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 - Germany’s apology

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

“Germany wants to honor the persecuted and murdered victims, to keep alive the memory of the injustice they suffered,” and provide “a lasting symbol against intolerance and hostility towards gays and lesbians and against their alienation.” Those words (or in German, probably one really long word) are on a plaque on a new monument in Berlin.

Nazi Germany’s campaign against homosexuals began in 1933 and by 1945 more than 50,000 men were convicted and separated from their liberty and property. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 15,000 of them were sent to concentration camps. Gay men (and those perceived to be gay) were forced to wear pink triangles and were sometimes used as medical guinea pigs.

Unlike other groups of Nazi victims, the persecution of the gay community continued under the same law, with more than 50,000 convictions before a 2002 government pardoned them and finally abolished the legislation.

Here in America, we like to think that we are better than the Third Reich, yet in 2008 we still convicting our own citizens of being gay, forcing them to wear “domestic partnerships” and separating them from the financial and social stability that only the time-tested law of marriage can provide.

It is urgent that this ostracism, bullying and unequal treatment end. Please continue to support the freedom to marry and the downfall of the Constitutional Amendment to Limit Marriage.

Yours,

Today’s stamp: Wolverine from X-Men. Little is known of Wolverine’s past, but we do know “those who forget their past are doomed to relive it.” Wolverine uses his skills to help protect a world that hates and fears mutants like himself.

Today’s letter - just don’t call it “day”

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Today is so-called “leap day” that only comes along once every four years. This “day” was fabricated and imposed on us in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII just so that Easter would fall at around the same time of year. It is really just a collection of hours to make up for the six hour discrepancy between the traditional year and the seasons, and not a “day.”

In ancient times, the adjustment was a whole ten-day month that happened every 25 years; by 46 BC, Caesar created a whole month – one day long – to deal with the problem. The month was legally identical to the day before it, “separate but equal” one might say. Clearly, it is a time period like no other in the calendar year, and it requires special treatment, for calling it a “day” demeans all of the other days of the year.

Where is the incentive for the sun to rise if just any time adjustment can be called a “day?” We need to protect the traditional definition of a year – which everybody knows is 365 days – against this assault to logic.

I propose that instead of calling this a “day” we call it a “domestic time adjustment interval” and that people who are born or die during this time period are recorded on the previous or following day.

You don’t call a “domestic partnership” a marriage – you should not call “February 29th” a day, or else the calendar, the foundation of our society and economy, would surely collapse.

Yours,

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,