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 - the face of Republicans

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

A couple of weeks ago, Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern was caught comparing lesbian and gay citizens to cancer and calling them “worse than terrorists.”

It would have been nice if this very personal attack against my beliefs and my family had been met by public admonishment by her party and her state. Instead, it was answered by a teenager named Tucker:

“On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. … That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. … Your harsh words and misguided beliefs brought me to tears, because you told me that my mother’s killer was a better person than a group of people that are seeking safety and tolerance for themselves.

“Let me tell you the result of your words in my school. Every openly gay and suspected gay in the school were having to walk together Monday for protection. They looked scared. They’ve already experienced enough hate and now your words gave other students even more motivation to sneer at them and call them names…. I seriously think before this week ends that some kids here will be going home bruised and bloody because of what you said.

“I wish you could’ve met my mom. Maybe she could’ve guided you in how a real Christian should be acting and speaking.”

Governor, you have not said the evil things that Sally Kern has. But you have also done nothing to undo them either. You continue to tolerate anti-gay messaging in your Republican party, your Catholic church and within your own administration. You continue to call same-sex couples who aspire to marriage as somehow less worthy of human dignity than yourself.

I am truly disappointed in you both as a governor and as a human being.

Yours,

Today’s letter - Thank God for Happiness

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Happy Thanksgiving!

At the dinner table this afternoon my mother told me that her friend Harold had shown her pictures of his grandchildren for the first time last week. She said that he hadn’t wanted to show them because he felt bad that they would “never have grandkids of their own.”

If I had been less blessed, I would have never have found my ’soulmate,’ been Domestic Partnered and pursued surrogacy, and they wouldn’t have grandkids. But life has been bountiful for me. My parents are grandparents, and now they are happy for Harold, Harold is happy for them, and I am happy that they are happy. Yeah happy!

On this day of giving thanks, I want to thank you for giving California an environment where lesbian and gay families can exist, and giving me the freedom to ask my government to get off of my back and let these couples wed. Please support the freedom to marry, and make more happy people.

Yours,

Today’s letter - back to basics

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

I was lucky enough to find somebody that I love, who loves me back. We have been together ten years, two months and twenty-one days, and our two kids are celebrating their first half-birthday today.

We want to get married just like you and Maria, and everybody else. The people, the legislature and our church all support our choice - why don’t you?

Please sign AB 43 and end the special exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in California.

Sincerely,

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 - Let them wed

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

In the October 2006 issue of Esquire magazine, Brad Pitt said “Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.”

Their kids - and ours - deserve to have parents who are legally married. Please sign AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act and let them wed!

Sincerely,

Today’s letter - Taking care of parents who take care of kids

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger -

Through my parenting group, I know several gay couples who have adopted children that were either abused or unwanted.

I wish these foster parents could get married. It would provide a stronger legal framework and access to services; it would remove the stigma attached to any child who has unwed parents; and it would reward these families with the basic dignity that ‘domestic partnership’ can never deliver.

These kids deserve parents who are married. I wish you would sign AB 43 and help Californians say no to discrimination.

Many thanks in advance,