Speaking of Cement

I’d like to begin by saying… GO CANADA!! I hope we get some ‘trickle-down’ sanity from our most excellent neighbors to the north.

Thank you for your patience while I took this little sortie down memory boulevard. These are the last few old letters that I wanted to publish here.

The first are responses to those companies and organizations that are trying to do the right thing. The APA is to be commended for dragging itself out of the Dark Ages. Ford Motor Company, hats off to you.

Kraft Foods… Well, what can I say? I actually have a “shit list,” a printed out list of companies and products that I do not buy for one reason or another. I started it about 15 years ago. Exxon got on my list for that whole Exxon Valdez/Prince William Sound thing, and I haven’t stopped at an Exxon station since. I will only buy organic chocolate because of the child slave labor used to produce cocoa on the Ivory Coast. Companies have found themselves on my list for animal testing, contributing to the Republican Party, racial discrimination… any number of things. Never, until today, has a company managed to earn its way off.

The last letter is not actually a letter; it’s a copy of the presentation I did at the Maricopa Community Colleges Board of Directors meeting last night. I was the first person called up to speak. I addressed my comments to Mr. Walker, I got applause from the audience. Brad addressed the rest of the Board (also applause) and, gratifyingly, there were others there who spoke out on this issue (applause all around, no boos). I hope they all got the message.

(May 26, 2005)

To: the American Psychiatric Association
Via their web site through a link from HRC

I’m writing to thank you for your official support for same-sex marriage. I am the mother of a gay son, Tony; he’s been with his partner, Christopher, for 12 years now. They are both amazing and wonderful men (no, I’m not being prejudiced) and Chris is a treasured part of our family, no matter what the law says, but I would feel better knowing that they are getting the same legal benefits and protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.

My youngest son, Mike, and I are core members of the Marriage Equality Task Force of Gentle Shepherd Metropolitan Community Church. In the year and a half we’ve been volunteering there, we’ve gotten to know some wonderful same-sex couples, who have become our good friends. Some of them have been together more than 20 years. Marriage equality is the main focus of our group and living in a conservative state like Arizona can be disheartening sometimes. Your support gives us hope.

For your courageous stance on this issue, I thank you again from my heart for Tony & Christopher, for my friends and for myself.

Via email through a link from HRC
(May 26, 2005)

To: Kraft Foods
I stopped buying Kraft products when I learned that Kraft was owned by a tobacco company (I don’t buy Nabisco either for the same reason). I have not bought your products for over 10 years. However, I am the mother of a gay son and now I find out that you are sponsoring the Gay Games, so I’m thinking maybe you’re not so bad after all. I’m considering officially ending my personal boycott of Kraft. I do appreciate your company’s support of the gay community. Thank you.

(Note here: Kraft is the very first company ever to be removed from my “shit list” since I started boycotting companies about 15 years ago).

Sent via email through HRC
(June 2, 2005)

To Ford Motor Company
Mr. William Clay Ford

Dear [Decision Maker],

Thank you for your continued support of your LGBT employees and their families.

Ford is part of more than eighty percent of Fortune 500 companies have sexual orientation non-discrimination policies and almost half provide domestic partner benefits. Non-discrimination policies covering gender identity and expression are also expanding rapidly. Ford’s policies are in line with mainstream corporate America.

(Edit letter below)

Organizations such as the American Family Association like to think that when they speak they represent all American families. I just want to let you know that we are an American Family, we have a son who is gay, and we appreciate your efforts to ensure equality in your workplace. There is quite enough hate toward gay people floating around in this country. As a mother, I thank you for your support of your LGBT employees and their families.

Thanks for all that you do.

(June 13, 2005)

Editor- Reading back over some old clippings, I recalled that those working for a marriage amendment used to claim that they were not opposed to same-sex couples getting legal rights, they just wanted to protect the name “marriage.” It’s become obvious that was just a lie. It’s perfectly clear that their intent is not just to retain for themselves the right to be called “married.” They want to make sure gay couples can’t get married and then deny them the legal benefits that married couples enjoy on the grounds that they aren’t married. They hold such hatred for gay people that in order to make this happen, they are willing to run right over the lives of any couple that isn’t married, gay or not.

(June 17, 2005)

Sent email via HRC to Trent Franks

Urge Your Rep to Co-sponsor The Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act. The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act is about to reintroduced in Congress. This legislation would extend the same health insurance coverage to the domestic partners of federal employees that is currently granted to employees’ legal spouses. Urge your member of Congress to co-sponsor this important piece of legislation.

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

As your constituent, I am writing to ask that you become an original co-sponsor of the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act.

Anyone who works knows the value of benefits such as medical insurance, and they know how fragile and tenuous the grasp on economic stability can be without it. One major illness, of the worker or their spouse or child, can send a family without insurance plummeting into an economic abyss.

It is easy to see the fundamental unfairness in a system that would offer such benefits to some, but not all, of its employees. Medical insurance alone can be worth thousands of dollars each year to a family. Those benefits are part of the compensation package for workers. Families without insurance must sometimes cope with enormous out-of-pocket expenses that those with insurance do not, so in a very real way, it denies equal compensation for equal work.

It can also put a financial strain on society when people without insurance show up in emergency rooms and can’t pay the bills. And people without insurance tend to delay medical care until they are far sicker than those with insurance. This means they often are in need of major medical intervention by the time they show up in the emergency room, when a trip to their family doctor would have stopped the progress of the illness in early– and far less expensive– stages.

Denying medical insurance to some families puts their children at risk. For them not to be able to take their children to a doctor when they are sick, just because of the spitefulness of others, is just unacceptable, and nothing but pure spitefulness could want to deny some families the protections that others enjoy.

Please cosponsor this legislation and support a bill that would ensure equal compensation in the federal workplace by providing basic benefits such as health insurance coverage for the domestic partners of federal employees.

Many large companies and state governments have chosen to do this because they see the value in treating all their employees fairly.It makes good business sense, and it’s the right thing to do.

I look forward to hearing your response.

(June 17, 2005)

Echo Magazine

Editor- A letter to the editor published in the June 2 issue reminded us that the proposed action of the Arizona legislature to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The writer asks, “Do the proponents of this bill read the state or federal Constitutions?”

I submit that, unfortunately, they apparently actually did read those documents, and they found, to their horror, that what they’d been taught in school is true! Those documents really do guarantee equal rights to everyone!

Needless to say, they sprang into action. They realized they must work quickly before some “activist judge” somewhere decides to read the same documents and interpret them to mean that “equal rights” really means equal for everyone.

What they’re trying to do, before that happens, is to change the Constitution of the United States, as well as state Constitutions so that discrimination would no longer be “unconstitutional.” The right to discriminate would be written into our Constitution(s).

Speak out now! Don’t let the voices of bigotry be the only ones heard.

(my name)
Core Member, Marriage Equality Task Force,
Gentle Shepherd Metropolitan Community Church

(June 18, 2005)
Arizona Republic

Editor-

A writer seems worried that “determined activists” are trying to “redefine marriage.” Let me clarify: “Determined activists” are using the courts to try to claim the legal rights promised by the Constitution, equal protection under the law and the right to due process. They know that our Constitution clearly promises this; that’s why they are in such a panic to get it changed real quick, before some “activist judge” decides to read that document and interpret “equal” to mean equal for everybody.

Those whose goal is to deny others the rights they enjoy cannot support doing so by logic, so they make vague references to some sort of “threat” to the family, to society, to our collective morality. They never come out and say exactly what the “threat” is, only that if we don’t rescind the rights of some Americans, marriage will be “redefined.” They do understand one important thing; the power to define is the road to ultimate power.

The problem with that argument is that marriage has been “redefined” from state to state and throughout history. If they read their own Bibles more carefully, they might find that many of the men in there had multiple wives. One of the same sections that supposedly warns against homosexuality also makes it fine to turn your virgin daughters over to potential rapists. They pick and choose the few verses that seem to support their position and they conveniently ignore those that would require them to sacrifice goats in their kitchen. They point to church doctrine to support writing gay people out of our collective social contract, but ignore their own rules on issues of birth control, divorce, in-vitro fertilization, remarriage… They don’t want to “redefine” marriage, but they do want to “redefine” our rights as Americans.

(June 26, 2005)

Arizona Republic

Editor- Lynn Stanley gives facts that serve only to obscure truth. First, it really doesn’t matter if those who support denying equal rights to gay people are Republicans or Democrats, to what ethnic groups they belong, or that 70% of voters changed 18 state constitutions. Bigots are abundant in number, they come in all shapes and sizes, but that doesn’t make bigotry any less ugly. A judge in Nebraska ruled against allowing the citizens of that state to change their constitution to eliminate the guarantee of equal rights. She does not want to change the definition of “marriage,” but she’s fine with changing the definition of “equal.”

She says same sex marriage sends a message that gender and the definition of marriage don’t matter, that moms or dads are irrelevant. Why does she get to decide what message we should take from allowing equality? Why is the message not that all families are important? Why is the message not that all citizens really are entitled to equal protection under the law? Why is the message not that every taxpayer has a right to the benefits they pay for? Why is the message not that we wish to uphold freedom of religion by preserving the separation of church and state? Let’s not allow bigots, however great their numbers, to redefine “equality.”

(June 28, 2005)

Presentation to:
Maricopa Community Colleges Board of Directors Meeting

Response to Jerry Walker comment that it’s “a shame that they’re here,” referring to the rainbow flag of the “local gay group” at club days on campus. (He unknowingly said this to a gay student; when the student told Walker that he is gay, Walker replied, “Well, it’s a shame that you are.”) METF is attending the meeting to respond.

(presentation):

I’ll be brief, but I just wanted to address Mr. Walker regarding your comment about the Gay-Straight Alliance on one of your campuses.

These kids are trying to get an education and it just irritates you, doesn’t it, that they refuse to hide in shame just because you don’t like who they are. You say you don’t approve of their “lifestyle.” Well, it seems that part of their “lifestyle” is attending college, and paying good money to do so, part of which, I assume, pays your salary.

One of the benefits of college is that it exposes kids to all kinds of different people. My husband and I did not send our gay son to college to be exposed to that kind of hatred and we did not send our straight kids to college to learn prejudice. It’s more appropriate that these kids be on that campus with their rainbow flag than that you be there with your dogs of prejudice and your guardians of hate. You’re not the first bigot to try to block the schoolhouse door, and you won’t be the last, but we should never let it be okay. Shame on you to want such prejudice to be an accepted part of our schools.

This brings us up to the present. Tomorrow morning, the latest issue of Echo magazine will be on the stands. Our postcards will be in that issue as a tear-out insert. If you know anyone in Arizona who has access to Echo magazine, let them know about the postcards; sending them in is a cheap and easy action to take and if enough people do it, it just might have an impact. Parents and friends can send them, too. I’ll check back in soon. M