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Last minute push to defend ME marriage equality

By on November 2, 2009 in APB, On marriage and commitment

From No on 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign manager in my inbox this morning:

I wasn’t going to come to you to ask for money again. We’ve asked so much, and you’ve dug deep and really come through.

Honestly, I wouldn’t take my time away from managing our Get Out The Vote operation to send this email if it wasn’treally important.

But we just heard that Yes on 1 is increasing their TV ad buy by $25,000 today.

$25,000 buys a lot of TV ads in Maine.

With the money we have now, we simply can’t counter their arguments on TV.

You and I have both invested a lot in this campaign. I won’t– I can’t– let them win this because we couldn’t come up with the last $25,000 in the final 36 hours.

We can’t let Yes on 1 win the airtime war with their misleading, and factually inaccurate ads.

We can’t let Yes on 1 lie to Maine voters about schools and teachers and children and same-sex couples in Maine.

We need to stand up and match every one of their lies with an ad of our own, that explains that marriage equality won’t do anything to families but protect all of them.

And I need you to help. Can you come through one last time and give $50 to help us finish this campaign with a win?

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/noon1redalert

Jesse Connolly

Jesse Connolly
Campaign Manager
NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality

For folks in Washington State and Kalamazoo, MI (the other LGBT civil rights hotspots this election), The Task Force has links to the organizations coordinating Get Out The Vote efforts there and in Maine: “Still time to secure victory on Election Day!”

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Lest the battle lines and magnitude be not clearly drawn

By on September 30, 2009 in On marriage and commitment

lpfamily[Image at right: the Langbehn-Pond family, from Janice Langbehn's Twitter page. Lisa at left, Janice at right.]

I had a Banned Books Week / LGBT families in children’s lit post all queued up and ready for its final powdering, but have to set it aside after reading on Tuesday evening that the Langbehn v. Jackson Memorial Hospital case was dismissed yesterday by its Florida judge.

Janice Langbehn, for those who can’t place where you heard her name (if not from here, in February and August of last year), is the woman whose partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, suffered an aneurism just as they were about to embark on an R Family vacation cruise with their three children. They were in Miami. The hospital barred all of Lisa’s family from seeing her, because, in the words of the hospital social worker, they were in “an anti-gay state.” (Family? What family?)  Janice tells the whole story here, on the blog she started for their family.

The more you read about their life together — the 25 children they fostered over the years, the four they adopted, Lisa’s Girl Scout troop — and the more you read about the lengths Janice went to to try to gain access to Lisa for herself and their children — the more vivid and the more unthinkable their inhumane treatment becomes.  Lambda Legal argued her case against the hospital; their page on the case is here.  Janice posted the judge’s motion to dismiss the case here. I — and any other LD readers as ignorant in the minutia of the law as I — welcome anyone’s armchair analysis / translation of its import.  Lambda and the family have until October 16 to take the next step, whatever that may be.

Two more things:

(1) Look at Lambda Legal’s Tools for Protecting Your Health Care Wishes, but with this caveat: Janice and Lisa had medical power of attorney for one another, and Janice had them faxed to the hospital in one of her many attempts to do everything possible to have their family status recognized by the hospital staff.  It was the bigotry and inhumanity of the hospital staff that kept them apart, when other family members, including small children, were welcomed to visit other patients in same critical care area there. (Nolo Press explains more about Powers of Attorney for Health Care here.) And,

(2) the Langbehn-Pond family lives in Washington state. Right now people in Washington are fighting tooth and nail to preserve their strong domestic partnership law. Referendum 71 needs to pass for it to stay on the books, and for all Washington families to be treated fairly, especially in times of crisis, and  for all families to be provided the same protections under the law. So if you haven’t done what you can to support their battle there, please do. For the Langbehn-Pond family, if for no one else.

A visual to leave you with: NGLTF keeps and regularly updates a map of all the states with laws on the books that, in one way or another, throw barriers between us and safe, proper, ethical, full legal recognition.  And sometimes throw barriers between us and our very own families. A sobering note: only the clear white states have no prohibitions on same-sex partnerships.

Click on the image to see it at its full-page resolution:

NGLTF.statelawsagainst.6.09

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National Day of Action for Marriage Equality: Sunday for Maine*

By on September 25, 2009 in APB, On marriage and commitment

* Now with fundraising thermometer, below.

If you’ve been watching the news, you know that Maine needs our help.

The same campaign of fear-mongering and misinformation that helped remove marriage equality in California is being waged in Maine. All the way down to the exact same ads promoting the exact same lies (see the Box Turtle Bulletin posts: Maine “Yes On 1″ Ad Recycles California Ads, Casts Activist As “Teacher,” and That “Maine Teacher” Is No Stranger to Anti-Gay Lies). Bedfellows of the misinformation-mongerers? Holocaust deniers (check out the second BTB piece “No Stranger”). There’s a little something to ruminate on during these holy days ‘twixt Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

In another parallel to the 2008 California battle, the fear-mongering and misinformation is working. The more passionate, motivated contingent is the anti-marriage one, and the most recent polling by DailyKos shows that, were the election to be held today, we’d lose another state’s extant marriage equality. (Advocate coverage of Kos poll here.)

This Sunday is being organized as a National Day of Action to support Maine’s battle to retain its marriage equality. All we need is a two-hour chunk on Sunday, time to participate in one of the training conference calls, phone, and a computer screen (I presume, wired to the internet).

Sign up here to help PROTECT MAINE EQUALITY this Sunday.

Goal ThermometerAddendum: if you’re far from Maine, time on the phone is probably the most valuable thing you can give. But if you can’t give that, or if you can and you want to give more, then please throw something into the coffers for No on 1 / Protect Maine Equality. To help them keep countering the steady stream of misinformation, to help turn back the tide of hate and bigotry once and for all.

Here are all the organizations using ActBlue pages to fundraise for No on 1/ Protect Maine Equality. You can also contribute directly to No on 1. Or if you want to donate via this site (and thereby inspire other LD readers to join you in your commitment), click the contribute image below. LD readers were tremendously supportive in the battle against Prop 8 in California, and  I would be very grateful and proud if we pulled in some healthy fraction of that in the battle on the other side of the country. Over $16,000 was raised here on behalf of California marriage equality. Let’s start with $1,000, OK?

For Maine, for Maine’s kids, raised in LGBT families or no. And for No on 1 / Preserve Maine Equality.  Because, bless ‘em, the Maine marriage equality battle began including visibility of LGBT families (see the selected video over there on the sidebar). This is something the California battle never did do (feature the actual kids who stood to lose with the loss of their family’s legal/financial protections).  I join many others who believe this to be one of the No on 8 campaign’s chief, most unforgivable fatal flaws. It didn’t keep me from trying to defeat the proposition. And obviously it didn’t keep me from trying to use this space to fundraise for it. While I am phenomenally grateful for the generosity of the hundreds of LD readers who joined in that fundraising, I would be very wary of soliciting financial support for a campaign that closeted us again.  Which is why I’m hauling my sorry bruised butt up on the horse again and stumping for No on 1 / Protect Maine Equality.

Ultimately, no matter where it’s being waged or how, this is very much a “protect the kids” battle.  All our kids. So please help, in whatever way you can.

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A multi-org statement on the California marriage equality fight

By on July 29, 2009 in APB, On marriage and commitment

And I couldn’t agree more with it. (Statement’s after the photo below; first a little context.)

I just got this statement in the mail from Our Family Coalition, of which I am a very supportive and proud member.  In the note accompanying the statement, Judy Appel of Our Family also said:

We have also expressed our solidarity with a strong coalition of organizations representing LGBTQ people of color, youth, and families who have called on our community to prepare past 2010 by issuing a statement entitled “Prepare to Prevail.”

There are other groups and leaders who are beginning to the lay the groundwork to get a repeal of Prop 8 on the ballot for 2010. While we disagree with their current strategy decisions, we applaud their dedication and passion for equality.

No matter when we go to the ballot, one thing can be sure, we will be right there fighting for and supporting LGBTQ-headed families.

Also agreed.

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Scattered notes from an anniversary

By on July 16, 2009 in Anima animus, Baba familias, On marriage and commitment

Herewith, scattered notes and photos from the beloved’s and my anniversary date  (a la the Baba’s Day pictorial), because the main dealie sitting on my shoulders these days still defies direct address, and yet squashes close to flat so much of everything else.  Thus making truthful personal narrative somewhat challenging.  The “main dealie” to which I refer still being the weighty, utterly unexpected early passing of a dear old friend.  Her hometown memorial will be just this Saturday.  My dear dear friend, her beloved, was on planes and in rental cars all day today in a long, long journey to go speak at it.

Emily Dickinson said “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant,” and she’s right.  ”Too bright for our infirm Delight/The Truth’s superb surprise,” says she, and I’m telling you I still need sunglasses to make out my morning eggs and toast.   ‘Til I can even get to the point of telling that truth slant — “The Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind–” — best I can do is gather up a breezy narrative of my beloved and me celebrating many happy years together.  Because there it is, sitting there alongside the eggs and toast, irony and all.

We secured an unprecedented twelve hours of childcare and were shocked — shocked! — at the number of distinct conversations that could be initiated and completed during this time, when no toddlers or children under five were present. (Note to other parents of young: DO IT! Quarterly at least! It’s so worth it! And I’m not talking date, I’m talking extendo-date, several hours past the length of your ordinary night out.)

After a delightful conversation-filled subway ride, we strolled on impulse to… tea at the Palace Hotel! Preceded by champagne! Sure, it cost an arm and a leg. Sure, we’re living on borrowed time. Whatever. It was grand, and I’d do it again in another week if given half the chance. Fortunately for our family budget, the beloved doesn’t even give me a quarter the chance.  Or an eighth. How do you think we made it fifteen years without being impounded?

anniv1-bubbly

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Meet in the Middle 4 Equality Rally Video

By on June 1, 2009 in On marriage and commitment

Those of us who were unable to be in Fresno this weekend, by dint of geographical or logistic or financial or other entanglements, will be very inspired by this montage of speakers at the rally.   You can see how the spirits of César Chávez (¡sí se puede!) and Harvey Milk (you gotta give ‘em hope!) were hugely present there that day, shining through so many people, including his direct descendants, in the persons of his granddaughter Christine Chavez and Milk’s protegé Cleve Jones.

I truly feel better about what’s to come, based on what Robin McGeHee brought together that day. Not simply because of the numbers of people, or their spirit.  But because of what people were saying (as citizens to citizens; activists to activists): Listen to one another. Learn about the issues that matter to the people whose support we are soliciting.  Understand oppressions as interlocking. Be allies to one another. Let the young people lead, because damn are they ready to. 

I deeply, sincerely thank everyone who went there to show your commitment to this next step in this long journey.  Finally, I want to nominate Robin McGeHee Mom of the Year, Activist of the Year, Lesbian of the Year, and pretty much everything else of the year. Year of the year, fer crying out loud. Just watch:

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Unite the Fight’s video of Meet in the Middle

By on May 30, 2009 in APB, On marriage and commitment

Unite the Fight is running a live video feed of events in Fresno today (I embeded this stuff above from their Qik Channel), and on their web page they also have a slideshow of still photos running.  As of 1pm, at the start of the rally, the embeded video should be transmitting the rally itself? Just click refresh and you’ll get their most recent feed? Or go over to their page and watch it there? For me, the video is choppy but the audio is smooth. Runs like a kind of a near-realtime slideshow.  All very inspirational.

[Update: You can read a live Twitter feed here, on which you can read stuff folks are seeing/hearing/feeling.]

As the cavalcade of media links here imply, I am supporting today’s Meet in the Middle 4 Equality rally in spirit but not in body today. Ah, there was a time, back in my salad days, when you couldn’t keep me from a multi-state social justice caravan, actions dotting the upper midwest, culminating in a big huge march of thousands upon thousands of lesbians down 5th Avenue with no permit and an abundance of fierce righteous pride. There also was a time when I wasn’t Julie, Your Cruise Director for two little people who have a short wick for long car rides and large crowds and a demonstrable need for a midday nap.

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21st of 21

By on May 29, 2009 in A month o' photos, Mostly a picture, On marriage and commitment

pda2

A little mid-marriage equality/LGBT civil rights rally PDA, under the watchful eye of St. Pat’s.  Ahem. [Photo: Cheryl Dumesnil.]

I like to think that love will conquer all. I like to believe that the more of us believe this, the more true it becomes. If we’re not there yet  – love victorious and everlasting; love unconditional; and it’s abundantly evident we’re not — still, I like to believe we’re en route. You have to have the long view.

Meanwhile, love’s healing, conquering power does hold true for me, my beloved, and the family we’ve hatched (with the help of what else? love!).  Sometimes, when push comes to shove — and daggone there’s been a lot of shoving lately — I have to feel that that’ll do.

So endeth a month of photos, or so it was supposed to be (photos only).  As expected, I couldn’t resist sneaking a word or two as accompaniment.  Sometimes it was just a word or two and no photo.  And as expected, I spent most of the month waiting for the other shoe to fall.  Shoe 1 being: the election which removed our constitutionally recognized right to support our family structure with state recognition equivalent to those our heterosexual brothers and sisters enjoy. Shoe 2 being: the Supreme Court’s decision on whether or not this was fair and right.

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