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.

Lucy's Kindergarten Class

This morning 5 1/2 year old Lucy told me about a kid in her class who told her last week that a woman can’t marry a woman.  Just as she did in preschool and daycare, she said that she told her friend that’s not true because her mommy and momma are married and she was at their wedding and that she knows marriage is between two adults, a woman and a woman, or a woman and a man, or a man and a man.  She said that her friend told her that her parents’ marriage is not legal, and, this morning, she said, “I know you’re married, and it is legal, right?”

I simply said yes, your parents are legally married.  Otherwise, I would’ve answered her with all of the complications that involve lack of equal rights for our family.  Sure, it’s legal here in California, a handful of other states, and a short list of countries.  No, it’s not legal according to our country’s federal government, a long list of other states, and a long list of other countries.

The first time, that I know of, that she ever responded to the question of why she doesn’t have a dad, or the challenge of “a woman can’t marry a woman,” was when she was a toddler in daycare and one of her friends asked her why she doesn’t have a dad.  She was barely 2 years old, if that, and she told her friend “I have a mommy, momma, and wanda, and you have a mommy, daddy, and dog, and you are missing a momma and a wanda and I am missing a daddy and a dog, so everyone’s missing something.”

Sometime last fall or winter, when Moya and I were in Lucy’s classroom, one of her classmates asked us if we were sisters or cousins.  We said, no, we’re married to each other, we aren’t sisters or cousins.  The kid responded with surprise, “no way! Two women can get married?!”  We shrugged and said yes and left it at that.  The kid seemed happy to know it was a possibility.

I’m glad that Lucy’s figured out on her own to stand up for herself and answer questions about her family as though she’s simply reporting on the weather and I hope she always feels that confident about her family.

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.

Bill Nemitz, a respected Portland Maine columnist, has skewered the Yes on 1 campaign and smartly pointed out that No on 1 (a.k.a. Protect Maine Equality) is using real local citizens while the Yes on 1 campaign is mostly relying on stock images and an ad recycled from last year’s Prop 8 campaign in California and people who don’t live or work in Maine:

The anti-repeal “No on 1″ campaign overflows with real Mainers who are willing – no, make that eager – to go public in their support of equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.

And the pro-repeal “Yes on 1″ campaign? Not so much.

Since it took to the airwaves a month or so ago, Stand for Marriage Maine has attached four – and only four – faces to its televised ad campaign. And of those four, only one person is actually from Maine.

-from  Real Mainers step up for ‘No on 1′ ads

Paul Redicker, Catholic, Veteran, Mainer, stands up for all of us, “Maine’s moving along in the right direction …” — these real people standing up for marriage rights still make me cry because they don’t have to stand up for us and talk in front of a crowd, be video recorded and put on YouTube, and they do!

* “The rain in spain stays mainly in the plain …” (Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady)

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?

In Feb 2004, my wife and I were married at San Francisco City Hall.

San Francisco City Hall, Feb 14 2004

When the California Supreme Court invalidated our marriage in August 2004, we became domestically partnered within days to protect our rights when our daughter was born (my wife was pregnant and our daughter was born in late August, shortly after our marriage was invalidated). We don’t have any photos of our domestic partnership form signing.

Then we were married on Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver, BC in March 2007.

Kitsilano Beach, March 31 2007

We were married in San Francisco in Golden Gate Park in October 2008 and in May 2009 the California Supreme Court decided that our marriage was still legal.

San Francisco, October 5 2008

The campaigns to reject referendum 71 in Washington State have brought out arguments to reject referendum 71 because it’s “everything but marriage.”  That’s a big fat lie.  Domestic partnership is nothing like marriage.

Ask Flickr: domestic partnership has 700ish search results and marriage has 700,000ish search results

According to Wikipedia, one is very legalese and the other is very touchy feely, guess which one?

A domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union.

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic.

They’re both a legal state, but marriage is usually associated with romance – look at the words in the Wikipedia definition: kinship, interpersonal, intimate, sexual, acknowledged – and domestic partnership has a negative definition: “share … but are neither joined …”

From the records of our family and our relationship, it’s clear that a marriage means photos and flowers and fancy clothes and people showing up and a party and lots of documentation and gifts and records and cards and photo albums.  A domestic partnership is a legal document kept in a safe with copies kept with us when we travel (in case someone questions our legal relationship in a time when we need to be recognized as something other than “friends”).

We don’t have any photos from the day we were domestically partnered at the California Secretary of State’s office.  We didn’t throw a party and we didn’t send out announcements or receive gifts or dress up or buy flowers — and we didn’t invite anyone and nobody showed up to toast us.  There was a bike messenger in front of us in line and my wife was 9 months pregnant and a woman was reluctant to let her use a bathroom.

The “deny domestic partnership” crowd is afraid of their children learning about gay people in school, but their children are already learning about gay people in school. Children with gay and lesbian parents are sitting next to their children in school.  They claim that domestic partnership is “everything but marriage.” It’s not.

Domestic partnership rights protect families and children. The Prop 8 groups in California even conceded (and argued in court) that it was okay with them to give domestic partnership rights to gay and lesbian couples, just not marriage (though we are still married and our marriage seems to be doing no harm to any children or schools in California).

Without domestic partnership rights, gay and lesbian couples can jump through legal hoops to take care of each other — and pay legal bills that seem like a gay tax.

Approve Referendum 71 in Washington and retain dignity and responsibility and rights for people who already do more than most couples to secure their legal ties to each other and protect their relationship.

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