Pedestrian

For years the right-wing has used a mantra something like “no special rights for gays” or “gay rights are special rights” to fight against and to legally deny any sort of protection or rights for LGBT people and couples.

In 2002, “President Bush announced that ‘gay rights are special rights,’ as his defense against criticism that came when he refused to enact various civil rights laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from discrimination in their daily lives.”

March 5, 2009 in front of California State Building

The campaign for Prop 8 in California last year mostly used slogans of “marriage is one man plus one woman” and themes of “protecting” marriage and “protect the children” and so on.

However, by passing Prop 8 they unwittingly gave those exact “special rights” to a special class of approximately 18,000 couples who remain legally married, caught in time, in California in spite of Prop 8.

Yeah, sure that wasn’t their intent of Prop 8 but they didn’t include anything retroactive in their proposition language.

That’s exactly the “special rights” that these campaigns have been trying to fight against – to keep us from having any protection, from having any rights and responsibilities within our families, all in the name of “protecting children” and “protecting marriage.”

So then what’s my special locked-in-time-marriage status?  It’s special gay rights!

These anti-LGBT slogans and campaigns are slowly dying.  Even if, fingers crossed this doesn’t happen, Ref 71 in Washington is rejected and Question 1 in Maine is passed, the mantras of “protecting children from gays” and “keeping gay marriage out of school curriculum” and “saving traditional marriage” are being slowly dismantled because the anti-gay groups have no proof that marriages such as mine do any damage at all to the institution of marriage, to schools, and to children.

My special gay marriage protects my kid.  Before my special gay marriage was legal, domestic partnership protected my kid and me and my sweetie and helped define our family and give our family rights to each other that married people usually take for granted.

Approve Referendum 71 in Washington State!

Vote No on Question 1 in Maine!

Be kind.