04 August 2010

Since I can get married now, I need to find a suitable gay husband. Any applicants?

This afternoon, a US federal judge, Vaughn Walker, overturned the will of 52% of the California electorate who wanted to deny LGBTQ's the right of matrimony. Now that marriage rights are more inevitable than yesterday, I supposed I should start designing the invitations, fully disclosing [sort of!] who I am, and setting some musts and cannots, like I told that sexy Virgin Airways flight attendant: we must have collies. He can pick the curtains.

I still argue that a good chunk of that 52% misfired, thinking a YES vote on the bigoted California Proposition 8 was a YES vote for equality.

Opponents of LGBT marriage are rebutting the ruling calling for the democratic process to decide this, not the court.

When will the 72% who wanted single-payer, universal health care get a vote, or the 75%-80% who oppose the US slaughters in Afghanistan and Iraq [to leave it there for the moment] cast their ballots? Funny how and when the democratic process is trotted out and when it is mysteriously shut away in an attic.

Nevertheless, it's time for me to come in from the cold of my non-support of LGBT marriage, first revealed in print in the editorial pages of the San Francisco Chronicle - to the utter bafflement of my straight and LGBT coworkers in the San Francisco Unified School District.

In the wake of today's federal ruling, I am submitting an "I do."

But who will join me at the altar? To marry I need a potential husband, the match made in online Heaven.

I don't have much money in the bank. I am employed for now, and I am one of those wage-slaves who waits eagerly for that next paycheck.

I have no stock portfolio. I own no property per se. I do own many, many volumes of journals kept since April 1983, but I plan to give them to my alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis [if they will take them]. But maybe my husband can retain part of the rights, so should I die famous, he might be able to pay the light bill.

My spiritual artifacts are, by longstanding custom, to be allocated elsewhere.

My husband can have my books, but I think they'd be much more useful in an urban or rural library where some kid can go an immerse himself in the fantasy world of books, as I did.

I can't put you on my current health care policy because my employer, the US federal government, won't recognize you.

My temperament is my own. I am a cross between the sassy gay friend and a Noam Chomsky, an oily-watery mix, which might explain why I am still single.

If my husband cannot swim, he must be able to navigate a canoe so he can be my paddler during my ocean races, like the Seal Beach Rough water Race, which I will conquer next year.

Like I said, he must like collies. I don't have one, but I will give one to myself as a wedding present. She will join us on our honeymoon. If he is thinking of some resort, like Sandals or ClubMed, staffed by wage-slaves, think again: imagine instead a week of camping in a big tent, near a big body of water, warming ourselves under the sun, camp fires, and each other.

When this collie wants to sleep at the foot of my bed or next to me, the husband will have to sleep in his bed. Oh, yeah. It's best if he has his own bedroom. I'm told I talk in my sleep, long rambling stuff.

I am moody, definitely a glass-half-full kind of guy, full of pessimism about myself, optimism about children, suspicion for my fellow man. The dog will understand all of this. Consider the dog the Other Woman: learn something from her. Sometimes I am truly Garboesque and want to sit alone. Other times, not just when I sleep, I am relentless in my prattle and need to process everything. Dogs get that. They will just lay on the couch next to me, sprawl themselves at my feet, or find something more interesting to do than hang under my shadow.

Why bother with the nuptials? Well, obviously this is an important, critical issue or the LGBT Establishment would not have gone deaf and dumb on the AIDS and national health issue, LGBTQ's in low-wage jobs without worker rights, and the increase in housing and food insecurity - in short, the class war.

The ACLU's lesbian/gay activism would not have been reduced to the singular LGBT marriage rights were this not the most vital issue facing us.

I guess marriage equality will bring class equality, gender parity, an end to racism, an economic justice. Will US Judge Walker rule that the permanent underclass do not conform with the US Constitution? Is that the next domino to fall?

We must be living in a post-classist, post-poverty as well as a post Obama-racial epoch indeed.

So given this importance, I throw in the bouquet to the next insurgent to wail alone in the darkness, and I will walk down a sunflower strewn path with my husband and under the approving eyes of the conformists.

But who will submit to whom if my husband is a Southern Baptist?

In lieu of gifts to the newlyweds, please make a generous donation to Earth First, Diana Nyad's Extreme Dream Swim, The Humane Society, AIDS Project LA, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).