Droid and iPhone4 complement each other

I’ve ended up using two smartphones because of my work. My company does usability testing for iPhone, iPad and Android apps (as well as web sites and web apps).  For my work, when I’m watching people use a mobile app and interviewing them and videorecording what they’re doing on the smartphone or tablet, it’s much easier to videorecord the screen of an Android device compared with the screen of an iDevice (probably because the screen of iDevices are so bright).

If I have to choose just one smartphone to put in my pocket, I usually choose based on where I’m going and what I’m doing:

• If I’m travelling and need lots of apps for mapping and finding things, as well as airline apps for checking in and finding a gate, I use the iPhone.
• If it’s my daily life of parenting and working and commuting on MUNI/Caltrain and communicating with people, I use the Droid.
• If I’m going to take a lot of photos or videos, I use the iPhone.
• If I’m going to do a lot of writing (even if just a lot of texting), I use the Droid.
• If I want to play Plants v Zombies, I can only play that on the iPhone (it won’t run on my Droid1 but I’m hoping it will on my new Droid3 tomorrow!)

The original Motorola Droid:

• It does better multitasking than the iPhone and I can keep more things running at the same time.
• It works well as a phone since Verizon has more coverage than AT&T in San Francisco (less of an issue now with iPhone and Verizon)
• The physical keyboard makes it much easier for me to type a lot (I miss the keyboard on the Treo – it was one of the easiest to use keyboards I’ve ever used on a smartphone. I could type on the Treo keyboard without looking at it)
• The response time seems, to me, much faster for everything compared with iPhone4
• It’s more transparent and I can always see what an app is accessing and find and kill any running processes
• One of the biggest learning curves I had, in 2009, when I first got the Droid, was figuring out how to make my battery last all day. The power widget became my best friend.
• The widgets are awesome. I love the power widget for easily toggling, right on the “desktop,” the settings for wi-fi and bluetooth and GPSand sync and brightness without going all the way into the settings
• The screen is not as pretty and bright as the iPhone – it’s duller on the Droid, but that means it’s easier to use clandestinely in the dark and easier to video record how someone is using it
• It’s not as easy to backup as the iPhone, but it’s easier to get data on and off the Droid since you just mount it as an external drive on any computer. That’s more flexible and manageable than the iPhone’s requirement to handshake with iTunes.
• It’s super difficult to sync contacts/calendar/mail unless you’re syncing with google so I just gave up on some of my distrust of google and sync it all there
• The animated wallpapers amuse me (and drain the battery)
• MUNI Alerts is by far my favorite and most used app (I ride public transportation a lot in San Francisco). It loads much more quickly than Routesy on the iPhone and time is of the essence when getting to a bus or streetcar.
• I love love love the Kindle app because I can read the same book between Droid, iPhone, iPad and keep track of bookmarks in the cloud
• I also like using the Evernote and Dropbox and WordPress and Google Docs and Netflix apps between Droid, iPhone, iPad
• It’s much easier to take a photo with the physical button on the side of the Droid (compared with trying to tap something on the screen on the iPhone) — particularly if you’re holding the phone with an outstretched arm
• The apps are easier to get. Many of the iPhone apps require a wi-fi connection to download and then sometimes want to sync with a computer.
• When I was waiting at city hall in the summer of 2010, waiting for a prop8 decision to come from fed court, waiting with friends who hoped to get married (then couldn’t), I looked for a piano app for iPhone or Droid so I could play the wedding march for them and other couples.  I couldn’t get an app for iPhone — none of them could be downloaded over a 3g connection, they all wanted wi-fi.  I did find an app for Android and successfully tapped out the wedding march.
• I can easily tether my Droid and have been able to for quite a while. It wasn’t and still isn’t as easy to tether an iPhone.
• It used to be that popular/major apps (or maybe just the ones that intrigue me) almost always came out for iPhone before they did for Android. Now, in 2011, some apps come out for Android first.

The iPhone4:

• I love the screen and the games.  It’s a bright gorgeous screen.
• I dislike that I can’t dim the screen enough. The lowest brightness setting isn’t low enough at night in the dark.
• I like the front facing camera and I use it a lot, sometimes just to see if there’s any lunch left between my two front teeth.
• It’s much easier to sync/backup than Droid since it’s a closed system but I dislike that you have to sync everything in order to backup, particularly for iBooks books.
• I dislike that iBooks books can only be read on two of my devices.
• There’s more stuff for my kid to play with on the iPhone than on the Droid. There are probably 70 or 80 games on my iPhone for my kid compared with 7 or 8 on my Droid.
• I hate the touchscreen for typing but I’ve gotten better at it. Last winter I used Echo Design’s gloves and tested them on iPhone and Droid for typing in cold weather without taking off gloves. It was easier to use the iPhone with gloves than the Droid (can’t type on physical hardware keyboard with gloves)
• I manage all of my music via iTunes and it’s easier to get music onto the iPhone than onto the Droid
• I pay a lot to AT&T for service that is rarely available at my home or the other places I work/wander around San Francisco. I usually just keep it in airport mode with wi-fi on. Oddly enough I noticed that the San Francisco Chronicle building has a strong AT&T signal and practically no Verizon signal.
• I have a general impression that some apps on iPhone are more elegant than any apps on Droid. I find Droid apps tend to be more buggy than iPhone apps, in general.
• I use an app called Sit or Squat a lot to find a bathroom when I’m out and about.  I don’t know of a similar app for Android.
• Foursquare, when I use it, seems to find places nearby more quickly on the iPhone than on my Droid. That might just be a problem with the GPS service turning off/on/off/on on my Droid.
• Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” apps are my new favorites and they don’t exist for Android.

The easiest way to to watch is via C-SPAN.  They stream live on their web site at http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx (with an option for fullscreen viewing in a separate window).

If you’re in San Francisco or Pasadena or Seattle or Portland or Brooklyn or Boston, you can watch the proceedings at a courthouse.  Details about viewing in a courthouse are here in a PDF.  My wife, Moya, and I, will most likely be in one of the overflow viewing rooms in a San Francisco courthouse. I like sitting in an overflow room in a courthouse (usually a courtroom) with other people interested in the continuing Prop 8 legal trials.  At closing arguments in the last court trial, I met someone who called himself my “enemy.”

Mostly local to the San Francisco Bay Area, these TV and radio stations were granted their request for live broadcast or later broadcast.  The radio stations probably stream their broadcast on their web site or through iTunes or similar:

KGO-TV
KRON-TV
KTVU – Channel 2
ABC News (both TV and radio)
KCBS radio
KGO radio
KQED News
Non-Party Media Coalition (TV, Radio, Webcast) <— who’s that?
CBS Network News and PBS-Newshour and KPIX TV, CBS 5 and KXTV-News10 are videotaping for later broadcast

I’m hoping the results of this appeal end up more like this:

Aug 4, 2010 Prop 8 federal district court decision

And not at all like this:

May 26, 2009 California State Supreme Court decision

There was no Lance Bass, no Melissa Etheridge, nobody coming out on the cover of a major news magazine, no gayby boom, no Will & Grace, no L Word, no president saying the words gay or lesbian or acknowledging LGBT people, no Ellen, no DADT or fight to end DADT, no domestic partner rights, no adoption rights, no fight for ENDA, no Prop8, no lesbian mayor of Houston in the news, and I didn’t even know the acronym or the words for the acronym LGBT until my late teens.

The first time, as a young teenager, I told an adult that I was attracted to girls, not boys, I was told that my feelings were wrong and I could pray those feelings away.

The second time I came out, as an adult, I stayed out and I regularly continue to come out, as needed.  When someone, in casual chitchat, asks if I’m married, I say yes, the followup question is usually, “What does your husband do?” and I come out again.  When someone says my daughter looks like me and asks if she looks like my husband too, then I come out again, both as a woman with a wife and as an adoptive mother, not a biological mother.

My parents love me dearly, my lesbian sister and straight brothers, too, and if someone asks them about their children and grandchildren they likely mention their 6 smart beautiful amazing grandchildren and their 4 successful talented children.  They are probably less likely to mention that their 2 daughters are lesbians, or that 4 of those 6 grandchildren have lesbian moms.  They are also probably less likely to mention that the 4 children with lesbian moms are all adopted by their daughters, being the biological children of their daughters’ wives.

I could be wrong about that, but I do know straight people, particularly parents of LGBT people, often have their own closet and coming out process that share a lot in common with the experience of LGBT people who lose friendships and family closeness when they come out.

Too many times LGBT people are blamed for the loss of family or friends, and the estrangement within social and familial groups, when they come out.  They aren’t to blame.  If anyone is to blame, it’s the family and friends who so easily reject a relationship with someone who is dear to them.

Sunny day outside the Federal building

As Moya and I walked to the Federal Building for the Prop 8 closing arguments yesterday (full transcript), I remembered all the times we’d walked that way to take Lucy to preschool, as well as the times when the marriage cases were before the California Supreme Court and we’d had to wade through Prop 8 supporters and opponents to get into the state building to take Lucy to preschool.

We entered the Federal building, took off our shoes, removed our laptops, got through security, and went to wait for an elevator to take us to the 19th floor where we planned to watch the arguments in the overflow room.  We were told that the overflow room was already full. No problem, we’ll just wait, I thought.

After we got through security we saw a good friend of ours who works in the building but couldn’t stop to chat much because we needed to get in line for the overflow room.  We waited for the elevator and noticed that one of the men waiting with us looked familiar (it was David Boies).  He was talking with a pregnant woman and said to her, “we have mostly friends here today.”

We got up to the 19th floor and got to the back of a line of approximately 20-30 people who were waiting for a space in the overflow room.  Moya chatted with the man standing in line behind us while I sat on the floor and configured apps on my gadgets.  At some point Moya mentioned Maggie Gallagher and I said something about how I’d like to invite Maggie over for a cocktail so she could see how much our family is more like hers than different, how our marriage isn’t threatening anything or anyone, and how our daughter is thriving and happy and healthy.  Eventually a woman came by and counted the people in line.  By then there were 70 or 80 people in line and I stood up to be counted and then chatted with Moya and the man who was behind us in line.  He talked about his high school son and his daughter in college and mentioned he lives in Southern California and that we should come visit sometime.

The first overflow room was full.  A second overflow room was opened up and we were counted as we walked in (I was number 30).  As we were walking past framed old photos, the man behind us in line mentioned the photos and that he’d been here in January for two weeks for the Prop 8 trial.  As we waited to walk into the overflow room I asked him what kind of work he did that allowed him 2 weeks off to fly up to San Francisco and watch a trial.  He leaned towards me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, with a smile, “I’m your enemy.” I thought he was being sarcastic and joking.  I laughed.  We continued some conversation about how people on both sides of Prop 8 have more in common than they might think.

Apparently he had a similar conversation in January during the Prop 8 trial, about the photos in the wall, about commonalities amongst people on both sides of Prop 8.  Davina Kotulski wrote, on January 22, 2010:

I started the morning with gulping down my latte. While I was doing this and admiring the historic photos of San Francisco on the 19th floor in the federal building, I struck up a conversation with the other person in the hallway. It turned out that I was talking to Brian Woodward from the California Family Council. We talked about how we could find our commonalities and exchanged business cards.

My view from the 2nd row

When we got into the overflow room, we felt lucky that we got a seat in the second row behind a large screen.  There were smaller screens on tables with chairs and large screens in front of rows of benches.  I checked Twitter and noticed people commenting about Maureen Dowd, in sunglasses and holding a Starbucks cup, sitting in the back of the other overflow room.  Brian and Moya and I were chitchatting and checking our devices before the Ted Olson’s closing argument began.  Olson was followed by Terry Stewart, attorney for City/County of San Francisco, and then the attorney for the governor and attorney for the attorney general were given time.  I loved that the state attorneys simply stood up and waived their time and said nothing in defense of Prop 8.

Then Judge Walker went over some marriage application forms with Claude Kolm representing the Alameda County Clerk Recorder.  I was never really sure why Alameda County was represented.  Judge Walker provided some comic relief when he said (from pages 68-69 of the transcript):

We didn’t check Alameda County, but just this morning checked San Francisco, Orange County and Imperial County. It appears on applications for marriage licenses that in San Francisco there is a box for groom, there is a box for bride and that’s labeled optional.

And in Orange County (sic) there is a bullet point for groom, a bullet point for bride, and one labeled none.
(Laughter.) And I think the same is true in Orange County (sic). And my understanding, although I personally didn’t go through the exercise, in the Orange County application, which you can apply for a marriage license online, if you fill out, say, groom and then fill out the data and then punch next, which would call up the other party, you can put in groom again. It doesn’t give you an error message.

return ticket for overflow courtroom

The morning session was done and we claimed a spot on a bench near a power outlet for later so we could re-energize MacBooks and Blackberry and Droid and iPhone after lunch.  As we left the overflow room for lunch we were handed a yellow ticket marked with an 8 to get back in.  Our friend Ed had brought us some delicious sandwiches.  A college friend of Moya’s, Merlin Nygren, met us to have lunch.  We tramped down 9 flights of stairs (because there were lines for the elevators) to the 10th floor  cafeteria to have lunch.

Moya’s college friend works in the building and knows his way around so he helped us find the right elevator bank to get back to the 19th floor.  The elevator doors closed.  When they opened again, Cleve Jones and Dustin Lance Black, among others, got on.  We mentioned to Cleve that we really appreciated his appearance at Lucy’s school‘s civil rights assembly last month, and I noticed that Dustin Lance Black is way cuter in person than on-screen.

While scanning a twitter list of people writing about the Prop 8 trial, I noticed there a lot of snark and sarcasm from both sides.  Most people, on either side, myself included, wrote a lot of dehumanizing and disrespectful commentary about each other.  We are all, after all, human, and deserving of basic rights and respects.  I wonder if the communities of No on Prop 8 and Yes on Prop 8, as well as our society as a whole, might be helped with some sort of  truth and reconciliation hearings regarding rights and opinions and harm and so on.

I also noticed that the Alliance Defense Fund had posted a Bible verse on Twitter, just after lunch, that reminded me of being told “I’m your enemy.”  The Yes on 8 people also blogged that morning at 8:18am and described Ted Olson as their nemesis. Why are these people so interested in battle and fighting and enemies instead of extending grace and compassion and bridging divides and increasing understanding?  When I went to grab a screenshot of the ADF’s tweet, I noticed that the Alliance Defense Fund has blocked me.  I’m still snarky.  I’m not sure if I’m honored by their block or not.

My high school friend Jeff Koertzen showed up and sat behind us for the afternoon, providing peanut gallery comic relief.  Thanks, Jeff!

The afternoon started with Charles Cooper’s closing argument.  During his argument he said. “Our submission, obviously, is that sexual orientation is not an immutable trait, that is an accident of — an accident of birth” (page 121 of the transcript).  He said, “religions that condemn homosexual conduct also teach love of gays and lesbians.” (can someone actually condemn and love? Condemn is often about disgust)  He discussed not wanting to invalidate the 18,000 marriages, and even Maggie Gallagher blogged “Cooper fighting hard to protect 18k gay marriages.” I don’t understand how they can hold and defend this conflict of supporting Moya and my marriage (as part of the 18,000) but not supporting other gay and lesbian marriages.

from http://www.prop8case.com/ee.php/blog_archive/cooper_fighting_hard_to_protect_18000_gay_marriages/

Then, finally, there was a short break, Ted Olson gave a rebuttal statement, the overflow room cheered and clapped at the end and we were done.

Moya and Ed and I headed over to Hastings for the press conference.  We ran into Brian, who we’d met that morning, and Moya asked him more about his role and why he was at the trial.  He said he works for the California Family Council — who we know was a major supporter of Prop 8.  We asked if he could point out Andy Pugno.  He said he could introduce us.  I said that Andy Pugno had contributed to harm and damage to my family and families like mine and I didn’t want to meet him.  I also was uncomfortable standing so close to the Yes on 8 people who were coming up to him to talk, asking him to watch their things while they did their press conference.  I realized I don’t really want to be associated with any of those people, just as much as they (or at least they say) don’t want to be associated with me.

Plaintiffs with attorneys Olson and Boies at press conference

Brian is a friendly guy.  He seems conflicted.  We shared stories about our kids and about travel and general chitchat.  He showed me pictures of his kids.  I showed him photos of our kid.  I talked about how religious beliefs in my family convince so many people in my family, and friends from my childhood, to shun me because I’m gay.  He works for an organization that has specifically chosen to fight Moya and my right to be married and define our family.  The organization he works for claims to support California families, but it doesn’t support our family.  His boss, Ron Prentice, said, on August 29, 2008 (coincidentally our daughter’s birthday), “”Same-sex “marriage” is the most radical human experiment yet, putting children at risk and threatening generational stability!”

Brian stayed for the Yes on Prop 8 part of the press conference and then gave me a hug and said goodbye before Ted Olson and David Boies had their press conference.  Reflecting back on what I’d said about Maggie Gallagher, I extended an invitation again to come over for dinner, have a cocktail, and continue our conversation.  He has our contact information if he’d like to keep in touch. I wonder why he couldn’t stay to hear our side.

What divides us as people is always much smaller than what can join us together as a community.

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.

Give this No on 1 campaign a few bucks to help them put and keep this ad on the air and hope that Maine doesn’t have the same experience as California-post-Prop8.

And Sam Putnam, this gorgeous kid? Give him more airtime!  I’m curious why the women with him are described as his mother and her partner — aren’t they both his mothers?

Do they think that by voting Yes on these anti-marriage amendments, propositions, questions, referendums that then we’ll just fade and disappear and not exist in schools?  (Note: in Washington state, it’s a “No” vote on Referendum 71 that is anti-domestic-partnerships — if you vote in Washington state, be sure to vote Approve for Referendum 71 to be voting Yes for domestic partnership rights for senior citizens and gay/lesbian couples)

The message of the ads are that children will be forced to learn about gay people, and about gays and lesbians being married, in school, if marriage rights exist.  The example is Robb and Robin Wirthlin who sit on their couch holding the book King & King and talk about how their son came home from school and said he learned at school that boys can marry boys.

The message is that all children will learn that boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls if marriage is legal.  What puzzles me is that their kids are going to learn about us regardless of marriage laws because the children of gays and lesbians are in schools.  There’s nothing illegal about a child talking about her/his family and mentioning that s/he has two dads or two moms (or 3 dads and 1 mom).

If our daughter was in the same school class as Robb and Robin Wirthlin’s son, then their son would still learn about gay and lesbian parents and married lesbians simply because our daughter was in his class. She would probably mention her parents every once in a while, and we would show up at class and school events with her.  What would they do? Try to pretend we’re “roommates” or “just friends” and lie to their son?

Our daughter goes to a very family-friendly public school in San Francisco where they pledge allegiance to the world at morning circle in the morning.

Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, San Francisco

Even if she was in a different school, where they pledged allegiance to the United States of America, and where there wasn’t a focus on civil rights and social justice education, and where the school wasn’t named after a gay civil rights leader, and where maybe even she was teased early in life (she hasn’t been yet) for having two moms … she’d still be in class and attending school functions with her two moms and talking about her family from time to time and “infiltrating” and “exposing” the idea of two women being married.

We’re not going away or ceasing to exist simply because our rights are stripped away.  The children of gay and lesbian couples (married legally or not) will still be in schools and classrooms with the children of people who voted yes on prop 8, yes on question 1, and so on.  Plenty of us live in states and towns and counties where we, the gay and lesbian couples and parents, still have no legal right to each other or to each other’s children.  We still exist and participate in our communities.

I hope that Robb and Robin Wirthlin’s son grows up with more graciousness than his parents, and I hope he has a friend like Sam Putnam who helps him learn that the world is not nearly as narrow as his parents want it to be.  Maybe Charla Bansley will also eventually stop demonizing us.  One of the children she teaches (or one of her beloved teenage sons) might “grow up to be gay” after all. We queers are everywhere. We’re nice. We even sometimes make good cocktails and throw fun parties and attend church.

If you’re in Maine, please vote No on 1 and end this ridiculous farce of pretending we aren’t just as married and family as everyone else.

October 5, 2008

A lot of tears were shed shortly after 10am PT on May 26, 2009 – here’s one news report which includes my wife, Moya Watson, mentioning that she wept on the NBC evening news, here’s an AP article that quoted me while I was wiping away tears.

Now that we’ve used up a box of tissues, I’m getting a bit tired of the insults thrown at California despite the disappointing cowardly, and, yes, shameful ruling. I see a lot of hope and momentum and cause for optimism partially because California still provides more legal protection for GLBT couples than most states.  Despite the tears this week, here we were in October 2008 talking with Michael Tomasky about worry that our marriage would be invalidated … and it wasn’t.

Think about the 4 states in 6 weeks, and then try on this tasty tidbit from Justice Moreno, “The rule the majority crafts … places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorites.”  It’s shameful that more of the justices didn’t concur with him, but at least it wasn’t 7-0.  I highly recommend reading Moreno’s entire opinion (PDF – Moreno’s opinion starts on page 151).  It’ll make you feel good.

Mark Morford writes, “Sorry, enemies of gay marriage. Prop 8 or no, you’ve already lost.”

The Daily Kos points out some of the positive parts on page 36 of the decision:

Today, the court unanimously upheld the substantive fundamental right.  Liberal to conservative, they all now accept it.  They construed Prop 8 as narrowly as possible: as a initiative that addressed what we would label these relationships that we normally call marriage.  The voters said that we can’t call these relationships “marriage” when they involve same-sex couples.  That’s an insult to gays and lesbians and I hope and believe that it will not last.  But note what this does not say.

I disagree with Andrew Sullivan’s assertion that the ruling was “the right call,” and I appreciate his optimism that …

It would have been equally dreadful if those couples lawfully wed were subsequently forced into divorce by the court. And these married couples and their families and children will now become the focus of the debate in California, as they should be. They are the evidence that we are right: that extending the blessings and responsibilities of full family life to gay men and lesbians is a good and conservative and integrating thing. We need now to put these families forward as our core argument. Their lives are our best case. Like mixed-race married couples in another era, they will show that there is nothing to fear here and much to celebrate.

A legal writer for Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish (at The Atlantic) argues that the decision further solidifies gay rights:

It appears that this is a blockbuster pro-gay-rights decision, restricting the effect of Prop 8 to the effect of removing the designation of gay civil unions as “marriage,” but upholding all equal rights previously declared by the Court; and, suggesting that if the opponents of gay rights were to try to restrict equal union rights for gays by constitutional change, such change would be an Amendment (not a revision) and thus would be procedurally much more difficult to accomplish.

Being able to lay claim to the word “marriage” is important, but in all other respects this appears to be a spectacular decision in favor of gay rights.

The word “marriage” is very important, and I plan to take up this cause and, like Dan Savage suggests, show how my marriage is doing no harm and is, in fact, doing a lot of good.

The anti-gay bigots said before the decision that they wanted Prop 8 upheld and they weren’t concerned about the 18K gay couples who wed while same-sex marriage was briefly legal in CA. That exposes their fundamental dishonesty. If they believe, as they claimed during the campaign, that married same-sex couples are a threat to the family, a threat to children, an invitation to hurricanes and earthquakes and wildfires, and that the existence of married gay couples somehow requires homosexuality to be taught in schools, how can they be indifferent to 18K married gay couples rattling around the state? Won’t all those bad things still happen?

(Related side note: I’m completely intrigued – and I know many think this is a horrible move – by Bush administration solicitor general Ted Olson taking up the cause in federal court.)

I’m still angrysad about the decision, and I’ve started to feel that my membership in the California Supreme Court certified special class of 18,000 married couples can be a powerful spot instead of an awkward angrysad part of a small minority.  Now I want some membership schwag.  I’m thinking of gold-embossing a copy of our October 2008 marriage certificate and putting it on t-shirts.  Perhaps my membership in the certified special class of 18,000 can help me inspire some Yes on 8 voters to also vote Yes in 2010 on the proposition to legalize marriage equality and undo the harm of Prop 8.

I also believe, as does my wife, Moya, that marriage will and should eventually be downsized to a religious word and what we now consider to be legal civil marriage should instead be a legal civil union for all couples with marriages left to religion.

With ads including gay/lesbian couples, pun intended, coming out now (unlike the advertising during the No on Prop 8 campaign which specifically excluded gay/lesbian couples), and hopefully more people like myself going out and introducing ourselves to Yes on 8 voters, maybe they won’t be so afraid of us and maybe they’ll see we’re not so unlike them.

Ruben and Hector (30 seconds)

Frances and Cynthia (30 seconds)

Kate Kendell: Tell your story and NoDumbQuestions.org will show you how to do it. (2 minutes)

For anyone who voted Yes on 8 and is planning to vote No on the marriage equality proposition next year, I’m still working out my anger before I come to meet you with a more friendly tone, so, for now, as Lily Allen sings, Fuck you very much for voting to hurt my family:

I now belong to a “special” group of approximately 18,000 who are married in the state of California even though the constitution does not allow us to be married.  As Ana Marie Cox tweeted:

“CA Supreme Court follows People vs. KFC precedent: no more gay marriage except for 18,000 who already used coupon.” (via @pourmecoffee)

I know there are probably many good logical spins to explain how/why a court who declared us a suspect class has now upheld discrimination against us, but I do not get it. Page 7 of the opinion is no comfort that they even meant anything  they wrote a year ago:

Nor does Proposition 8 fundamentally alter the meaning and substance of state constitutional equal protection principles as articulated in that opinion. Instead, the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term “marriage” for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law, but leaving undisturbed all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

This sounds like an awfully thin curtain of one word dividing first class citizens from second class citizens. So my family has the right to a recognized and protected relationship, but the word, when clearly words matter, is solely reserved for opposite-sex couples, even though that word has clear advantages and rights that are being denied to same-sex couples.

At least Justice Moreno included a piece of Varnum v. Brien (Iowa 2009) 763 N. W.2d 862,877 as the introduction to his opinion:

[T]he ‘absolute equity of all’ persons before the law [is] ‘the very foundation principle of our government.’

My entry into a special class