Today’s letter - Governors Wallace and Schwarzenegger

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

It was 1963 – just 45 years ago today – that Governor George Wallace stood in a campus doorway while attempting to exclude two black students from the University of Alabama.

Telling people that they’re too dumb to attend school, then standing in the doorway while they are trying to do it, is just stupid. Excluding even one person from fully participating in our economy and society hurts us all.

Now 45 years later, the same people who were opposed to racial integration are trying to block same-sex marriage. They say that homosexuals are not capable or worthy of forming long-term stable relationships, then slam the door on those who simply seek that stability. It’s the same argument, and it’s still stupid.

Every bone in my body knows that all of our fundamental freedoms depend on equal legal protections. It is un-American and un-Christian to stand in the way of people who are just trying to do the right thing.

I thank God that you aren’t the kind of governor George Wallace was, and that you’re willing to fight with us to change “separate but equal” into “equal,” even against the policy of your political party.

Sincerely,

Today’s stamp: “Toward equality in our schools” celebrating the Mendez v. Westminster decision to integrate our schools. That was 1947 - who argues for segregation now?

Today’s letter - hate lost, now it’s time to do good

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

As you know, the California Supreme Court has decided that same-sex marriages will proceed, consistent with its ruling and the State Constitution.

In trying to convince the court to postpone the marriages until after a vote in November, the Opponents of Equality, specifically the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Campaign for California Families, claimed that “legal chaos” would result if marriage licenses were issued for six months and then blocked by a constitutional amendment. They might be right.

Well, the marriages are proceeding, and they are at risk of being overturned. If the Opponents of Equality truly want to avoid a nightmare scenario of national “legal chaos,” then it is their turn to give a little.

I think it would be sportsman-like and morally right for the Opponents of Equality to end their war against their neighbors and friends by taking the $10 million earmarked for divisive hate politics and contribute it towards healing the sick or feeding the poor. Or perhaps they could focus on the parental notification initiative that might bring a surprising number of allies from the lesbian and gay community.

Governor, please tell the Opponents of Equality – and your Republican colleagues – that fighting against the law of the land, and against California’s families, is unacceptable. Please ask them to end their support of the Constitutional Amendment to Limit Marriage.

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - a modern divide is no less evil

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

The Mason-Dixon line was used to separate slave states from free states. We have managed to divide our country once again, this time with the battle lines that limit marriage.

Ten states – not even our neighbors – are asking California’s Supreme Court not to lift the special ban on same-sex marriages.

The Opponents of Equality are arguing that they might have to recognize our marriages in their own states, in case the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and their own states’ Constitutional Amendments are somehow struck down.

While these states may or may not have the right to exclude their fellow Americans from fully participating in their economy and society, that is up to them. Trying to punish Californians for their bigoted intolerance is reprehensible.

What is particularly sad is that they don’t even want to block California marriages altogether – they just want them to go away until November, when a Constitutional Amendment (that has not even qualified for the ballot) might stop them.

Please, Governor, join your Attorney General Jerry Brown in opposing these unfortunate attempts to second guess the California Supreme Court and undermine basic human rights in your state.

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - sliding down the slippery slope

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I wanted to explain to you why the stakes are so high for this November’s ballot initiative limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

Michigan’s State Supreme Court ruled yesterday 5-2 that their 2004 ballot initiative to limit marriage also included “similar unions” and stripped at least 375 gay couples at public universities, community colleges, school districts and local governments of their benefits. It doesn’t’ take a crystal ball to realize that as soon as the Limit on Marriage passes, the Opponents of Equality will be gunning to unwind domestic partnerships too.

Because of the Domestic Partnership legislation that you signed in 2000, I have been able to make a pretty good life here in California, marry my husband and have two kids through surrogacy. I have been able to contribute back to the economy and society through taxes and tithing. But the Limit on Marriage proposition threatens to take all that away.

Your reaction to the initiative that would wreck my life has been merely neutral. I know that there are a lot of other things that are important these days, but could you amp it up a bit? A few words in opposition to the people in your administration, government and political party who are dedicated to eliminating same-sex partner benefits, child custody, and adoption would do wonders. You need only to remind them of the golden rule – and why limiting marriage is a truly bad proposition.

Yours,

Today’s letter - my husband

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I’ve been having problems figuring out how to refer to my spouse. A lot of people try to insist that I call him my “registered California Domestic Partner,” but that doesn’t seem right to me.

We have been living as a married couple for ten years, ten months and twelve days; we were officially married at the earliest opportunity, on Valentine’s Day in 2004; we had two kids almost fourteen months ago; this year we even filed joint taxes.

I think I have to refer to my spouse as “my husband.” Anything less would be disrespectful to him and to our relationship, and confusing to the people that don’t quite know what a “partnership” is.

We shouldn’t be making up new words to describe marriages – we should be using the words that society has already defined. I wish you and your administration would do more to help people like me use the right words to describe our relatives and relations. I wish you would explain to the people that blocking same-sex couples from getting married is bad for our economy and our society.

Yours,

Today’s letter - the fight for equality got more dear

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

The estate of an early employee of Microsoft, Ric Weiland, announced a $65 million donation to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, including scholarships and legal work on same-sex marriage.

In other words, $65 million was pledged to fight against Republicans like you who preach that individual choices are the best ones, then make sure the gays can’t make the most personal choice, the choice of marriage.

Please do like Mr. Weiland – take a stand against prejudice, hate and violence by supporting the freedom of all committed couples to make the commitment of marriage.

Yours,

Today’s letter - let Oscar wed too

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

At last night’s Academy Awards, the Best Short Documentary went to a film called “Freeheld” about the struggle that a New Jersey police Lieutenant faced as she tried to include her partner in her pension while she also battled cancer. Had her partner been a different gender, it would have been automatic; instead it was anything but.

I know that you intend for Domestic Partnership to provide same-sex couples with all of the time-tested social and legal features of marriage. The truth is that Domestic Partnership fails miserably at bringing even basic parity to California’s gay partnerships.

When Director Cynthia Wade tells three million people that “It was Lt. Laurel Hester’s dying wish that her fight against discrimination would make a difference for all the same-sex couples across the country,” she is telling three million people that leaders like you are the problem; that people like you, for all your best intentions, are merely obstacles to individual liberty until you support the freedom for all of us to decide for ourselves who we marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Chancellor Schwarzenegger

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Today was the 75th anniversary of the date Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Before his reign was over, more than 65,000 homosexuals were interred or murdered.

When you vetoed AB 43, the bill that would have stopped my family from being singled out for special exclusion from marriage, you claimed that California law left you no choice.

Martin Luther King said “Don’t ever forget that what Hitler did was legal.” I don’t want you to forget that what you did to me and my family by denying me the individual choice of marriage might have been legal, but it was not right.

Strong families and individual choice are the cornerstone of California’s economy and your political party. I just wish you would support my choice to form and keep a family through marriage.

Yours,

Today’s letter - the video made me cry

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I’m still haunted by the images in the Let California Ring commercial “Garden Wedding.” In this sixty second ad by DDB Worldwide, church bells ring as a bride prepares for her big day. The door sticks, cars block her path to the wedding pavilion, low-hanging branches foil her veil, then on her way down the aisle when she just makes eye contact with her groom, somebody sticks out their foot and she trips and falls. The message covers the screen: “what if you couldn’t marry the person you love?”

As a gay dad in a Domestic Partnership, I feel like this bride in a nightmare: so close to the altar, yet constantly foiled from marrying the person I love by things completely out of my control. Like when you chose to veto AB 43, the bill that would have let me marry the person that I love. That was really mean.

Strong families and individual choice are the cornerstone of California’s economy and your political party. I just want the government to support my choice to form and keep strong families through marriage.

Yours,

Today’s letter - The people are turning away from the Opponents of Equality

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Thank you for signing SB 777 last year, an act that reorganized and reiterated basic Civil Rights for Students. You will be happy to know that the drive to repeal this legislation officially collapsed yesterday.

The advocates for a referendum this June claim they were only able to gather 350,000 unvalidated signatures and will no longer pursue the matter. They needed 430,000 valid signatures.

It is nice to see one more example of the people of California turning away from those who advocate prejudice and intolerance against their fellow citizens.

It is too late for you to sign AB 43, the bill that would have let me get married, but it’s not too late for you to turn away from the Opponents of Equality and support the Freedom to Marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Marriages are Mergers

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Scott McCartney writes of mergers in the airline industry that “analysts think multiple major marriages could lie ahead.”

Since Government regulates such mergers, are you going to withhold your blessing because the participants in these unions are not one man and one woman?

I know it sounds ridiculous to withhold a license because of an immutable characteristic of the participants – but as odd as that sounds, the fact remains that you are the last obstacle to my marriage, which you are blocking because of my gender.

Please, Governor, you don’t have to sign or veto anything – just tell the people that specially excluding some couples from marriage is un-American and wrong, and get out of the way of my basic liberty.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Choose to liberate or to obliberate

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

As an American and as a parent, I believe government should not interfere with individual choices. My personal beliefs are echoed in the California Republican Party Platform, which says:

“As Republicans, we believe the home should remain the central place for individual decision-making, and issues impacting the family should not be handed over to intrusive government bureaucrats. … [P]arents are most capable of making decisions for and about their children … the CRP opposes any effort to weaken parents’ freedom of decision and choice.”

Imagine my surprise when I found a list of lawmakers – Republicans all – who have taken a different vow, by supporting the Protect Marriage campaign “in defense of marriage.” This heartless master says:

“We oppose granting to homosexuals special privileges, including marriage, domestic partnership benefits, and child custody or adoption.”

As a homosexual American and proud parent, let me be clear: such an initiative does not just merely subvert my individual decision-making, but sets out to deliberately destroy my family outright.

You know these people, Governor. They are your colleagues and friends. Yet they have compromised their party and their conscience to pursue a path which is reprehensible. I don’t want you to ask them to abandon their beliefs: I want you to ask them to choose which belief they really support: their belief that gay people should be excluded from our economy and society, or that all individuals should have the same freedom of personal choice, especially in who they marry.

Yours,

ATTACHMENT: lawmakers who endorse the “protect marriage” campaign

ProtectMarriage.com Coalition Endorsements

State Senators
Senator Dick Ackerman (R-Tustin) - www.senate.ca.gov/Ackerman
Senator Sam Aanestad (R-Redding) - www.senate.ca.gov/Aanestad
Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield ) - www.senate.ca.gov/Ashburn
Senator James Battin, Jr. (R-La Quinta) - www.senate.ca.gov/Battin
Senator John Campbell (R-Irvine) - www.senate.ca.gov/Campbell
Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) - www.senate.ca.gov/Cox
Senator Jeff Denham (R-Merced) - www.senate.ca.gov/Denham
Senator Bob Dutton (R-San Bernadino) - www.senate.ca.gov/Dutton
Senator Dennis Hollingsworth (R- El Cajon) - www.senate.ca.gov/Hollingsworth
Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) - www.senate.ca.gov/Maldonado
Senator Bob Margett (R-Arcadia) - www.senate.ca.gov/Margett
Senator Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) - www.senate.ca.gov/McClintock
Senator Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) - www.senate.ca.gov/Morrow
Senator Charles Poochigian (R-Fresno) - www.senate.ca.gov/Poochigian
Senator George Runner (R-Antelope Valley) - www.senate.ca.gov/Runner
Senator Mark Wyland (R-Carlsbad) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Wyland

Assembly Members
Assemblyman Greg Aghzarian (R-Stockton) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Aghazarian
Assemblyman John Benoit (R-Palm Desert) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Benoit
Assemblyman Russ Bogh (R-Yucaipa) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Bogh
Assemblyman Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Cogdill
Assemblyman Chuck Devore (R-Irvine) - www.assembly.ca.gov/DeVore
Assemblyman Bill Emmerson (R-Redlands) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Emmerson
Assemblyman Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Harman
Assemblyman Guy Houston (R-San Ramon) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Houston
Assemblyman Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Huff
Assemblyman Rick Keene (R-Chico) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Keene
Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa (R-Biggs) - www.assembly.ca.gov/LaMalfa
Assemblyman Jay LaSuer (R-LaMesa) - www.assembly.ca.gov/LaSuer
Assemblyman Bill Maze (R-Visalia) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Maze
Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Mountjoy
Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi (R-Lodi) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Nakanishi
Assemblyman Roger Niello (R-Sacramento) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Niello
Assemblyman George Plescia (R-San Diego) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Plescia
Assemblywoman Sharon Runner (R-Lancaster) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Runner
Assemblywoman Audra Strickland (R-Camarillo) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Strickland
Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Costa Mesa) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Tran
Assemblyman Michael Villines (R-Clovis) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Villines
Assemblywoman Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Niguel) - www.assembly.ca.gov/Walters

Today’s letter - You can’t lead people when you hate them

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I am not impressed when evangelicals like Ted Haggard, Paul Barnes, Mike Huckabee, John Paulk, Trent Lott, Larry Craig and Richard Roberts throw stones at my family and then destroy their own. It is par for the course. I just wish they didn’t use their three million followers and shady political connections to amplify their own “rightneous” while specially excluding me and my fiancée from freely participating in the economy and society.

I am not arguing that Mike Huckabee is secretly homosexual; what I am saying is that the history of evangelical ministers – especially gay-bashing Republican ones - demonstrates that the higher they are, the further they fall. By that measure, Mike Huckabee is in orbit.

So let’s play a game. Try to match the quotations on the left with the person making it on the right:

1) “It’s not because I don’t like [gay people.] It’s because I like even more the idea that the heart and soul, the essence of our civilization is in the family [without gays].”2) “We don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It’s written in the Bible.” 3) “So there is a sense in which, you know, it’s one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that’s their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that’s an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square.” 4) “It is [a sin]….You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just like alcohol…or sex addiction…or kleptomaniacs.” 5) “We need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.”

A) Mike Huckabee, Baptist minister and Republican candidate for President.B) Ted Haggard who was having drug-fueled homosexual trysts instead of good man-on-woman sex with his wife: C) Paul Barnes, founder and former senior minister of Grace Chapel, who resigned when his gay dalliances were revealed; D) Trent Lott, Senator from Mississippi who suddenly ended his 35-year career in congress under “curious” circumstances. E) Larry Craig, Senator for Idaho, who admitted to soliciting sex in an airport bathroom. F) John Paulk, former chairman of the board for Exodus International North America (a group that beats the gay out of people)

The answers are 1-A, 2-B, 3-A, 4-D, 5-A. But it doesn’t matter, because anybody who believes that the key to fixing families in this country is by specially excluding gays from marriage is unfit for office, either by demonstrated irrationality or by hidden proclivities. You cannot lead people when you hate them.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Saving marriage for the Spears

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Today’s headlines announced that 26-year-old Britney Spears is getting married for the third time, and that her 16-year-old sister Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant – out of wedlock – with a guy she met at Church.

The response from the Campaign for California Families is an amped-up effort to “save marriage” from lesbian and gay couples.

Now I don’t know about you, Governor, but it seems to me that we should be “saving marriage” for committed couples like me and my partner of ten-and-a-half years, instead of people like the Spears who seem to have a problem with commitment.

I want my kids to have positive role models. I think society would want to promote that. Instead, your office is resonating the message that marriage is for something other than committed couples.

I wish you would use your position of power and leadership to explain to the people of California that all committed couples should have the freedom to marry – and perhaps we might be able to really and truly “save marriage.”

Yours,

Today’s letter - Going to Disneyland

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Today I’m going to Disneyland! Disneyland opened up their Fairy Tale Wedding packages on April 5 to people who are unable to secure a valid marriage license - like the citizens of California currently in Domestic Partnership relationships.

A Disney spokesman said “This is consistent with our policy of creating a welcoming, respectful and inclusive environment for all of our guests.”

I wish California would follow Disney’s lead, and like Massachusetts, Canada, Spain and South Africa, welcome our same-sex couples with the dignity of marriage. Please sign AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, when it reaches your desk this Fall.

California Dreamin’,

Today’s letter - States’ Rights

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

We passed Proposition 22 so we could make our own decisions about marriage.

It is time to exercise that right, and go where the Federal government won’t: when you get AB 43 , please sign it so same-sex couples can have all of the privileges of marriage - in fact and in name.

Sincerely,