According to the AP, Amendment One has just been approved in North Carolina with an unofficial vote count of 58% for the marriage amendment and 42% against. I want to throw up. I've already cried. I'm throwing in the towel on humanity.
This picture is of my sister and her wife on their wedding day. My sister Carrie-Lynn is the one jumping for joy on the right. She always knew that she was attracted to women and she found the most perfect woman in Laura. I can't begin to explain to you how much my sister loves her. The sound of Laura's name gives Carrie butterflies. She glows.
So I take votes like this one very seriously.
I struggle to figure out why people are so up in arms about same-sex marriage. Fifty-eight percent of voters put on their shoes, kissed their partner of the opposite sex goodbye, and drove to a facility to take that glow away from thousands of couples they have never met. North Carolina doesn't allow gay marriage as it is, and people are that afraid of people like my sisters that they make sure to add that little fuck you clause to give the hopeful even less hope. Fifty-eight percent.
Now, I'm married. To a man whose name gives me butterflies. When I'm away from him I am constantly thinking about him. I can't live without Sean, he is half of me. We planned our wedding in a week, spend fifty dollars total, and asked our brother-in-law to be our Justice of the Peace. We didn't have to wait twenty years for a law to be abolished.What makes our love superior to theirs?
Marriage to me means sharing the last few Skittles and giving up your favorite color. Marriage means volunteering to do the dishes even though you know that you'll have to reach into a sink full of dirty water to fish the silverware out of the garbage disposal. Marriage means allowing your other half to take a hot bath while you watch the cranky toddler because you know it'll bring much needed rest and joy. It means trading foot rubs for back scratches. It means calling each other Love and holding hands through an entire movie.
When my husband cooks baked beans, he always asks me if I'd like that chunk of fat because he knows I find it absolutely repulsive. And I tell him that if something ever happened to him I would never be able to eat baked beans again because that little fatty chunk would make me cry my eyes out. That's marriage, folks: a cube of animal fat.
The title of marriage isn't important to us. We can take it or leave it. But this is because we can take it or leave it. We have a choice. We are the lucky ones; entitled.
These two are nurses. They live daily taking care of others. They have a beautiful home in California--a state which no longer recognizes gay marriage--they pay taxes and grow their own vegetables and keep their yard neatly landscaped. By all standards they are model citizens, except for the fact that they are both women. In the state of North Carolina, Carrie and Laura would have zero legal rights.
Religion is a factor for some of these fifty-eight percent. They are afraid that God will send them to hell for allowing (gasp) a man to marry a man, a woman to marry a woman. They are afraid that the the sacredness of marriage will be stolen from them. I've heard the slogan it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. I don't want to be anywhere near people who treat other with such hatred and bigotry. If these voters think living a Godly life means treating others like they are worthless because of who they love, I would say that they have never read the teachings of their god.
This reminds me of a quote from the movie K-Pax, I know it's weird that I feel like quoting a Kevin Spacey movie about aliens when referring to gay marriage but it feels right so let me run with it:
"You humans, most of you, subscribe to this policy of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, which is known throughout the universe for its stupidity. Even your Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision; but nobody's paid much attention to them, not even the Buddhists or the Christians"
Everybody is looking for someone to blame. Someone to point fingers at, yelling Sinner! Fifty-eight percent.
I'm blown away.
I feel sorry for you, North Carolina. I think you've got it all wrong. I feel sorry for those who are affected by this amendment--including my dear friends in NC--for those who tonight lost hope that they may love openly and equally. And I feel sorry for those voters, too, and pray that most of them are old and on their way out so that our society can heal with the new generations.