Politics | Raging Buddha

Jul 21

3

Why #BlackLivesMatter to this White Lady

By Nora | Life, Politics, Television, Women, Zen | One Comment

Who am I? I am a white (that is up for some debate since we found out my great grandmother on my mothers fathers side was Native American thanks to genetic testing, but we will just go with the identity I have known up till last year) woman, age 39, born in America, who actually cares about Black people. Yes I do.

Why is that you ask? Is it because of my super liberal, California upbringing? Well yes and no. Yes my mother is a flaming liberal. Like so flaming she is hot enough to be her own welding torch. My father, not so much. He was raised in central California in sleepy Lodi. He used every racist derogatory word. And he meant them. Sure he would make a “joke” and laugh it off like he was being funny. And he was funny a LOT. Just NEVER about these things. Once my sister and I went to visit him in Southern California when I was 12 after he and my mother had divorced. On our ride from the Airport to his apartment he was in a particularly racist mood and was doing a running commentary on every non-white person that he could see from the car. Finally I couldn’t take it. I told him in no uncertain terms that if his disgusting racist rant didn’t end he could take me and my sister directly back to the Airport and we would catch the next flight back home. He looked at me through the rear view mirror, laughing and then our eyes met. He saw that I was dead serious. He stopped.

Why did I feel so furiously about that? It could come from a lot of places really. I am a bit of an odd duck. I have always felt out of place in my body. I have felt like I belonged to another time and space. But I managed to always make friends and make people laugh. I moved a lot. I was always the new kid. I was always having to reinvent myself every few years. Just before my parents divorced in 1984 we were living in San Francisco. We lived in the Marina on Chestnut street. Back then the City was divided very fiercely into sections of ethnicity. The Marina, was mostly Asian, while the Mission district was Latino, the Fillmore was where the Black neighborhood was. So in the morning in school, my sister and I were in the minority. We were white, 90% of the classmates I had were Asian, mostly Chinese with a few kids from other backgrounds. Then after school the bus would take us to the Buchanan Street YMCA, which was in the Fillmore District. Right on the border, looking across the street you saw Japan Town. So in the afternoon we were the minority as well. Everyone was Black at the YMCA. Except me, my sister and one counselor Nick.

So all of my friends were either Chinese or Black. I thought, as an 8 year old growing up in San Francisco, this was totally normal. So normal in fact that I decided that I was in fact black. My friends from the YMCA seemed to agree. Ryante, Dante, the twin counselors Patricia and Phillip all my friends there. It was a consensus. So much so that I asked my mom to let me get a Jerry Curl in my hair. She exhaustively told me that my hair wouldn’t do that because I wasn’t Black. I was still unconvinced. I was going to do everything in my power to become what I knew I was on the inside. A fierce Black woman. I started studying Black history. I became ENRAGED with what I found out. Back in the days before google and the internet kids you had to scour bookshelves in the library, and go through microfiche, and watch old news reels. And that is what I did. On my own I learned about the civil rights movement that had happened a mere decade before my birth. I saw that things weren’t all that different. Black people weren’t free and were still struggling. I was determined to make it right. When Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday came around the YMCA had a speech contest. We were all to write a speech and deliver it and the winner was going to speak at an awards ceremony.

I worked for a WEEK (which to an 8 year old is an ETERNITY) on my speech. I wrote it, rewrote it and worried about it nightly. We were all going into the office one by one to give our speeches to the leaders of the Y. Finally it was my turn. When I looked up from my paper, tears were in the eyes of everyone in the room. I was shaking. I knew I was going to get to speak. I remember the night very well, even 31 years later. Lots of awards had been given out. I was the keynote speaker essentially. Everyone’s parents were there. I hadn’t met them before. My name was announced. As I walked to the stage, muttering from the crowd started. Fingers pointed. Scowling faces. I heard someone say, “Who does this white girl think she is talking about Dr. King?” I got very nervous. I thought maybe I was the wrong choice. In that moment I knew I was not black. That I would never be black.

I looked out into the crowd of angry faces. I saw my mother, beaming from ear to ear and my counselor Phillip smiling a huge smile, urging me to start my speech. Phillip had been dealing with all the other kids who had complained that a white girl was talking instead of them. He assured them it had nothing to do with me being white. It was that I had written a better speech. He warned me that at first people would be upset that I had been chosen to speak but not to worry; once they heard my words they would understand.

As I walked onto the stage, looking out at the crowd, I was pretty sure that Phillip had lied to me. People were NOT happy. I took a deep breath and I started talking, I tried my best to look out into the crowd. I decided I was just going to talk to the whole room. I went for it. I gave this speech every ounce of passion that I had. At the end I had tears as did the entire audience. People were clapping and crying and everyone hugged me after. That night I crossed the color barrier. I did get it. I think in that moment for the adults present who had lived through the civil rights movement and those who knew life before that was even a dream, saw a glimpse of the future in me. A future that existed without boundaries or limitations. One where equality would ring true with every citizen no matter how young or old they are. A future where the color of our skin was not a label that determined our destiny.

Which brings me to today. My thoughts about race haven’t changed since that night, but clearly neither that dream I had 31 years ago or the one that Martin Luther King Jr. had has come true. I wish that it had. It would be so much easier. Wouldn’t it? I mean if the color, the pigment, of our skin meant NOTHING to each other? Wouldn’t that be a wonderful place? Yes, I think it would. Instead we live in the powder keg of tension that we like to call the “United” States of America. Honestly I don’t know what we are UNITED about anymore. Anyone? Is there anything that we as Americans can actually agree on?

I have two sons. They are also white. But there is a glimmer of hope for their generations I think. I see their classes at school. Filled with kids from all different backgrounds. They look at each other like humans. That’s it. The end. Nothing else. They play with each other regardless of what they look like or what they are wearing. It makes my heart smile. I hope that never changes for them. Looking at other people as PEOPLE who are equal to them in all ways. I am teaching my kids about white privilege and that it is, in no uncertain terms, fucking bullshit. It means nothing and they will gain nothing from life utilizing it. They are to be part of the solution not part of the epically horrific problem. I think they get it. They seem to.

I want to march in the streets as much as my 8 year old self did. I see what is happening and I feel that same rage I did as an 8 year old learning about Selma. But is my voice helpful or hurtful? That is the question I face today. When I was 8 I knew everything and I knew what I thought mattered. Nothing I could think of was impossible. Now 31 years later, I wonder what happened to that powerhouse of a girl. She would have never questioned herself. She would have gotten up on a chair and shouted BLACK LIVES MATTER over and over until a crowd had formed around her and she was leading them down the block chanting. Black lives matter because Black people are PEOPLE. They are humans. They are Americans.

Dear Humans of America it is time to get up on the nearest chair and just shout it out. BLACK LIVES MATTER. Period. All voices in unison saying this loud and clear, BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Jun 03

1

Why Caitlyn Jenner is NOT a Hero to me.

By Nora | Life, Politics, Television, Women | 9 Comments

I have been biting my tongue on the Caitlyn Jenner media tidal wave. I am now going to break my silence and I am sure the blowback from this will be immense but I feel that it has to be said. Caitlyn Jenner is not a hero. Caitlyn Jenner is just a girl.

Firstly congrats to her for finally living her truth as her true self. As a person who has put on faces and toughed out being in a bad situation and living a “lie” I get it. I do. But, and this is a HUGE but, in the 70’s after Bruce (I am using her former name because she was Bruce in the 70’s not because I don’t acknowledge fully who she is today, but to refer to her former life as it was) had 2 kids with his FIRST wife, he came out. He told her the whole deal. He was really a woman and that is what he wanted to do. Become his true self. He had the means to transition then. His wife, after first responding with denial and therapy finally respected Bruce’s choice but because she didn’t want to be married to a woman, they divorced.

While he was SEPARATED from his first wife, Bruce took up with another woman, meeting her at the Playboy mansion. He presented himself as a heterosexual man to her. Mind you this was at the same time he had just TOLD his wife that he was really a woman. He was not upfront with her. He didn’t tell her his secret, instead he wined and dined this woman and married her. Again having TWO children with her. Then again after a few years he told his second wife his big secret, that he was really a woman and wanted to transition.

He got the adams apple surgery and started to take hormones. When his kids started asking why Daddy had boobs his second wife realized that she too didn’t want to be married to a woman and filed for divorce. This now makes 4 kids that were partially abandoned by him. He was not a good father to them. One ex-wife even opted to not to get child support from him. But he was not there for birthdays, christmas’s, nothing.

Then he changed his mind yet again, stopping the hormone treatments. He again was presenting himself as a hetero man. Bruce meets Kris and her circus of fame and he rides that wave for YEARS and has ANOTHER TWO KIDS! Then when his final two of six children are “old enough” to understand who he really is Bruce FINALLY decides to pull the trigger on becoming his true self 30+ years later after he first revealed who he was.

He was NOT honest with the second two women that he married when he romanced them, when he married them or when he got them pregnant. He partially abandoned his first FOUR children. But none of this is being talked about. All we are hearing is how “BRAVE” Bruce was in his interview with Diane Sawyer. How Bruce/Caitlyn is a HERO for the Trans movement. A “hero” by definition is someone who does the right thing in the face of adversity, no matter the consequences, because it is RIGHT not because it is easy or convenient. I see a person who has gotten to a phase in their life where they have NOTHING to lose. So why not? It is easy to do it now. So many people have come before her. Paved the way with their blood sweat and tears and some with their lives.

Now he is she. She is Caitlyn. As she put it in the interview with Diane Sawyer, “She” has no secrets. I get it. Caitlyn is a clean slate. She is a new person, she has just been born. And honestly, sincerely, hooray for that. Hooray that you have millions of dollars to become Caitlyn. Hooray that you get the cover of Vanity Fair. But I have a friend transitioning. Where is her parade? Where are all the parades for the THOUSANDS of transpeople out there that AREN’T reality show famous? Will Caitlyn’s story make Trans less of a dirty word? I hope so. That has been FAR too long in coming. But there were plenty of REAL TransHERO’s before her. (Laverne Cox, Aydian Dowling and Kate Bornstein to name just a few.)

Caitlyn didn’t invent this. She isn’t the first. And she won’t be the last. But in my opinion, because Caitlyn has been born into FAME, she has the responsibility and DUTY to clean up Bruce’s mess and fix the mistakes that he made. Because they are HUGE and glaring. Good luck to her. My less than favorable opinion of Caitlyn has nothing to do with her Transition or that she transitioned. She is beautiful and has a new life ahead of her. BUT the road taken to her new shiny life is paved with too many lies and too many lives hurt in the process for me to jump up and down on the couch for her. She needs to make right what was done in the past. Maybe this is just my own Daddy issues talking, having been abandoned by my own father.

But as a parent I know one truth to be above all others, my happiness is tied FOREVER to the happiness of my children. There is NOTHING more important in the world than being there for my kids and being in their lives as much as I can. Nothing. Living your truth is part of that. I get that. But living your truth can never come at the cost of others. It can never come on the back of a gigantic lie. The abandonment, I am just having a really hard time moving past that. I feel that I just can’t celebrate her. Because she isn’t a hero. She is a beautiful woman, who I wish nothing but happiness for, but I am not baking a cake.

Mar 02

1

Dear President Obama, I just watched “Citizen Four” but you probably already know that.

By Nora | Life, Politics, Technology or Nerd Central | No Comments

Dear President Obama,

I am sure upon receipt of this letter my name will be added to some mysterious list of people who are a threat to this country and you. Well I wish neither you nor this country ill will. I love America. I was born here. My children were born here. Many generations of my family helped to build this country, fought for it in many wars and forged across it to expand it to the west. But I just finished watching “Citizen Four”. To say what I learned in this movie was disappointing would be a gigantic understatement. In 2004, when you spoke at the DNC I fell in love with you. I fell in love with the idea of you. That you were the Un-politician. You were a rule breaker. The rebel that was going to undo the nonsense of the past 8 years and right all the wrongs. You were America’s, and my, knight in shining armor and I was so excited. I wept as you were elected in 2008. I sat holding my 1 month old son weeping as I watched the results come in and my oldest son, 3 was asleep. I knew that this world was going to be a better place for them. That it would not be one filled with war and lies but one of truth and relative calm as we progressed forward with a truly green global agenda and started to make Earth livable for all mankind. I had HOPE.

Then promise after promise was broken. And it was as if nothing had changed in the white house at all except now our President knew how to pronounce “Nuclear”. But 2012 rolled around and I once again, bought into the lies and hope and like a battered wife, promised myself that you were going to change and that you just needed my help to get there. That inside you were a good person and it was just congress that wouldn’t let you get anything done. (And they haven’t let you do one single thing. They are a major part of the problem and I acknowledge that fully but we are talking about you so I will try to stay on topic.) And then once again I was thoroughly disappointed.

I went from doggedly defending you to agreeing, mostly with critiques of you. Why? Because you lied. You are doing the SAME EXACT THING as all the Presidents have done since I don’t know when, promising the moon and the stars and everything we want and then basically do nothing, or just enough to keep us strung out on your hype so that we don’t protest too much.

When the Patriot Act came out I was vehemently against it. I was probably one of 5 non journalists in the country to bother to print the whole thing and read it. Now looking at this movie, Citizen Four, you have taken the Patriot Act and put it on steroids to spy on not just every American Citizen, but the whole world. I am just appalled at what has happened in the name of “National Security”. We aren’t more secure. We aren’t happier. We aren’t doing better as a nation. We are just angrier. We are poorer and we are tired. So why are we spending countless hours collecting data about each other? To what end? World peace? A cure for Cancer? Those would be noble causes. The “War” on Terrorism? That isn’t even real. You can’t wage war on an idea. Because an idea isn’t real. You can wage war on a person, place or thing. That’s it. Do I think ISIS is possibly the worst group I have seen in my lifetime, yes. Am I disgusted with their actions? Yes absolutely. But, that does not mean that you, or anyone else, has the right to compromise my or ANYONE else’s right to our own lives. To our privacy. To our private conversations on our phones or via text or email. There is no greater cause than our individual right to be ourselves in our own way. We have plenty of other laws in place already that allow for the tracking of criminals via warrants and the courts. Our justice system is built to do that. So there is no reason to go around that system with any type of executive order or anything else.

What has happened to the voice of the people? We don’t want this. We have marched against it. We have sat down in the streets against it. When does it end? What happens to me now if I post this? If I send you this letter. Am I less of an American than I was before I wrote it? Before I thought it? Where is this path leading us? What is the goal of all it?

What your focus should have been is on the environment. On Earth. This is our home. We don’t have anywhere else to go. So who cares about terrorism when the air we breath is killing us. Does killing off all of ISIS make the Oceans clean and stop the glaciers from melting? Does getting Osama turn back the clock on carbon emissions? No. All the war on Terrorism does, in the long run, is nothing. Because the real battle that we should have been waging is how to salvage our Earth so that human kind will still exist. That could have been your legacy. You could have saved us all.

Instead, like so many that came before you, you are just a bought and paid for spokesperson for the big corporations that run everything. How is a dream like Democracy supposed to have any chance at all in a game that is so rigged that your one hope for progress and reform is actually just playing for the other team?

Sincerely,

Nora Crest

United States Citizen

Mar 22

1

Home School 101?

By Nora | Life, Politics, Technology or Nerd Central, Women | No Comments

Well SO much has happened since my last post. I mean I think I saw at least 40 movies in that time and the amount of TV I am embarrassed to say. But mostly it has been LIFE going on. So many changes. Firstly, I am now homeschooling my oldest son. That has been a HUGE change. It has mostly been great though. I was super worried about it because I am NOT a teacher. I have tremendous respect for them and what they do but I had no idea how I was going to do any of that. Curriculum planning and all that was simply terrifying to me. But I ran into a situation with my son where he was not getting what he needed from school. The teacher was not equipped to deal with a child who has Aspergers and so I decided to take on that task as well. After doing a TON of research about home school programs I settled on K12. The K12.com is AMAZING. It is all there. They send you all the materials for FREE and there is a teacher that I can contact at any time to get help. We meet with her Quarterly to do the parent teacher conference. It is all fully accredited and really a great fit for my son. Pretty much all the work is done online, which he LOVES and he can get things done as fast or as slow as he needs to, so he can really grasp it.

My least favorite part of this has been the looks on peoples faces when I tell them I am homeschooling. Like suddenly I grew another head out of my head and it was SUPER ugly like Koato poking out if that guys stomach in the original Total Recall. And then 99.99% of people immediately want to know what I am doing to “socialize” him. What? Did I miss something. When I was a kid, we played outside. We met kids in the neighborhood and played sports and hung out at the YMCA and found friends in all sorts of places. NO ONE ever asked how I was being socialized. That is just ridiculous. He isn’t from another planet. he isn’t learning English as a second language. He is a kid. Yes he is spending a ton of time with me. And he will make friends or not as he chooses. Period.

Yes there are days when I wish I could take a 5 hour recess from the whole thing. I am not going to lie. But I find mostly that I am having a tremendous amount of fun learning again all, some of it frankly I don’t remember learning at all. He is even taking Latin. He is learning so much. I am very proud of him. And happy that he can do well and feel good about school. Most days he is on me to get started. That is a HUGE change from before.

I think that the way schools are being run right now is really doing no one a service. I know many teachers, there is only one thing on their minds, helping their students learn. That’s it. They want the kids to learn, to love learning and to be successful. When all of this “core” curriculum and “standardized” test are thrown in and all anyone cares about is test scores, well the kids and the teachers get lost in the shuffle. The teachers have no freedom to give the kids what they know works and what is best. They HAVE to do this ridiculous curriculum that, as far as I can tell, no one really understands or even likes. Teachers are burdened with more and more students at once who they cannot, no matter what Herculean effort they make, get to everyone. They just can’t. I have only two kids and I can barely pay equal attention to both of them. I can only imagine what that is like with 35 kids.

I am lucky that I can stay at home with my son. I have the ability to do that because I have my own business with my husband and we work from home. I can flex my schedule that way. I know not everyone can do that. But I think if we can stand united, parents that is, and demand that our public schools are reformed with the best interests of the students and the teachers in mind, I think we could get all kids to be as excited as my son is about learning.

Nov 02

0

12 Years A Slave

By Nora | Life, Movies, Politics | No Comments

Dear Steve McQueen,

Your film 12 Years A Slave has hit me like a ton of bricks. It is still resonating with me now and hours have past since I saw the film. It will not leave me. I have never been so terribly uncomfortable during film as I was watching this one.

The unconfrontable, uncomfortable, horrible truth that you so eloquently tell in this film is so tremendously and beautifully sad. It left me hollow inside. I almost couldn’t bear to watch all of it. But I had to see it to the end. I had to know that it was worth it. That this man made it back to his family and that they were all whole somehow again.

Slavery will forever be the albatross around Americas neck for as long as we all, as a country, choose to ignore its heritage and influence that still lingers in the air that we breathe on this soil. It will never truly be gone till that day.

There is no greater horror or evil that humans can inflict on one another than enslavement. I don’t pretend to compare myself or my story to that of Solomon or the millions that were enslaved and killed and tortured, but my own experience, being used in an indentured servitude, and being treated, minus the whipping but close to it, much the way Solomon was I understood completely how he felt walking toward that carriage. Walking, struggling to walk toward freedom. Not believing it was real, and part of him, trying to hold him there.

No film, no story, has ever captured what that feels like, to truly lose yourself, to believe you are nothing, no one, worthless and have no hope and then show what it is to gain that back like this film did.

Thank you for making this movie and telling this lost story. Everyone needs to see this film, to know this story, to understand it so that we can once and for all unshackle ourselves as a people and as a nation from slavery.

Sep 04

1

My Open Letter to President Obama and Syria

By Nora | Life, Politics | One Comment

Dear Mr. President,
In 2004 when I saw you give the Keynote speech at the DNC I was mesmerized. I thought, Man when is this guy gonna run for President! We NEED him. Then in 2008 I was a HUGE supporter. Wearing my Obama shirt wherever and whenever I could. I cried when you were elected. I was ready for Hope and Change. I wanted those things very much.

After a rough 4 years and deciding that even though you didn’t do some pretty important things that you said you were going to do during the campaign, like ratifying Kyoto and some other environmental things, I thought that over all things were better and in 2012 I was sure as hell NOT voting for Mitt Romney. So once again I got my Fired Up Ready to Go shirt and wore it almost daily until the election was over.

Right now those shirts are gone. I am ashamed to wear them. I don’t have my Obama magnet on my car any more. I actually threw it away. I am ashamed.

And now you want to bomb Syria. I don’t get it. You were the President that was here to end the wars and bring our troops home. No matter WHAT you and the defunct congress say now, there will be more force and more countries involved and ultimately more of our Soldiers involved.

Never mind that we are not the World Police or World baby sitters, and never mind the absolute tragedy that is going on in Syria’s civil war. Why would we subject our soldiers to more war when we are not even properly caring for the ones that are coming home now? We have no functioning relief for these brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for wars which have no benefit for anyone but the Gigantic companies who make war machines. Why should they benefit from so much death? Why should anyone.

Bombing Syria is not a solution. It isn’t going to help anyone. It is only going to make more people angry. It is going to give people that are already angry a catalyst to hate America more and strike back at us. We don’t need that and Syria doesn’t need to be bombed.

To the people of Syria, I just want you to know that a vast MAJORITY of the American people do NOT want to bomb your country. We don’t want more violence. IF there is a way to end this conflict and come to a resolution using diplomacy then we are more than willing to help with that any way that we can. But Mr. President, the American people have spoken. NO WAR WITH SYRIA. Our representatives in Congress have FAILED at their jobs. Failed miserably and have not listened to us. They should all be removed.

Please Mr. President. Look at that speech you gave in 2004. Look at the man you were in 2008 running for President, find that man inside of you and PLEASE do the right thing. You know what it is.

Sincerely,

Nora Crest

Aug 21

0

The EAST

By Nora | Life, Movies, Politics | No Comments

The East starring and written by my new hero, Brit Marling, is a thriller like no other. Alexander Skarsgård is so good in this movie that I was really hoping that this was going to launch him as more than just a really hot vampire. This movie is a biting commentary on corporate dominance and power in America and the world. It is a movie about family and friends and people trying to make a difference. But it is probably one of the scariest films of the year.

I don’t say it is scary because it is a horror movie. I find those movies to be silly mostly. There is always some OVER THE TOP bad guy or guys slaughtering people or possessing someone or something. It is improbable and usually impossible what happens in those movies. This movie is frightening because although the company names are changed, this stuff is real. These are the things that are happening in our country on a daily basis. These are the monsters under all of our beds.

I hope that as many people as possible will see this movie. It is that important.

Apr 16

0

Love from sea to shining sea.

By Nora | Life, Politics, Sports | No Comments

Today I got angry and sad about what happened yesterday in Boston. I have never been to Boston but I have love for it, for its history, for the people I know from there and just because it is part of America.

I was so angry. I hadn’t felt quite like this since 9/11. I felt helpless and lost and like I needed to be doing something serious right now. Like get in a uniform and kick some ass type of situation.

And once again I felt useless. And that made me even more angry. Then I read online someone’s solution which was ridiculous and I can’t even repost it here and retain my sanity but lets just say it enraged me. Then as I was driving I saw my local fire stations flag at half mast. And all of a sudden I smiled, I cried even a little. Here I am in a small coastal city and here, all the way across the country, at my little fire station they are sending love. Sending love to Boston, to the injured, to the families and to the fallen.

I felt the love. I decided that my rage wasn’t helping anyone. Getting mad isn’t going to help. In the words of Dr King, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

So I am passing on my little bit of love here from Ventura to you all. I hope it helps. Maybe we can all spread it around.

Apr 09

0

The President says a lady is pretty and I am mad as hell, but not at who you think.

By Nora | Life, Politics, Women | No Comments

Ladies!!! What????
Have we stopped our progression? Are we just mere fighting Bitties who can’t STAND it when another one of us is deemed pretty by the opposite sex?? Why do we throw up our arms at compliments and act like they are murdering all our progress by calling one of us, gasp, PRETTY??!! How dare he!

I guess no one took the time to notice all of the other things that were said before the nasty P word came out. Is “Pretty” now a bad word? Should we shun it like the C word? I think not. Lets’s embrace our pretty. Lets use it for us. Also Kamala Harris IS the best looking Attorney General in the country. Man or woman. Notice POTUS didn’t say female Attorney General just the post.

Would he have said it if Kamala were a man? Maybe if he looked like Brad Pitt he might have. But who cares. It was an aside, not an entire description of her or her qualifications.

We have to stop knocking each other down when we get a genuine compliment and stop punishing people who give them. This wasn’t one of those “She’s a good Attorney General, for a girl” kinda moments.

Let’s leave our outrage for real issues like equal pay. I am done shaking my fist in the sky about this one.

Mar 25

0

Let’s all get Gay Married!!!

By Nora | Life, Politics, Women | One Comment

Marriage. Hmmmm. Well as a married woman I have a LOT of thoughts about this. Today is a good day in my marriage. So probably best to talk about it today! Marriage is a deal you make with another person to be with them and only them, through everything and to fill each other lives with love. Every day is another day to make good things happen for each other. Every day is another day to get to tell them, “I love you.” But I think more than that we, me included, should all start our days, us married people, by saying “Thank You” to your partner in life. “Thank You” for being here with me. “Thank You” for giving me love and attention, for helping me when I need it, for listening to me when I ramble, for not laughing when I cry at lame commercials, for not being grossed out that I want hot sauce on EVERYTHING, for letting me pick which team we root for, for having the courage to disagree with me and still love me anyway.

We need to be more grateful for what we have. We straighties need to realize that Gay people are in fact PEOPLE damn it. My neighbors marriage doesn’t affect mine. If they have an argument, I don’t also have to have one. If they get a new car I am not obligated to get one. If they have a kid I don’t have to immediately get pregnant. So what would be different if Gay people got married? Would I then have to make out with women and watch my husband have sex with men? Ummm no. Certainly not. Would my marriage be less valid because they were married? No I am pretty sure I am gonna still have the same last name I have had for 8 years and my kids are gonna keep on just the same. So what is the big deal??

Tomorrow is a HUGE day for the history of this country. The Supreme Court is going to possibly decide on Prop 8. We could be taking one huge step forward as a country, finally declaring EVERY citizen equal under the law no matter who they choose to love, or we will remain in the stone ages.

I hope that LOVE will perserve here. I hope it really will conquer all. LOVE is beautiful and should be celebrated with ceremonies and flowers and cake. I love seeing people in love. I don’t care who they are. Love is what makes the world go round and if we could all love a little more freely then I think we could take one step closer to being better as a species.

So straight people, do not fear, nothing is going to change for you. You are still straight and your marriage is real. The only thing that will be different is now EVERYONES love will be as valid as yours. All LOVE will be EQUAL. Isn’t that beautiful?