking any confidentiality) in which she does her clinical work, and we try to stay calm and not scream, “Get the HELL out of that place!!  Who the HELL needs that kind of insanity?? Can’t you find a wellness clinic and practice there???”  Neither POB (partner of blogger) or I actually say it.  We listen with concern and interest and try to keep the internal screaming, well, internal.

And there have been sad and heart-breaking bumps in the road that needn’t be re-hashed.

So, when on Friday night, they said they had an announcement and a question, POB and I were both panic-stricken.  They saw this in our eyes, so they tried to calm us but not give away the surprise.  I think I reminded them that we have middle-aged hearts and sudden shocks to our systems are dangerous and cruel.

It was good news: they are having a wedding!!!  So, I figured the question was, would we host the rehearsal dinner or help pay for the caterer.  They talked about the place they picked and told us every detail and all the time I am thinking about the question.  Maybe it isn’t about money.  Maybe we are not invited and they want to explain why.  Maybe they want our son to the ring-bearer.  Maybe they ARE converting to Judaism (they are Jewish culturally now anyway) and want recommendations for rabbis to lead the service.  Ok, ok, ok, ok, I think.  Please ask the question because I am still concerned that it is a scary, sad or bad question.

Drum roll.  Since they are married in Connecticut and New York doesn’t allow same-sex marriage, they asked me to officiate the wedding and be the general emcee of the weekend.  I was honored, humbled, scared, disbelieving all at once.  What an immense honor.  I couldn’t speak.  I kept trying to say something, but I couldn’t formulate a sentence — I was still shocked that they would give me this honor. Tears started to well up.  I am still so overwhelmed and honored.

And as J. and K. probably figured, I couldn’t sleep on Friday night because ideas about the ceremony were flooding my brain.  (Some were really good; some not so much.)

What an honor and privilege.  I am indeed blessed.

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Gays in the Military

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Does anyone really believe that, with the lifting of the ban, gays will start wearing rainbow flags and singing Judy Garland songs instead of the national anthem? 

Military is a macho place where gays will be harassed for decades to come.  I doubt gays will start coming out of the closet in droves tomorrow. 

The point on the injunction is that no one can get forced from the military for being gay, so gay service members don’t have to live in fear of discovery while they serve our nation on the battlefields.  Our nation should be grateful to those who love this country so much that they will risk their lives even though they face senseless discrimination. 

Let’s get at the fear, which is sex:  Some people think that gay service members will start propositioning heterosexuals and start having sex in public. 

First, straight people over-estimate their attractiveness. 

Second, these people are trained military personnel who abide by a code of conduct. 

If a gay or straight service member acts in a way unbecoming an officer or enlisted person (use any example you want) then that service member can still be, and should be, discharged. 

And, President Obama, don’t fight this injunction.  We are here, we are queer and we are tired of waiting.

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