Election Day

Tuesday I celebrated with this great country, proud that hope had triumphed over fear and good ideas had triumphed over racism. And yet, this morning I woke to the news that Prop 8 had passed. I wish this post could be only about the transformative power of Obama. I wish I felt completely content today, secure that good had really overcome hate. But the course of history has never been smooth, and we have far to go before we sleep.

Let me be clear. If I could have chosen only one outcome yesterday, I would have chosen Obama's election. He will do more for this country than would the defeat of a gay marriage ban. And yet...I am angry. I am angry and I am hurt.

I want to marry my partner. Alison and I will celebrate our 7th anniversary on December 8th. We have been together, side by side, through good times and bad. Through disappointments and losses, we have comforted one another. I remember the first time I saw Alison cry just because I was upset. I remember I stopped crying, to ask her what was wrong. I was shocked that someone would feel my pain so deeply. And I remember the first time I cried in response to her pain, too.

How ironic, and how terrible, that in a culmination of the long struggle of civil rights, our marriage rights were stripped from us.

Alison and I have been engaged for four years. I remember taking the bus to Tiffany's in order to buy her a beautiful engagement ring. I was so excited that I walked all the way back to Penn, feeling as light as air. Alison was annoyed with me, because I didn't get back in time for the bus, and we had to walk home. As we walked across the South Street bridge (an old, graffiti-covered hunk of metal), I felt more and more excited. I had intended to present the ring to Alison when we returned to New York, but I couldn't wait. As Alison talked about her day, I fished into my bag and extracted the ring. I pulled Alison to the side, and asked her to marry me. She said yes. It was the single best decision I have ever made.

Tonight, Alison and I went on a date. We discussed Proposition 8. We talked about our conversation earlier this year, when we considered marrying in California when we visited the state in March. Thankfully, we did not get the chance. The only thing worse than not being able to marry, is to marry and have that right stripped away. It is dehumanizing to know that someone on your block, or someone whose business you patronize, or your boss, or your child's friend's mom decided that your marriage is so intrinsically offensive to their way of life that they feel compelled to reach into your home and break a bond that you and your partner solemnly swore to uphold.

I want to marry Alison, and I want to do it somewhere in which our marriage will never be revoked. I want to know that I can visit her in a hospital, if she falls sick. I want to know that, wherever I am employed, I can obtain healthcare for Alison as well as myself. I want the same tax benefits as my straight friends. When I have a child with Alison, I want to know that that child cannot be taken away from me. I want to know that if I get sick or grievously hurt, Alison can make the decisions she needs to make. Because I trust no one else in this world so deeply.

But most of all, I want the government to give me a piece of paper that says, "We acknowledge you. We acknowledge you--we know you are here. We see your relationship."

And, yes, I want a marriage, not a civil union. When Alison and I were first engaged, our friends offered their congratulations. And yet, several of our friends who became engaged around the same time were thrown engagement parties. We were never offered one. And that hurt us deeply. No matter how tolerant our friends are, gay partnerships will not be seen in the same light until it is called marriage, and until we can walk into a courthouse and leave with a piece of paper that says, "I acknowledge you."

I want to go back to feeling only happiness when a straight friend tells me that he or she is getting married. I want to lose this heaviness in the pit of my stomach I feel when I hear of impending nuptials. Weddings should be joyous. But there is a small part of me that cannot feel that joy until this country opens its doors and says, "Yes, you too. We see your love."

I believe that change is coming. I believe that this is a stumbling block, but not a wall. When I was in high school, students spoke openly about going gay bashing. There were two health classes students could take, and parents had to sign off on which one they gave approval for their children to take--one in which the possibility of being gay was allowed to be mentioned and one in which the teacher would not allow any passing reference to gayness. This year, I went back to my high school to conduct interviews, and two of the students I interviewed were openly gay.

I believe that in ten or twenty or thirty years, we will look back and ask ourselves how could this have ever been debated. Some day, it will be inconceivable that marriage is a restricted, members-only, right. Our children will ask us why this was a contested issue. And I hope at that time, that I will think back to this time, and that my memory of this pain will have faded. I hope that I will remember this as barely a fleeting moment--a hiccup on the path to equality.

But for now, I do feel pain. We, as gay people, feel pain. We want to celebrate Obama's election whole-heartedly. We want to look forward, and see a new day. We want to stand with our new president and say, "Yes, we can." But on Tuesday, our neighbors and relatives and co-workers and some perfect strangers took from us a basic right. They said, "No, you can't."

But we will.