Dear Brave Souls: If you are offended by marriage rights for all persons being the law of the land in the US, it may be best you not read this.
If you are offended when people deny each other basic human rights, please read this and rejoice with me.
It is a Good Day for us all in the US. Today, we as a nation rose into complete parity re a long awaited and historic decision by our Supreme Court making marriage equality the law of the land–
that is, that all persons of any gender are allowed, under law, to solemnize their union in legal marriage if they so desire, no longer wondering and worrying if this human right to love and recognize that love civilly and publicly, to truly care for one another richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do them part…. will be vacated by some rogue court or higher court.
The Highest Court of our land has ruled. Just now. Today. And it has ruled rightly and righteously for love and regard and caring and companionship and laughter and family to prevail without qualifying the who and the whichever.
The case argued is called Obergefell v. Hodges in case you would like to read the decision. In the end, Justice Kennedy joined the four progressive judges on the Court to bring the case to its 5 for vs. 4 against, decision.
Each of the four dissenting judges may have filed their dissents in writing, which will be interesting to read to see, sorry my mind has been made up for decades, how they turned the law into a pretzel in order to believe that an entire class of persons ought be denied most basic civil rights, including the right to marry one’s love.
Having been deeply involved in the early 1990s, traveling and speaking and fundraising to push back hard against a small but loud and monied portion of the ‘religious right’ that was neither religious nor right…
who in the hands of three wealthy and prominent ‘religious’ men, had orchestrated a nationwide targeting of states they deemed strong in ultraconservative ‘religiousism’ and ‘weak’ in humanity, attempting to put a referendum on the states’ ballots to literally change the constitutions of the states to outlaw GLBT/dual gendered persons from parity and justice and equal rights of many kinds.
Back then, listening to the most dehumanizing speech coming from pulpits and *some* churchgoing people, brought me to realize that fascist ideas– the ‘my way or the highway, or else’ as Hitler, Stalin, Ceaucescu, Edi Amin, Papa Doc Duvalier, and others still alive, promulgated, can jump like fire into the minds of even decent people who do not guard their minds and hearts, their Spirits and Souls from a rabid overculture.
The truly odd thing I observed over the decades of standing with and standing for, is that they very people who thought by publicly shaming GLBT/dual gendered persons, by touting how superior they themselves were, and how sinful and what abominations GLBT/dual gendered persons were, that they fantasized strongly — and erroneously–
that their ill rhetoric would rouse everyone to a frothing lather at the mouth and everyone would run into the road with pitchforks and torches to go find ‘them there queers’ and shame them some more.
Well, they got their wish to do away with those they called abominations, in one way, in the martyrdom of Matthew Shepard, a beautiful and so young gay man beaten and left to die tied to a fence on a lonely Wyoming highway by two thugs who had lured him out into the dark from a bar.
When the late Fred Phelps, who followed an extreme and brutalizing form of religion I would say would not be recognized as ‘religion’ even by Christ, and his crew of ranters and attackers showed up at Matthew’s funeral with large prominent signs saying ‘God Hates Fags,’ amongst other subhuman explicatives–
it only served to bring the issues of the suffering of GLBT/Dual gendered people into even more prominence.
It was the early 1990s, a time too when I had just published WWRWTW, and if you ever see a film clip of your dr. e on Good Morning America and other nationally televised shows, you’ll see me wearing a pink triangle pin as I felt called to ‘testify, yea though I walk through the valley…’ and I hoped when someone might ask me what that pink triangle was for, I could stand and deliver.
But, I didnt know what I’d say. I just hoped Holy Spirit would speak through me and I wouldnt mutter passionately but incomprehensibly.
Finally when the first ever producer to ask, DID ask what that pink triangle on my black blouse was for, I told him that though it was daunting because of the violent pushback from some, I was in public solidarity with GLBT, dual gendered people. He was taken aback a bit, “Oh, er, uh, are you gay?…
You never know what youre going to say. I thought I was going to simply quietly say, no. But instead Holy Spirit came full blown through in serious levity and gravitas, inspiring me to say with a suddenly overflowing heart: “No, in this lifetime I was not lucky enough to be born thin, rich or gay.”
There were moments of levity. But also, far more though others both in and out of ‘the closet’ took far far more abuse. By witnessing, I also took harsh verbal demeaning and ad hominem assaults, including from a handful of some of my own psych colleagues who didnt grasp the nuances of all the innocents involved and simply wanted to condemn everyone on either end, without differentiation.
When people are so angry and so conveinced they are ‘right’ and all others are wrong, it is hard to teach the truth. But we just have to keep saying it and saying it. Just in case.
So, I fought back for and with. And as I said, many many suffered far far more than we. Yet it was so important to join in. This is where I learned too, for the battle has been decades long, that in such pushing back, there is often no ‘win.’
But there is ‘holding a ground of decency that belongs to all decent souls’ and sending the message that though we are water that seems easy to divert, we can be, and will be, when necessary, a daunting force as a fierce wall of water that resists and repels though spiritual force that is non-violent physically.
Oddly again, I could see that the more vicious, the more bile-filled with the filth of evil words toward GLBT/dual gendered people, the ‘beside themselves burning with condemnation and judgement’ were, the MORE an entirely other group of people who were GLBT/dual gendered, AND ‘straight but not narrow’, took the sides of those [often they themselves] who were being harassed, harmed and belittled and ridiculed and condemned and threatened with everything from hell and damnation to physical harms. And some of the most cruel, stepped over the line in every way imaginable to harm innocent GLBT, dual gendered people.
Yet…
The more the smaller group of extreme haters pushed, the more reasoned people of all genders, of all orientations, a much larger group pushed back… including that an entirely NEW generation of children were born, who are now teenagers and in their early 20s, and they could as a huge group, care less about a hell under the ground, because they are often SO dedicated to alleviating the hells we already have on earth.
So when they are polled about ought everyone be allowed to marry a wife/ husband, there is no combative tone, and no ‘yer goin’ ta hell in handbasket for sure, for sure.’ Amongst many of our young, they have been born into ‘live and let live.’ How beautiful. Perfect exemplars for all of us far older.
How odd that a handful of angry people wanting to deprive others of civil capacities, would actually cause a mountain of people to rise who wanted and endorsed the opposite.
Important too to say, that many, many of those standing up, standing with, standing for those oppressed, were themselves religious persons, persons with deeply spiritual lives, and also those who followed an ethic that was not religion based.
If ever there was a bright white line that separated people of faith who strove to be like Jesus vs those who imposed a rabidness on others, it was made clearer than clear in the battles for parity and full citizenship rights in the past hundred years especially.
Will there still be harassment? Yes. Will some court clerks in certain courthouses attempt to block signing or offering documents to those wishing to marry who show up with like-kind gender. Sure.
As my father used to say : “Gott cree atted un fole for evree villitch. Gott hat a boonch lift offer, und so pet thim in a villitch allus of her on. God created a fool for every village. But God had a bunch of fools left over and so put them all in a village of their own.”
In our Jewish heritages, this village of fools has an old name. It is called Chelm. And yes, there are many many villages of Chelm across the world.
But also there are deep, rational, loving people who are creative often and only foolish every once in a while instead of all day and night every day and night. We will stand with them. Are all woes over? No, for twisted hearts still live. However, in marriage parity, there will be now one more remedy despite all other challenges still ongoing.
And over all, the persons who have lived these many decades in their GLBT/dual gendered lives, are the real heroes and heroines. Their stories are beyond brave, beyond courageous. The most important of all: they refused to be silenced; they continued to be truly loving souls at heart.
I laud them, for to see so much, to grieve so much, and yet to still love, is the win that no monster, no atrocity, no injustice can ever take from one. Each soul who has fought and is miraculously still standing after all these years, has indeed, kept the treasure safe.
So, now, as of today, in the US, many people who have married but hadnt known if their marriage would be rescinded by the state, and those who wanted to be married, and actually moved across state lines so they could be in a state where marriage was legal… can draw a good deep breath now. Their marriage is as of today, safe. Their marriage is recognized wherever they go in the US. Wow. Just wow. What a Good Day.
In most states in the US, anyone can officiate at a legal wedding, helping to join the two loves in ceremony and blessing. I look forward to conducting wedding ceremony and joining in union those who have waited and waited.
I would rather not use the word ‘officiate’ which actually means ‘to supervise. ‘I’d rather take pride in the couple, and use the word Super-Bless– to Super-Bless the enduring love of two hearts made one.
This comes with such love. It is a Good Day.
dr.e
And, as you know, this is gay pride week… so named long ago. What a happy coincidence.
There is so so much more to say that is good and kind. I hope today across the land you wlll say those kindly things and that they will be said to you, also.
image, skywriting, public domain