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Confession: The bad news early this week, combined with needing a vacation from my Memorial Day holiday weekend minibreak made for a pretty quick and painful week. I’ve been devouring articles on the Prop. 8 fallout, working like mad and oscillating between feeling angry and despairing or feeling all the more empowered and inspired to do something about marriage equality.

More specifically, I am really angry that ALL of the LGBT content on barackobama.com and whitehouse.gov has been taken down or revised into something managing to be hyper-condensed and watered down at the same time. I agree with everything that is said here, in an open letter to President Obama written by L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Chief Executive Officer Lorri L. Jean. My favorite excerpt, though of course I encourage you to open and read ALL of these links when you have time:

We know the country faces many serious challenges and we have strived to be patient. We’ve waited for the slightest sign you would live up to your promise to be a “fierce advocate” for our equal rights while watching gay and lesbian members of the armed forces, who have never been more needed, get discharged from the military. And so far you have done nothing. No stop loss order. No call to cease such foolish and discriminatory actions that make our nation less safe.

You pledged to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Mr. President. You promised to support a “complete repeal” of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and pledged to advocate for legislation that would give same-sex couples the 1,100+ federal rights and benefits we are denied, including the same rights to social security benefits. You said, “Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples.”

I am appalled to the point of feeling literally faint with horror and disbelief upon reading this article by Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, and here is an excerpt from it:

Here we are, in the summer of 2009, with gay servicemembers still being fired for the fact of their orientation. Here we are, with marriage rights spreading through the country and world and a president who cannot bring himself even to acknowledge these breakthroughs in civil rights, and having no plan in any distant future to do anything about it at a federal level. Here I am, facing a looming deadline to be forced to leave my American husband for good, and relocate abroad because the HIV travel and immigration ban remains in force and I have slowly run out of options (unlike most non-Americans with HIV who have no options at all).

And what is Obama doing about any of these things? What is he even intending at some point to do about these things? So far as I can read the administration, the answer is: nada. We’re firing Arab linguists? So sorry. We won’t recognize in any way a tiny minority of legally married couples in several states because they’re, ugh, gay? We had no idea. There’s a ban on HIV-positive tourists and immigrants? Really? Thanks for letting us know. Would you like to join Joe Solmonese and John Berry for cocktails? The inside of the White House is fabulous these days.

Yesterday, Robert Gibbs gave non-answer after non-answer on civil unions and Obama’s clear campaign pledge to grant equal federal rights for gay couples; non-answer after non-answer on the military’s remaining ban on honest servicemembers. What was once a categorical pledge is now – well let’s call it the toilet paper that it is.

I’m just at a loss to say anything further, but there was one small triumph, one small thing that I could do this week to feel less powerless, so I decided to change my legal name. While M & I discussed it long ago and I’d been meaning to get around to it, on Wednesday I marched into the Social Security Administration offices in Oakland and demanded a legal name change with my marriage certificate in hand. And what do you know, less than five minutes after I stomped into there, I floated out with my receipt in hand, officially Mrs. M. FFAF Tomboy. The next and final step as far as officious bureaus and things are concerned was the DMV, and they asked that I return either after 72 hrs. to verify the SSA change electronically, or once I have my newly issued SSN card in hand, so I’ll do that as soon as it comes in the mail. In the meantime, the change feels FANTASTIC! I love it. In a way, I’m glad I’d procrastinated on taking care of it, because it was somewhat healing and empowering to do it this way, at this time, in response to those cowardly opinions.

Finally, in No More Mr. Nice Gay in The Huffington Post, Michael Rowe beautifully captures the three historical pillars of social exclusion and here’s my favorite excerpt from that article (bolding mine):

The LGBT community isn’t demanding the first gay president…or a lesbian Supreme Court Justice. Yet. What they want, and what they’re fighting for is full membership in American society without the three historical pillars of social exclusion (especially for men): the ability to marry someone of their own choice, the ability to raise and protect a family, and the right to serve and defend their country in the military. If those aren’t “family values,” then “family values” don’t exist. LGBT people are not any threat to “the family.” They are the family: sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, husbands, wives. The joining of two families is one of the oldest rites in the history of the human race.

It’s time that the full rights of every American be fully enshrined and protected, and that the battle for those rights be acknowledged as this generation’s defining civil rights battle.

Below are a couple of really great, brief videos to watch if you can’t stand any more on the subject. The first is a video of the (gentle) arrests made on Tuesday in San Francisco immediately following the 10AM announcement. The second is a great TV commercial made by the Courage Campaign, and I closed out with some funny via a parody by The Defenders – it’s pretty awesome and first in a coming series.

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If you made it this far, I thank you and appreciate all the well wishes and sweet thoughts y’all have been passing our way. If any FFAF readers are going to Meet In The Middle tomorrow, I want to know ASAP!

We all know what the exit polls are saying. Personally, I’m disgusted. I’m disgusted because I’m not a fucking dog in a cage salivating mindlessly at a piece of meat being waved in front of me, goading me into an attack. I would like to think that none of is, but if the media continues to incessantly pit blacks against gays in the fight for equality, I wonder how long it will take before someone goes all twitchy and takes the bait. DO NOT DO IT, Y’ALL.

Can you imagine how delicious it would be for the Mormons and Republicans and right-wing media if gays and blacks somehow managed to wage war on one another? They would piss themselves with joy! Are we being set up? I wouldn’t put it past them to snatch up the quickest, most convenient way to wipe out both minority groups (blacks, gays) with one stone – if it’s this easy, why, who needs a Republican president in the White House after all? I refuse to perpetuate a cycle of oppression because someone is telling me who to blame, who is at fault for my status as a second-class citizen, where I might displace my anger and frustration and outrage. I won’t do that because it is false in every way. I know better than that. I hope we all do.

Besides, I bet the old boys club is out there already thinking how much fun it will be to lean back and watch while we tear one another to pieces. My heart cannot take that happening. The tearing or being torn to pieces.

Thus, I recommend the following, in this order:

1. Read Alice Walker’s letter to Obama, here.

2. Sign the petition to re-open Prop 8 for California, here.

3. March tonight, if you wish, but march in peace and with dignity and clarity of mind. If this is, indeed, something like the second coming of a civil rights movement, be mindful of how one can use that sweet adrenaline to fuel oneself forward into change, as opposed to being driven back senselessly by it. There’s a difference and it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to comport ourselves with grace in the face of such pervasive and far-reaching hate, fear, intolerance and discrimination.

M & I are going to bundle up and take the petite out for some peaceful protestation of Prop 8.

Don’t know where to go in your community? Ta-da, I’m so service-y:

Friday Community Gatherings

Costa Mesa
9 p.m. | South Coast Plaza
Bristol Street & Town Center Drive

Long Beach
6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Broadway and Redondo

Merced
6 p.m. | Veterans Park, M Street
Contact: Leslie or Eileen, PLFLAG Merced 209.725.1140

Mission Viejo
4 to 7 p.m. | 200 Civic Center

Palm Springs
5 p.m. | Palm Springs City Hall

Santa Barbara
5 p.m. to 6 p.m. | De La Guerra Plaza Street
700-756 De La Guerra Plaza

San Diego.
9 p.m. | Laurel and Sixth Avenue
March to City Hall (202 C)

San Francisco
5:30 p.m. | Civic Center
Market and 7th to Dolores Park

In the name of the one that I love and all my fancy friends,

FFAF

(Okay, so maybe that the gayest obscure Cure reference ever made in the history of life, but read on. Please.)

Here’s the thing, kittens. There will always be those who see life and those living it in a more black & white fashion, and then there are those who innately grasp at the grays and gradations. That’s important to remember before walking across the plains of anyone’s identity – we never know where potential landmines are buried until, well, until we know.

And, really, let’s face it – it’s not worth running your Yves Saint Laurent Volume Effet Faux Cils over, you know? So, please donate to the fight against Prop. 8 right now. Seriously. Your friends and lovers out here in California are fucking DAYS away from being stripped of their rights by a bunch of ignorant, fear-mongering bigots with deep pockets. Those fuckers just raised $3M. It’s insane.

DO NOT WANT.

HRC and EQCA and everybody else (the good guys) are trying to raise $3M to counter it by Friday night. Peep the Ugly Betty cast ad against Prop 8, then share it like crazy with everyone you know:

The Harvey Milk movie (starring Sean Penn) premiered in SF’s Castro last night (dude hotties abound in these pics, so have at it, all you peen-loving ladies).

Some POS motherfucker beat a gay with his YES ON PROP 8 sign whilst spitting out homophobic slurs in Torrance, CA.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has put out an ad urging Californians to vote No on Prop. 8, too:

Of course, the folks behind Prop. 8 are exploiting children to back their vile, hateful arguments. You may or may not have heard that some adorable (and deliriously happy) SF schoolchildren went on a field trip to see their lesbian teacher get married at City Hall in SF not long ago. Not only did Prop. 8 supporters stoop to terrible lows by attacking this otherwise wonderful and memorable learning experience to garner support, they went even lower by using video of the kids in their ads.

From the article:

In their letter to the Prop 8 campaign, the parents wrote: “We are absolutely outraged that you have chosen, without permission, to shamelessly hijack the images of our innocent children to promote a cause that we in no way, shape or form support. It is even more maddening that you have willfully and calculatingly edited the images of our children, with menacing music in the background, in a way that is completely contrary to their nature and harmful to them.”

Here’s a video about that (not the one w/ kids, I am NOT re-posting that awful shit):

Y’all? I am seriously, seriously, seriously freaking out and getting more tense and anxious with each passing day. I keep donating money I can’t really afford to donate to fight this shit. I have the feeling I will be spending lots of time at the field office downtown phone banking and stuff this weekend.

IF YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA, PLS. MAKE TIME TO VOLUNTEER AT A FIELD OFFICE NEAR YOU.

IF YOU CANNOT DONATE, AT LEAST CONSIDER SPREADING THE WORD.

Here is the list and contact info – if you don’t see anything near you or are having trouble, let me know and I’ll try and put you in touch with someone: