Civil Unions Tonight!

Tonight my wife and I will be attending One Colorado's Civil Soiree and we are quite excited. We will eat, drink, dance and party with hundreds of other Colorado gay and lesbian couples who have waited for Civil Unions to finally come to Colorado. Then at midnight we will follow the crowd over to the Webb building where happy couples will apply for their Civil Unions.
And then what? Well... the next day we will probably get out of bed a little hung over and go about our day knowing that our state legally recognizes our relationship. Not as a marriage yet, but it is a step in the right direction.
We will still have to carry around our marriage certificate as proof of our rights to visit each other in the hospital. We will still file our tax returns separately, and pay inheritance tax on all of our things if one of us dies. We will still prepare back up legal documents in case anything happens to either of us, and wait for our employers to decide whether or not we can join each other's health plan. But now if we have a child we may be able to do a step-parent adoption instead of the grueling second parent adoption process. It's still a process, but rumors are a better one. People will continue to be startled when I say "my wife," and mumble to themselves, "not in this state." But we will be legally bound to each other in an almost-marriage kind of way here. That is something that we didn't have before and for that I am very grateful.
I will celebrate tonight with the community I love and I know my heart will be big, proud, bursting and gay for all of the public displays of love I will witness in these next few days. To all of the happy couples -  I wish you a very happy union and a long and loving future together.

The Strength of the Strong

I am still celebrating the results of the election. For the first hour after it was confirmed that we would have four more years with Barack Obama as our president my wife sat on the couch concerned, expecting something terrible to happen. But the good news kept coming.  We couldn't believe our good fortune when Maine, Maryland, and Washington all voted for same sex marriage. Minnesotans were celebrating victory over an attempt at a same sex marriage ban and Iowa elected to keep Justice David Wiggins - one of the justices responsible for ruling to legalize same sex marriage in Iowa.

Then in Colorado we learned that the House and the Senate is now controlled by democrats and the new speaker is none other than openly gay Mark Ferrandino who will give civil unions a fair shot in Colorado this year - take that Frank McNulty!

We are feeling blessed. And when I think that maybe this is all too good to be true, that maybe, like my wife expected, something bad is going to happen to balance it all out - I remember all that we've had to go through just to get here. I remember the stories of the individuals whose struggles, tragedies, experience and endurance helped us to these victories. There is, of course, a long way to go before all LGBT Americans are treated equally under the law, but progress is so sweet.

One such story that was instrumental in legalizing same sex marriage in Washington State came to my attention last year when I heard a podcast from The Moth featuring Charlene Strong. This story hit me unaware and as a result I was bawling like a baby in public, so be warned, you may want to have some kleenex at the ready.

Incredible. But you know what else? Charlene Strong is incredible. After this terrible event in her life, she worked with all of her might to make sure it would never happen to anyone else. She championed legislation that became Washington State's Domestic Partnership Law, she was the subject of the award winning documentary "For My Wife," she's on Washington State's Human Rights Commission, and works like crazy doing interviews, speaking engagements, and writing articles supporting equality and social justice. In short, she's one badass activist that I personally want to thank for all that she's done for lesbiankind. For more information on Charlene Strong, visit her website

She's fantastic... and so is he.

Vote!

Here it is, election day! We've survived a season of election ads, insults, phone calls and junk mail. Now you have a job to do....vote vote vote!!!

"We are here in direct relation to the heroes and she-roes who paid with their lives for this right. Many of us are old enough to remember what it felt like to be told we could not register to vote without taking a test or paying a poll tax. Some were asked how many angels danced on a head of a pin, how many bubbles were in a bar of soap. We are here because four courageous college freshmen sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960, four years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to make a stand for equality. It’s a terrible thing to obstruct access to the ballot. But we follow all those who had the courage to dare to live so we can dare to live. 

 Because of them, we are here. So vote to keep moving us forward. And carry with you your friends, family and neighbors. Carry them from your congregations, your beauty salons and barbershops, your sororities and fraternities. Carry with you those five people whose vote could make the difference. You may be pretty or plain, heavy or thin, gay or straight, poor or rich. But nobody has more votes than you. All human beings are more equal to each other than they are unequal. And voting is the great equalizer. It is important. It is imperative. There is no time for complacency." 

- Maya Angelou, writing for the Winston-Salem Journal.

So, here's a reminder (in case you still need one):
President/Vice President -----> Obama/Biden
Minnesota Marriage Amendment -----> Vote NO
Washington Approve Referendum 74 -----> Vote YES
Maine Question 1 -----> Vote YES
Maryland Question 6 -----> Vote YES
Iowa vote to keep Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins ----->Vote YES

For a list of pro-equality Colorado house and senate candidates visit: http://www.one-colorado.org/news/colorado-pro-equality-candidates/
For more information on marriage equality ballot issues visit: http://www.afer.org/election2012/ 

Priorities

I have a hard time understanding why some of my friends and loved ones are considering voting for Mitt Romney. I find myself taking personal offense to their choice. It's hard for me to listen to their indecisiveness when for me the choice is so clear, Obama.

I've decided that it all comes down to priorities. We all have different priorities, and for some, my civil rights are not at the top of their list of priorities, something else is. I may not understand what their priorities are, but I want to make it very clear what mine are, and this video does a pretty excellent job.

For Pat and Dave

This year has been a struggle for all of us LGBTs fighting for equality in Colorado. We made some great strides but also saw first hand how grossly unfair some individuals and groups can be towards us. Back in April and May I was at the Capitol Building several days in a row, protesting, watching and waiting as the fate of the Civil Unions Bill was up and then down, and then back up again until its final death by a kill committee. During all of that drama I met some great people, and I learned a lot about Colorado Legislators, and the local political press. It seemed like one big dysfunctional family and since that time I've felt a kinship with those who stood out in front of the fight, and one such hero was Colorado State Senator Pat Steadman. 

For those of you who don't know Pat, he's openly gay, a democrat, and this past week he lost his partner David Misner to pancreatic cancer. Dave and Pat were together for 11 years. They modeled the type of relationship that any couple would envy. In July the couple announced that Dave had been diagnosed with a deadly, aggressive cancer but they remained optimistic. Despite losing civil unions to  political shenanigans Pat and Dave kept on going. And despite facing the underlined legal inequities that come with being LGBT and the challenge of dying, Pat and Dave kept going. Why? Because that's what you do when you love someone. 

Their love, their struggle and their loss are real. But despite the pain of it all there is still a rallying spirit. Pat Steadman, one of our State's heroes needs us to rally around him now just like he rallied for all of us. None of us should have to experience the loss of a spouse, but it happens, and we are often powerless against it. But, we do have the power to change the law so that when terrible events like this do happen we aren't treated unfairly because we are gay. I know it sometimes feels like there is a long, hard road ahead of us before all Coloradans are considered equal under the eyes of the law, but we can't forget. Relationships like these are just too precious not to protect.

A memorial service will be held for Dave Misner on Monday, September 24th at 10:30 a.m. in Mitchell Hall at the Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York Street, Denver. Make a charitable donation to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in memory of David Misner at http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/Dave_Misner/KeeptheMemoryAlive