Today’s letter - everybody loves a wedding, and nothing less

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

People are asking me, and probably still asking you, why the gays can’t just get Domestic Partnered instead of married.

As my fiancée and I prepare for our wedding next Tuesday, in terms of personal life milestones, it is not a Big Deal. We have already looked each other in the eyes and made our promises to each other. This license and ceremony doesn’t hold much meaning for us. It won’t change our legal rights, and it won’t change our relationship. So we’re getting married in the courthouse on the first day that we can.

But as somebody who has “jumped the broom” and domestic partnered, let me tell you that there is a world of difference in the way other people treat a marriage. A wedding is a Big Deal. Friends and family are getting upset that we hadn’t invited them; the in-laws are griping that we’re doing this in Orange County instead of closer to them; the rector at our church told us that she is upset that we aren’t allowing her to perform the ceremony; and my fiancée is out buying new tuxes and rings.

Nobody was this interested when we were getting Domestic Partnered. So when people ask you not to call it marriage, think back to your own wedding to Maria. Who would have come to a “domestic partnership?”

Whether people want to get married in the Central Library or a quiet courtroom, the Golden Rule still says “treat others as you would like to be treated.” Now, finally, you can do that.

Sincerely,

Today’s stamp: “wedding heart.” They don’t make “civil union” heart stamps.

Today’s letter - beyond California

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Now that it appears that we might finally have removed the barriers to the freedom to marry here in California, it is time to begin to turn our attention to letting Californians travel to other parts of the country and participate in the federal rights and responsibilities of marriage our state pays into and her citizens deserve.

The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is the short title of a federal law of the United States passed on September 21, 1996 as Public Law No. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419. Its provisions are codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C. The law has two effects:

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.

2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

As you represent California to the rest of the country and the rest of the world, please don’t forget to ask, on behalf of the Citizens who support you, that other places extend the same dignity and respect to California’s citizens that California will always provide to them.

Sincerely,

Today’s stamp: “California Poppy,” representing California to the country and the world.

Today’s letter - checkbox for hate

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I still need your help again to fix the language on California EDD Form DE1-HW. I wrote to you in July 2007 complaining about the checkbox for HUS/WIFE. As members of a California Registered Domestic Partnership trying to hire a nanny, we were quite alienated by this clear state preference for man-on-woman marriages in contrast to the letter and intent of the law that you signed in 2000 authorizing our partnership (and our Constitutional bans on discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.)

At the time you referred us to Mr. Robert Affleck, Deputy Director, Tax Branch, who referred us to Mr. Stan Adge, Tax Administrator, Taxpayer Advocate’s Office. Through ensuing conversations with Mr. Adge, he made it clear that this issue would be considered for the “next revision of the form.” Then he left the department, Ms. Leslie Weiss took over his job, and Ms. Michelle Mosley took over the mantle to fix this form.

According to verbal conversations with Ms. Mosley, “the form has been revised” and is “awaiting internal review” before being released to the Web site. But I have been unable to secure written confirmation if and when this will happen, and nobody in my community has had an opportunity to review the revised form to see if it complies with our need for equal treatment under the law.

Above all, this slow response and obscured process has made me feel as though this critical change to comply with an eight-year-old law is not a priority within EDD as it is within our community. I fear that the process has been derailed, the outcome will further alienate my family, and the result will please no one. This should be an emergency change to comply with state law, not a “suggestion” to be “considered with the next revision.”

Would you “work your magic” to get EDD to take this seriously? I don’t have anybody else to turn to to make sure that as long as lesbian and gay couples are being treated separately in California, they are at least treated equally.

Yours,

Today’s letter - political courage, not dawdling

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

In today’s New York Times Opinion section, the editors discussed New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s statement about same-sex marriage. In response to a commission’s report pointing out the second-class nature of Civil Unions, the Governor said he would sign a bill ending gay couples’ exclusion from marriage, “but not in an election year.” Doing so, he asserts, would be unnecessarily divisive.

The New York Times writes “we appreciate his candor. But to achieve real marital equality will take political courage, not more dawdling.”

Indeed, the Opponents of Equality have not hesitated to choose election years to deliberately divide this country. Through your dawdling, Governor, you have given them another opportunity to turn neighbors in this state against each other.

Governor, I wish you would find the political courage to tell the people of California and Supreme Court next Tuesday that domestic apartheid is not acceptable. All California families deserve access to the time-tested legal and social structure called “marriage.”

Yours,

Today’s letter - New Jersey knows separate is never equal

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

New Jersey has had “civil unions” for a year now. A state commission was formed to find out how that was working out, and they released their report today.

The 12-member commission found that the law “creates a second-class status” for the 2,400 same-sex couples who have been unioned, and that the law is not fulfilling its mandate of providing same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexuals.

The commission wrote:

“The commission also heard testimony that the term ‘marriage,’ were it applied to the relationships of same-sex couples, would make a significant difference in providing equality to same-sex couples in New Jersey. Civil union status is not clear to the general public, which creates a second-class status.”

In addition, because civil unions are not open to heterosexuals, “The New Jersey Civil Union law automatically outs someone or anyone who gets civil unioned,” which is a breach of privacy.

Lynn Fontaine Newsome, president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, testified before the commission that “the legal work performed for these clients is double that which is performed for married couples to ensure that they are afforded equal rights,” raising the costs for poor and minority couples who most need the time-tested protection of marriage.

Governor, you know that the domestic apartheid that you have set up and advocated hurts the people of your state. New Jersey’s Governor Jon Corzine has said he would sign a marriage bill - what about you? I wish you would take action to make sure that all of California’s couples have the same freedom – the freedom to marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - What would Lincoln do?

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Today is, of course, Abraham Lincoln’s 199th birthday and the start of a two-year bicentennial celebration. I understand that presidents are a sore subject for you since you are specially banned from being President simply because of where you were born – but maybe that will give you some sympathy for what I am about to propose.

There is a great deal of debate about Lincoln’s life: where he was actually born, whether he was actually against slavery, whether he was gay or straight – but there is little debate about what he would think of today’s fashion of removing from people the freedom to marry.

There is no question that same-sex couples operate on a different level in this country with regards to marriage. The country is divided, and as Mr. Lincoln pointed out, this is not a stable situation. A house divided, falls, but “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” (185

The modern Republican sooths his soul by pointing out that all the same rights of marriage can be metered out by civil unions and some good lawyers, and anyways, gay people can get married as long as it is to a person of the opposite sex.

Of course, being able to marry the person of your choice is a lot different than being able to marry. Lincoln said “I do not understand that because I do not want a Negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife.” (1863)

And having a “middle ground” of domestic partnership as a substitute for marriage is also awkward. Mr. Lincoln famously asked an opponent in a debate “If we call its tail a leg, then how many legs does a dog have?” The reply was “Five.” Mr. Lincoln, delighted, said, “No, it is four. Just because you call a tail a leg doesn’t make it so.” Clearly, a marriage by any other name is not the same.

So how are we to unite this house? We must choose to either permanently deny same-sex couples of the freedom to marry, or treat all men (and presumably women) equally and fairly under the law.

“We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.” (1864)

Who are those ‘enemies?’ To answer that question, we need only examine how Mr. Lincoln elevated the Golden Rule, such as in this letter to Henry Pierce: “This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” (1859)

Would you, Governor, dare to tell a couple they cannot marry because one person is not born in the same country as another? Or because they espouse different political parties? Your own marriage to Maria Shriver (an Amercian, Kennedy & Democrat) is based on those contrivances – and yet in telling some people they must access the time-tested social and legal structure of marriage through some second-rate institution, you reverse the divine rule to do unto others as you would like done to you.

Let me conclude the same way Mr. Lincoln concluded his Address at Cooper Union in 1860: with an admonishment to reject apartheid because it yields no path to freedom.

“Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of “don’t care” on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.”

It is not an accident that Log Cabin Republicans choose the founder of the GOP as their icon. They are not aligning themselves with Mr. Lincoln’s sexuality, they are aligning themselves with the concept that after freedom itself, the greatest blessing of civic life is the opportunity to marry the person you love.

Governor, if Abraham Lincoln were alive today, what do you think he would tell you to do about same-sex marriage?

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

Please, do your duty, protect the Constitution and give us all the same freedom – the freedom to marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Building Tax Equivalency is Hard Work

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

When my same-sex domestic partner and I got Domestic Partnered, we had to reconstruct a sharing of our property like we would get automatically through marriage. We transferred our property into a joint trust, expecting Proposition 13 to keep our taxes frozen like it is supposed to do for families.

However, our county assessor saw things differently. Apparently because domestic partners are specially excluded from marriage, he believes they should also be specially excluded from the protections of Proposition 13. He quadrupled our property taxes.

I read today that this case has finally wound its way through the courts, and same-sex couples ARE protected by Proposition 13.

This is good news for us – we can start the paperwork today to get back some of the extra money we had to pay in taxes – but I really wish we didn’t have to take every little thing such as this to court when we could simply access the time-tested stability of marriage.

You could cut out a lot of waste in government and help families like mine reach our full potential if you would only support free choice in marriage. Please tell Californians that everybody deserves the freedom to marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Uruguay has more freedom than America

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I used to get excited when a new country announced recognition of same-sex couples. For example, Uruguay is about to provide equivalent social security, pension, inheritance, and parenting rights to both heterosexual and homosexual couples through a “civil union” structure. I used to see it as a tipping point in the way people saw – and treated – their lesbian and gay brethren.

But with Civil Unions or marriage available throughout almost forty countries representing every continent except Antarctica, I’m starting to instead see it as a countdown until the United States is the last country on earth that fails to allow her lesbian and gay citizens to fully participate in the economy and community.

How can we say America is the “land of the free” when people in Uruguay get social security, pension, inheritance, and parenting rights, while my partner of ten years and I become legal strangers as soon as we step out of our home state? Uruguay!!!!!!

It is truly a global embarrassment that you, Governor, tolerate the negative and divisive bullying tactics that the Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) and other opponents of equality are using to carve out and marginalize an entire group of people based on who they happen to love.

Change begins at home. The next year will be pivotal in the fight between the opponents of equality and fair-minded Californians. I need you to do more than stay silent: please support the freedom to marry so the United States might someday join the world community in treating all of her citizens with dignity and respect.

Yours,

Today’s letter - In-laws are people too

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I’m sorry to hear that your mother-in-law, Eunice Schriver, is in the hospital.

I wish I could have a mother-in-law. The woman who fills that role is just as vibrant, just as delightful and just as much of a person as Eunice – but because of the ban on gay marriage that you support, she can’t be my mother-in-law.

I wish the best for Eunice and your family during this difficult time, and encourage you to relish this relationship that only the special right of marriage can provide.

Yours,

Today’s letter - A good team at bat, but one bad player put us way behind on human rights

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger –

I knew California was the first state to end the ban on interracial marriages (194 and I always assumed we would continue to be leaders and proponents for all civil rights. Imagine my surprise when I discovered California didn’t add sexual orientation to its protected classes until ten years after Wisconsin (1982). We were also out-scored by Massachusetts (1989), Connecticut (1991) and Hawaii (1991).

Likewise with marriage equivalency, we were behind the ball. Even Hawaii had domestic partnerships before we did (1997) and Vermont scored in 2000, Our Domestic-Partnership-is-the-same-as-marriage law didn’t get to home base until 2005, five years too late.

On marriage, we were poised to take the lead when love went to bat in San Francisco in the spring of 2004, and when our legislature became the first to channel that human need from the people to the governor. But Massachusetts won the World Series of civil rights when they approved marriage and you struck us out – becoming not part of the first state to end the ban on same-sex marriage, but the first governor to unilaterally block the people’s freedom to marry.

I am embarrassed that you took away our victory then, and embarrassed that you refuse to stand on the side of freedom and equality now. Please stop telling your friends, colleagues and neighbors that their relationships – and their humanity – is less important than yours, and support the freedom to marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Separating sex and marriage

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I just want to get married like everybody else. I believe that those who are opposed to giving me that freedom are confused about what I would do with it. Some groups claim that gays want to get married so they can get “special rights” and others so we can molest children.

I know that you come from a background where bodybuilders are often called stupid and homosexual, and you have spent your whole career correcting those assumptions. You must know how frustrating it can be to know the truth, yet have people perpetuate lies.

Parents want to do what’s best for their children, but anybody with the brains God gave geese knows that blocking my marriage does not protect kids from their “celebrate” parish priest and that punishing me when I have done nothing wrong does not stop wicked Uncle Ernie. If parents really wanted to do the best thing for their kids, they would not let pedophiles hide behind the smokescreen of heterosexuality, and they would not teach their kids that stereotyping a disliked group is OK - be it bodybuilders or homosexuals.

I wish you would work with fair-minded Californians to dispel the myths about same-sex marriage and support the freedom to marry for me and for all Californians.

Yours,

Today’s letter - mail bag: "marriage doesn’t make love"

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I’m somebody who believes in old-fashioned letters, and the old-fashioned concept that people living together should be married. So today I want to share my response to a YouTuber who read (or rather watched) my July 27 letter to you about upgrading Domestic Partnerships to Marriage.

Dear SIGNAB43:

Its IMPOSSIBLE to love someone FOREVER! sooner or later your love for someone will deminish, its only after your love deminishes where true love can be formed. True love is sometihng like “no matter what happens, i will always love you” kinda like a mother and her kids. Its only after you lose your love for someone, then you can create true love. that will be the ultimate test

JUKIO01

Dear JUKIO01

Well, my “partner” and I have been together for ten years three months (yesterday). We liked and loved each other when we met, and we still like and love each other now. We had two kids through surrogacy in March. We made a commitment to each other and to God to stick together through the rough spots, and it worked to make our love even stronger. We did that without “marriage.” So all these hateful laws are not even effective - only hurtful, not just to us, but to the whole idea of “marriage.” Like you said, it’s true love that makes a family. We passed that test - can we get married now?

SIGNAB43

So, Governor, the kids are asking “why marriage.” Your veto of AB 43 combined with our example of true love out of wedlock shows the unfortunate side-effect of “defending marriage” by excluding people: like postal mail in the age of computers, if it is not necessary, it will go away. That would make traditionalists like me really sad.

I wish you had signed AB 43, but it’s not too late to save marriage by supporting the freedom to marry.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Domestic Partnerships are bad for Heterosexuals too

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I’ve written to you in the past about AB 43 which would allow same-sex couples to choose between marriage and Domestic Partnership, but today I want to write to you about a reciprocal bill - SB 11 - which would give all opposite-sex couples the option to choose Domestic Partnership instead of marriage.

Heterosexuals couples over 62 years old can already choose Domestic Partnership instead of marriage but SB 11 would remove the age restriction and let anybody who can get married get Domestic Partnered instead.

I actually agree with Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) and an infamous Opponent of Equality, who said “Awarding marriage rights to people who shack up but refuse to get married is completely ridiculous. Why get married if you can get all the legal rights and benefits of marriage without being committed? This bad bill severely weakens the institution of marriage and will motivate unwed parents to remain uncommitted.”

SB 11 is a reciprocal bill to AB 43, and the reciprocal truth applies: why ban people who are “shacking up” from the commitment of marriage? Why would you motivate (or force) unwed parents to remain uncommitted? Just as SB 11 weakens marriage, AB 43 strengthens it by allowing committed couples to commit to each other.

My California Domestic Partner and I have been “shacked up” and “uncommitted” for way too long. I wish you would let us access the safety and security of marriage just like everybody else: please sign AB 43.

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - Once again, Domestic Partnership is not the same as Marriage

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I’m just a normal guy trying to be the best father I can. Something has to really upset me to get me to write a letter. You accomplished that when you said that Domestic Partnership is the same as marriage.

You make me feel me frustrated because anybody with the sense God gave geese knows that they’re different. Domestic Partnership isn’t enough to satisfy the people who are forced into them, and it’s too much to satisfy the Opponents of Equality. In the meantime taxpayers are forking out to maintain a separate set of laws governing relationships and everybody is confused because there is no simple definition of a relationship.

I have to admit that when my California Domestic Partner and I got Domestic Partnered over a photocopier in the Glendale Galleria, it was not the happiest moment in my life. It was more like a trip to the dentist. But when we were eloped in San Francisco in 2004, my mother cried because she couldn’t make it in time to see her son get married. That’s the power a word has.

Obviously, you wouldn’t exclude people from marriage if you didn’t think that Domestic Partnerships were equal. Even you know that would be wrong. I’m here to tell you that they are not equal, not even separate-but-equal. They are demeaning and humiliating by their very design - the verbal and political equivalent of South Africa’s Townships and the pyramids of Abu Ghraib. When you say they are the same, you are wrong: not only technically incorrect but also ethically bankrupt.

You don’t have to sign AB 43 to support the freedom to marry, but as long as you pretend that Domestic Partnerships are the same as marriage, you are doing yourself and the people of California a grave disservice.

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - Fair work and fair pay for a labor of love

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

On this Labor Day, I want to share a story of success for California’s Domestic Partnerships.

You might have heard of Longshore union worker William Swenor, who had died suddenly in March 2005, leaving his partner of 51 years, Marvin Burrows, unable to claim his partner’s pension because their contracts only acknowledge ‘married spouses.’

After two years of talks, the Industrial Employers and Distributors Association and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6 was persuaded to renegotiate its contract to provide registered domestic partners with the same pension benefits as spouses. They made the change retroactive because “it was the right thing to do.”

Not everybody is as brave Mr. Burrows, who spoke up for his rights in an environment often toxic to gay people; not everybody is resourceful enough to get the National Center for Lesbian Rights to represent them; not every organization is as fair-minded as the ILWU.

That is why California needs AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, so all California couples will have the same freedom to choose the stability and security of marriage.

The alternative, as Mr. Burrows discovered, is to get your employer to recognize your ‘domestic partnership’ as the equivalent of marriage, which, in this labor of love, was finally the case.

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - teasing my kids

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

As the father of two six-month old children, I believe my partner and I should have the freedom to marry.

Our kids have two dads, and like all kids they will be teased about something. Letting same-sex couples get married just like everybody else means they will have one less thing to be teased about. They won’t have any idea how much social stigma we had to overcome to bring them to school, because having two parents who are married is no big deal.

As a fellow parent (who happens to be governor), you can make it happen: please sign AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, and let me and my California Registered Domestic Partner get married, just like everybody else.

Many thanks,

Today’s letter - Thank you for being a friend

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Thank you for being so supportive of California’s many lesbian and gay families, from signing our historic domestic partnership legislation to leaving $300,000 in this year’s budget for LGBT victims of domestic violence.

I wish your support of our community would go just one step further, the final step to marriage equality. You have the authority to reverse Jerry Brown’s 1977 change that banned gay marriage in California, without affecting the state rights proposition passed by voters in 2000. You have the opportunity to give freedom of religion and civil marriage protection to many thousands of families. You can continue to be a great friend to all of us who just want to be the best parents they can. Just sign AB 43 and support full and equal access to marriage for all Californians.

Your friend,

Today’s letter - Eight Domestic Partnership Laws or One Marriage Bill

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

My California Registered Domestic Partner and I are raising our two kids here in Los Angeles. There are currently nine bills moving through the legislature that will make my family’s life better. Five of them will make California a safer place for our children, and three of them are enhancements to California’s Domestic Partnership laws that you have so wonderfully supported. But only one of them will provide us with the respect, dignity and freedom that all Californians should enjoy.

SB 105 would simplify my state taxes so we can file them as easily as straight couples. SB 559 would fix my property value that was reassessed when we moved it into our family trust. AB 102 lets us change our family name like couples do when they get married.

But AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, would make those three laws and many others unnecessary by simply ending the legislature-imposed ban on same-sex marriage.

I don’t understand why your support for families like mine ends short of supporting marriage. California deserves to have one set of rules for everybody. Please sign AB 43 and end this parade of separate laws.

Hopefully,

Today’s letter - Congratulations on the Budget

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I was glad to hear that you have a budget on your desk so soon. While you were busy cutting programs - including your own - to balance it, I found $40 million: just sign AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act.

We will save $24 Million each year by closing access to means-tested public benefits. That means somebody who stays home with the kids won’t be able to collect food stamps while their “legal domestic partner” makes a six-figure salary. (The study was co-authored by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and IGLSS.)

As a taxpayer, I would also enjoy the $16 Billion windfall in tourism and commerce that Forbes predicts.

The legislature installed the ban on same-sex marriage in 1977, and the legislature can remove it now. It will not harm one person and bring dignity to so many. And it will help our economy. Isn’t that what being a Republican is all about?

Yours,

Today’s letter - First comes Love

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

The rhyme goes:

First comes love (we met June 22, 1997)
Then comes marriage (we were married in San Francisco on Valentines Day 2004)
Then comes baby in the baby carriage (we had twins - a boy and a girl - in March)

We did everything right! But our marriage was annulled by the state and now we’re reduced to groveling for our equivalent legal rights through the domestic partnership system.

Now won’t you do what’s right? California should have one word for marriage: “marriage.” Please sign AB 43 and give us back our marriage.

Today’s letter - gays can’t marry but straights can domestic partner

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Did you know that in California, same-sex couples cannot be married, but opposite-sex couples can be domestic partners?

Apparently by Federal law, if you are being paid your dead spouse’s Social Security and remarry, you lose your deceased partner’s benefits. Our domestic partnership law has a carve-out for straight people over the age of 62 so they can keep their former spouse’s social security benefits, yet enjoy survivorship, inheritance and hospital visitation with their new partner.

I think that stinks. I’ve been in a domestic partnership since 2000; I pay MORE than the same taxes, but I can’t get my partner’s Social Security at all. If I were in a heterosexual relationship, I would not only be able to get my husband’s benefits, but also defraud the government in my next relationship.

California should have one word for marriage: “marriage.” Please sign AB 43 and get rid of this nonsense.

Offended, but still yours,