The Exile's Lament

New post up at my big-blog WitchWords. An excerpt:

All of a sudden, it hit me with all the weight of a 10-ton truck on the freeway. The California Supreme Court, the final authority of my state, had given the green light to the idea that 51% of voters can strip or alter fundamental rights guaranteed by our State Constitution completely at will. My boyfriend held me while I cried and gasped, over and over between the sobs that shook me, "Why?" I never got farther than that, with tears choking me till I couldn't speak. I wasn't talking to him, anyway, nor really to the CASC. I was talking to the 52% of Californians who did this to me. This is what I wanted to ask:

Why do you hate us so much?
Why are my rights yours to vote on?
Why doesn't the constitution of my state protect me the way it protects you?
Why do you have the right to make me a second-class citizen?
Why, why, why, why?

Read the rest here.

You can teach that Christians believe Jesus died for our sins. You can’t teach that Jesus died for our sins. You also need to teach that many people don’t believe Jesus died for our sins. And you need to teach that not believing Jesus died for our sins doesn’t make you evil.

Or you could just say, “fuck it”, and teach math instead. - A commenter at Pandagon.net, on how to properly treat religious subjects in public schools. Amen!

As time passes since the tragedy and travesty that was the passing of Prop H8 (yes, I'm going to keep calling it that), more and more fascinating tidbits come to light regarding the financing of the bill. First the LDS church "revising" its official figure donated from around $2,000 to $188,000 (a minor accounting error, I'm sure), and now this.

Via Pam's House Blend, I've just learned that Texans contributed a total of $1.4 mil to Prop H8. $1.12 mil of that went to supporting H8, while about $300k went to groups who opposed it. Even better, back in 2005 when Texas had its own same-sex marriage ban on the ballot, the donations for and against only totaled around $1.28 mil.

So let me get this straight. Texans donated MORE money to fuck with marriage laws in MY STATE than they did to fuck with their own? What the hell, people? What is the point of HAVING separate states, if we can sit here screwing around with each others laws like that?

If I can figure out how to do it, and get the support for it, I'm going to get a proposition on the ballot in CA, stating that only citizens of the state may donate to political causes within the state. Because there is something just WRONG with the idea that people who don't even live here and have no vested interest in our laws can plunk down hundreds of thousands of dollars to work toward having those laws changed.

Keep your hate in your own state.

"I have d20 dice the size of testicles!"
*strange look*
"What?"
"You have testicles the size of dice?"
"..."
"Oh. I misread that."

Someday I will return to posting substantive updates. Until then, content yourselves with the verbal highlights of my days.

At the RSPCA, little cupcakes mewling in cages, a toffee apple sleeping in an old basket, bowls of custard jiggling mournfully as people walk by, a couple taking an excited trifle to a new home…

(Why yes, it is absurdism week. Didn’t you get the giraffe?) - The Amazing Kim in comments at Hoyden About Town

"I feel like the government's working for me. I feel like it's accountable. I feel like it's transparent. I feel that I am well informed about what government actions are being taken. I feel that this is a President and an Administration that admits when it makes mistakes and adapts itself to new information, that believes in making decisions based on facts and on science as opposed to what is politically expedient." - President-Elect Obama on what he hopes the American people will be able to say about his administration in two years, in his interview with Time magazine.

Accountability? Transparency? Decisions based on science not politics? Somebody find me a fainting couch, I am about to swoon.

This is like waking up from a terrifying nightmare to a beautiful spring morning outside your window. Excuse me while I take a brief break from cynical reality to bask in the sweet light of hope.

"This nation is headed towards a vortex of a Constitutional crisis...While on the one hand, the Obama citizenship issue is so simple a schoolchild could grasp it, if left festering and unanswered, it possesses the potential to send our nation into a time of great peril." - Bob Schultz, anti-federal-taxation activist and conspiracy theorist, on the supposed "controversy" over Obama's citizenship.

o_0 Eight years of torture and illegal domestic surveillance, topped with a potential preemptive pardon for the whole damn Bush administration, and NOW you're worried about our nation's Constitutional crisis.

What. The. Fuck?

I just discovered Amanda Palmer today. This is not my favoritest video of hers - I much prefer Another Year or Leeds United for the videos themselves - but I love that song so hard I can't even describe. For those of you not already following my Twitter stream, I highly recommend you check out the website for her debut album, from which these songs come, and watch the videos in order. What wouldn't I give to be able to make statements like she does with her art...I am in awe.

For those of you who would like to dive further into the stream o' crazy, I'm now on Twitter, under the name of WitchWords. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you'll need to sign up, but it's free and you can tell them not to text you with updates if you don't want that.

For those who don't know, Twitter is a service designed for brief, up-to-the-minute, on-the-go, overly-hyphenated updates, restricted to 140 characters or less. You can update your "tweets" from your cell phone or their website, as you choose. Fair warning: I will not be self-censoring my tweets. There just en't room in 140 characters per message to add a "family-safe" tag. Cope.

But if you want to know what I'm up to, or just check that I'm still alive, and you don't want to wait for me to post here...look for me on Twitter.

I know the day after the election is traditional for post-election punditry. I know. But I needed an extra day to let it all sink in.

I could write about the historic moment we have achieved, the victory of our first person of color as president. But there are dozens of blogs all over the internet speaking to this issue more eloquently and heartfully than I can right now.

Right now, for me, the victory is a hollow one. For myself and millions of LGBT Californians and our allies, it is no victory at all. While the nation declared its support for President-Elect Obama, 52% of my fellow Californians declared that they don't think I deserve to share the rights they enjoy. 52% of my fellow Californians told me in no uncertain terms that I am a second-class citizen.

The legal challenges have already begun, of course. The City of San Francisco has filed suit. I wish them the best of luck. The fact that Prop H8 does not invalidate those marriages already performed in California has set us up beautifully for a second court challenge, because we now have a divide within the LGBT community - some of us may not marry, and some of us are married. We still have recourse to get around this horrible setback. The fight is far from over.

But I cannot forget that, even when we take it to court and win, even when we force the State and eventually, the Nation to recognize us as full citizens deserving of equal protection under the law...there was still a declaration, among the people of my beloved home state, that You Are Less Than We Are. One of the staunchest pillars of my sanity here in exile has been pride in my true home. I could happily remind people, No, I'm not from here. I'm from California. I laughed and danced in the aisles of the PX when Mom texted me about the victory in May. I was as proud as I have ever been to be a Californian.

Prop H8's passage has been a deep wound to my sense of Self, to my identity as a Californian. It has shaken to its core my pride in my home. The only consolation I can find is, I'm not from any of the areas that voted Yes. I'm from the Bay Area, which voted strongly No. That I can retain pride in. But the state as a whole...California, I am ashamed of you.

This has been, to me, like the first real fight of a relationship. You know, you've been together six months or so, and you've been on your bestest behavior and really trying hard to impress hir, you've carefully not bitched about some things that have bothered you, you've been in the honeymoon period. And suddenly that's over. You actually say what you were thinking, and you get into a real fight.

At that point, you face a decision. Is what we've begun worth the fights that will inevitably come from time to time? Will it survive the turbulent waters that rise now and again? Do we call it here and say, Thanks, but No Thanks? Or do we begin the real work of building a relationship that will last?

Yesterday morning was that fight, for me. I contemplated never coming home. I contemplated moving to Massachusetts, where I would be an equal citizen under the law. I thought about, if I came home again, never setting foot in those counties that voted Yes on H8.

But I decided that my relationship, my roots, my heart's homeward pull were too important to sacrifice to this. What kind of a patriot, what kind of an activist would I be if I fled at the first major setback I've known? No. I will come home when I can, and I will keep fighting for my rights. I will never forget that 52% of you told me I was worth less than you. I may not ever forgive it, either. But I will not let it banish me. I will not give up this relationship just because it's hurt me for the first time. I guess my relationship to Home has grown up. The rosy glasses are gone, and I'm forced to acknowledge the ugly side of it. But.

The fight. Is. Not. Over.