Tag Archives: Maine

Revolution #9

It’s fucking Wednesday. And an ugly Wednesday. Weather wise it was OK, but politically it was just a really bad hangover.

Jon Corzine lost the governorship of New Jersey to Chris Christie, noted Bush ‘pioneer’. Chris Christie said he would reject Obama’s stimulus package, reject any public works projects. He’s also against a woman’s right to choose and if the New Jersey legislature passed a same sex marriage bill, he would veto it.

But that seems neither her nor there since Maggie Gallagher and her flying monkeys would swoop down and incite lies about how gay people were trying to indoctrinate children. The only indoctrination would be if a child asks if 2 men or 2 women can get married. If little Tommy or Betsy say they want to marry little Jimmy or Kathy it would be OK. And to Gallagher’s ilk, that is wrong.

It all basically boils down to the fact that they want to keep homosexuality a sin. Even if you do not believe in their god, they want to force their religious beliefs down your throat. And by witnessing the shit that happened in Maine yesterday, people will swallow it, hook line and sinker.

I am disgusted with religion and the catholic church can fall into a pit. All religion can resign themselves to their personal hells. I have no use for them.

The bullshit of ‘Oh it’s in the bible so it must be true’ is patently ridiculous. A crap book written and edited over and over again by people worshiping an iron age sky god has no relevance in the 21st century.

My life is not a sin. Bill’s life is not a sin. I try to be a good person. I help people who need help when I see it. Bill has remarked a few times that I am more christian than most christians by the things that I do. I don’t blow my horn about the things that I do. I just do them and I am on my way.

For the past 25 years or so I have been fighting. I have been marching. I have stood with ACT-UP fighting the government’s inaction on AIDS research in the 1980’s. I have held the hand of one of my best friends as they lay dying in a hospital room. I have changed his diaper since the hospital staff refused to while in the hallway the nurses clucked and basically said that he had brought it upon himself.

I have buried a few friends since then. I marched on Washington a few times and marched in the New York City streets protesting the murders of Matthew Shepard beaten nearly to death and left to die in Wyoming, murdered because he was gay and James Byrd dragged to his death behind a truck in Texas, decapitated when the truck went over a culvert, murdered because he was black.

Why?

Why do I have to fight for the same rights that my straight friends and family members take for granted. Why can they kiss their loved one whenever and wherever they want but I have to take a cursory look around before I do the same to kiss Bill?

In the past year alone, in New York City Jose Sucuzhanay was beaten to death by attackers who thought he was gay. He wasn’t.

Jack Price who is gay was beaten over the weekend that I marched on Washington last month. He was only just recently released from the hospital a week or so ago.

And these were only the gay bashings that have been reported.

Because of this alleged shame that is forced upon gay people, most beatings generally go unreported.

I am tired of fighting. I am greatly disappointed in President Obama, who will court the gay vote and collect the gay dollars, has gone on record as being against same sex marriage, saying that it should be left up to states.

I wonder if he would have felt the same if his parents had to deal with interracial marriage on a state by state basis? And his attorney general Eric Holder who also had a chance to say something about the referendum in Maine but opted out, saying he didn’t know enough about it. The current administration has also gone on record urging the Defense of Marriage Act to stand.

Today I watched some of The Price of the Ticket, the James Baldwin documentary and found 2 quotes that I posted on Facebook and posting here.

“The flag that we pledge allegiance to, does not pledge allegiance to us.”

And

‘You’ve always told me, it takes time. It’s taken my father’s time. It’s taken my mother’s time. My uncles time, my brothers and sisters time. My nieces and my nephews time. How much time do you want for your ‘progress’?’

It’s statements like this that enables me, or perhaps forces me to equate the battle for equal rights for LGBT people and the civil rights battles in the 1950’s and 60’s.

James Byrd Jr.

James Byrd Jr.

Matthew Shepard

Matthew Shepard

Jose Sucuzhanay

Jose Sucuzhanay

Jack Price

Jack Price

The Moon is Blue

Well I certainly did expect to come home to bad news. Bad news meaning that Chris Christie has won the gubernatorial election in New Jersey. NYC was a given, Bloomfield was going to win overturning the people’s mandate for term limits. But it wasn’t the landslide he bought expected.

In Maine, it’s too close to tell. At this moment the people that want to take away civil rights granted by the legislature from same sex couples are ahead by a few percentage points. Losing elections is nothing new to me.

I hardly ever vote for the winning candidate. Obama was the biggest election that I ever voted in, and the first I ever worked for. Unfortunately I did not have the admiration for Corzine that I did for Obama and did not do anything for his campaign.

Well all I can say was New Jersey has been fucked before and I suppose New Jersey will get fucked again. Christie has said that if Same Sex marriage come to his desk he will veto it. And women better watch their bodies because he’s not for the right of a woman to choose.

I should have known, and perhaps deep down I knew that things might not go in the direction I favored.

Tonight I went to the Bronx to attend a wake for Bill’s band mate, Kirk’s father who passed away on Kirk’s 50th birthday. It was a schlep. And also an opportunity to wear a suit and tie again. Apparently I lost a couple of pound since a shirt that I bought that was a bit tight around the neck a few months ago fit nicely and was not snug at all.

Kirk was happy to see Bill and me at the sad occasion and gave us both big hugs. It was more of a service than a wake and it took place in an episcopal church somewhere in the Bronx. I remarked to Bill that if I lost him and needed to find my way home I would be screwed.

The Bronx is the great unknown to me. Brooklyn and Queens I would at least have a clue, forget about Staten Island. I go there maybe once every 15 years. Even though when I grew up my family would occasionally visit relatives in the Bronx, I never felt comfortable there.

I still feel that way.

Nothing against the Bronx per se, but I generally my best to not go there. Invited to a party in the Bronx? Excuses need to be made up. My mother grew up in the Bronx, Bill spent the first 10 years of his life in the Bronx.

The only sibling left on my mother’s side now resides in a nursing home in Mount Vernon, I think. Thanks to Bill’s direction skills it was all an easy ride. In fact we caught an express bus that got us from the middle of the Bronx to 34th Street and Fifth Avenue in 20 minutes.

Sorry but election results are grabbing my attention. New Jersey is screwed. Maine looks like it will be screwing same sex marriage. The only candidate I voted for, Dawn Zimmer for Mayor of Hoboken seems to have won.

Hoboken is a mess so it’s not going to be easy for her. The knives have been out for a while. A blog that I have in the blog roll on the right of the home page, Hoboken411 has been rabidly anti-Zimmer.

I am thinking of never voting again. If the majority of the country sees Bill and myself as second class citizens, not deserving of the same rights for marriage, workplace protections among other things, what is the fucking point?

Bronx Moon

Bronx Moon