“A new survey out this week shows that support for marriage equality is at 59% with just 33% opposed. This means that marriage equality is slightly more popular than the Pope.” Matt Baume, American Foundation for Equal Rights. The link is to a video, with Matt Baume taking up space on your screen, and it is worth following the link just to experience Matt’s pauses. He says, “This means that marriage equality is slightly more popular than—(pause)—the Pope.” The smile is implied.
So, it’s been a good week. Texas and Alabama both propose to refuse to obey the US Supreme Court, but Baume says (pause) they can’t do that. In South Carolina two legislators propose a constitutional amendment against marriage equality. “This has to do with the propagation of the species.” Baume, with only a slight measure of sarcasm in his voice, says that reproduction does not originate in the US Constitution. Texas, Alabama, and South Carolina all hang together and prompt the question, when will they ever learn? Lordy.
I was in New York this past weekend to visit our grandchildren and children. There are three grandchildren, one, a boy, who was ring-bearer when C and I were married on Race Point Beach in Provincetown in 2013, and two, girls, who were flower-girls on that occasion, joyously “decorating” the beach and our memories of that beautiful day. All three are incredibly beautiful. C and I are very lucky grandparents. In a month or so, he and I will visit the family of our older grandchildren, which, in an extended family concerned with equality, are equally beautiful.
And finally, we can’t ignore what happened yesterday. Boston held the St Patrick’s Day parade yesterday, and all the long tragedy of that parade seems to have been brought to a close. At last, the parade’s organizers invited two distinctly gay groups in Massachusetts to participate. One OutVets, a group of gay veterans, and the other, Boston Pride. A leader of OutVets said, “We march today for the memories of those thousands and thousands of people who went before us, some who went to their graves in the closet.” He said, “the beginning of the mission of this organization [is] to honor the service and sacrifice of every single LGBT veteran, their families, their allies and every veteran in this country who fought so selflessly to defend the rights we hold dear.” That’s true of everything we do, C and I, as we celebrate these great occasions—and remember those who went before us.