A Great Step Forward in a Long Journey

This is a little late because I got caught up in school, but The big news in the GLBT community last week was Pres. Obama signing the Matthew Shepard Act into law. This law brings the GLBT community into the classes protected from hate crimes. It was a long, painful road to get here, but it makes me even more optimistic that every day will bring more headway on the GLBT rights front. I get discouraged sometimes because it seems like everything we want to do is a fight. My beloved and I want to adopt a child within a couple of years of my graduation, we want to get married, and we want to protect what little we have scraped together while working towards our future. But to do all this we have to take 50 million more things into account than your normal couple.

For example, adoption. The state we live in makes it illegal for us to adopt a baby, since technically, we are still a gay couple. So we are looking at out of the country adoption but the international adoption book says that no country will KNOWINGLY place a baby with a gay couple. So I apply as a single person? Doesn't that disregard what will be a 12-13 year long, great relationship? Where does that leave Hayden as a parent? And what about us being a trans couple and Hayden legally being male by then? Or do I try to get pregnant even that it will cost a mint, and due to health problems, I might not be able carry it to term? But it will give us more protection as a family.

All of these things to think about just to start a family with my partner. In some ways its good because we can plan, but bad because we HAVE to plan. The hope I have for it all is that it will be easier for us because I am (well will be) a lawyer, that the rules will change, and that everything, as ususal, will work out exactly the way it is supposed to.

DOMA & Marry Memories

The ABA is asking Congress to repeal the section of DOMA that denies federal benefits to legally married gay couples. I absolutely love the fact that the ABA is standing up for GLBT rights. While I do wish that the DOMA in it's entirety would be struck down, I also realize that small steps forward are still steps.

In fact, sometimes I am amazed at how far gay rights have come since I came out 15 years ago. I was cleaning out my bookshelves over my break and flipping through my gay book collection. One book I have is The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings. I remember buying that in my local Books-a-Few 9 years ago, I remember the stares and down right evil looks I got as I paid for it, and how certain people would no longer shop in the store I worked in within the same mall after I bought it, I remember how hard it was to hold me head up and look people who liked me a second ago in the eye as the hate washed over their faces. But what struck me most about it was the fact that it was a handbook on how to make your wedding the best it could be with what little, if any, resources the GLBT community had back then. There was nothing to fall back on, unless you lived in a MAJOR city, when planning your wedding but your own creativity and desire for the ceremony.

Now there are gay couples getting married on TV, theKnot.com has a same-sex ceremony site, cities and states are legalizing our marriages and unions, gay honeymoon packages abound, the new edition of The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings is available, and there are more marriage resources than you can shake a stick at.

I guess the point I am trying to make is, yes, it is frustrating to still be fighting the homophobes that shriek when we walk through the door and clutch their children in fear, it is frustrating that we are denied basic human rights, but we HAVE made progress and continue to do so. Every little step still is a step pulling us closer and closer to equality and farther away from the time where a girl had to be afraid to buy a simple little book. And I am glad that I am becoming a part of the fight to go forward.

Vermont and New Hampshire

The Vermont Senate and New Hampshire HOR have both voted to legalizes Same Sex Marriages within their state borders. While the measure needs to pass the other side of the legislatures and the state governors, it is a good sign that more and more states are willing to see that all people deserve the same rights and protections under the law. Civil unions, while a step in the right direction, still give a second class standing to the GLBT community because they only offer a fraction of the rights that marriage gives couples and are not recognized in other states within the U.S.

Cheers to these states for taking a stand for their constituents rights and well being.