I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: marriage equality

  • peace be unto you, namaste, shalom, toodle do


    Truthfully, I have lost confidence in political surveys since the presidential election of 2016 here in the United States when almost no survey gave DT a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected. Hopelessly wrong, right?

    So let’s just say I now take any survey with a grain of salt. However…this week I saw a survey that reported 61% of Americans now support marriage equality which I thought was really, really fabulous –  it put me on an activist high until I just moments ago told Pretty about these results. Why did I tell Pretty?

    She brought me back down from my euphoric state by saying that same 60% (in another survey) believed all US companies have the right to refuse to do business with anyone who identified as LGBTQ. Whaaaat? Say it ain’t so, survey taker. Hush up, Pretty.

    Now I’m down a rabbit hole and can’t get out which I will blame on Pretty because I decided to look outside the United States to see how LGBTQ people are treated. What I found stunned me.

    Predominantly Islamic countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Somalia have laws that follow Sharia teachings of  homosexuality as a “vile form of fornication, punishable by death.” Kill the doer and the receiver by any available method like public stoning which averages as many as six per day in Saudi Arabia or throwing people out of buildings in Iraq and Syria. Peace be unto you is the standard greeting for most followers of Islam, but apparently not for the gays. A more appropriate greeting for us: death be unto you.

    Thank goodness for Israel with its Gay Pride parade every year in Tel Aviv and its progressive policies which make Shalom much more than a word I love to say. Despite original teachings in Judaism condemning male intercourse as contrary to their teachings, the Israeli government has been evolving toward a positive position on equal rights for the LGBTQ community since the 1980s. Somebody stop me right here.

    But no. I included India in my rabbit hole because of the character Raj on The Big Bang Theory which is our go-to nighttime relaxation therapy show, but I probably shouldn’t have because homophobia is evidently rampant in India. Homosexuality is punishable by law with a possible life sentence in prison, although a recently enacted right to privacy statute in India allows the gays to safely express their sexual orientation. Hm. Now I’m wondering how that works in real life. It’s okay for me to say I’m a lesbian, but if I say I’m a lesbian I could be put in jail for life. Tricky. Instead of Namaste, I should say I might be gay or I might not be.

    I could go on and on with Christian denominations in every country such as the Roman Catholics and Protestants who have cheerfully wielded amazing power in condemning the LGBTQ community within the confines of their sanctuaries, spilling over into the ballot boxes and other expressions of political influence; but I’m afraid even Pretty wouldn’t want me to go there on a day as beautiful as this one.

    I will leave you with the reason our UN Ambassador Nikki Haley voted no on a resolution to condemn death penalty sentences around the world against gay people for having sex. Ambassador Haley explained her vote was “because we feared it would lead to all executions being banned in the United States.” Seriously? In what world does that make any sense…

    Enough is enough already. Stick a fork in me. I’m done. I am climbing out of this rabbit hole into the sunlight of a gorgeous day in Columbia. Pretty has moved on to other work activities so I think I’ll see if Spike and Charly want to catch a few rays outside with me. To borrow a happy phrase from Pretty’s good friend Shelley whenever she leaves our house, “Well, toodle do.”

    Toodle do and stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Edie Windsor (June 20, 1929 – September 12, 2017)


    One of my favorite heroes was a woman named Edie Windsor who died yesterday at the age of 88. I never had an opportunity to meet her personally, but I know what my family and my community owe her. She helped give a boost to push the journey to marriage equality across the finish line through her refusal to give up on justice for all.

    In an earlier post (June 26, 2013)  I wrote the following:

    Well, I never.  No, really, I never.  Today’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to give equal federal treatment to same-sex marriage in the twelve states and District of Columbia that recognize these marriages is a stunning pivotal day in our nation’s history of constitutional revelation.  I honestly thought this day was my dream to be realized in a future generation…

    And while I understand the significance of this ruling for our country and for the message it sends around the world to other nations about American civil liberties, today the political became personal.

    I have many personal heroes during the past twenty years of my activism in South Carolina – both sung and unsung.  I am grateful to all of them for the labor we’ve made together in the days before Will and Grace and afterwards.

    But today is Edith Windsor day for me.  I will forever remember the petite 84-year-old lesbian from New York who changed the course of history with an outrageous act and a not-so-everyday rebellion.  Thank you, Edie.

    Earlier this year (February 1, 2017) I again wrote about Edie Windsor; here are excerpts:

    Dear Edie…

    But today I want to give you some good news that is my way of saying thank you for the journey you took for marriage equality in the LGBT community. The Supreme Court ruling in June, 2013 for your case the United States v. Windsor has been described as “the most influential legal precedent in the struggle for LGBT marriage equality.” The dominoes of discrimination against us began to topple and fall after that ruling and before you could say two shakes of a lamb’s tail, my partner Teresa and I were the first same-sex couple to be granted our marriage license in November, 2014 in Richland County, South Carolina – the 35th. state to recognize equality…

    Yet, this weekend, in the midst of an unbelievable national wave of hatefulness and exclusion, my wife and I went to a shower for two young lesbians who are getting married next month – a natural next step in their belief for the pursuit of happiness as they see it. It was a festive fun evening with the usual “games” for the brides-to-be, great southern barbecue with all the trimmings, a special Signature Cocktail (which I can personally endorse) and champagne for everyone.

    What made this particular shower different, however, was that the hosts were eleven straight couples with a plus one…all of them friends of the parents of one of the brides-to-be. The parents of both brides were there, and everyone celebrated the upcoming nuptials. As I mingled and talked with our friends who were the hosts, I felt I was in a different universe from the one where I didn’t dare to dream about marrying another girl when I was growing up in rural southeast Texas in the 1950s. It was if a magic carpet had transported me from a land of ignorance to a place of enlightenment. Truly remarkable.

    And so I wanted to share this joyful time with you, Edie, because you are one of the major reasons these two young women have the same hopes and dreams for their family that their straight friends do.

    Believe me when I say you were there in spirit. They may not even realize who you are and what you have done for them, but I want to simply say “I do,” and I’m forever indebted.

    Well done, Edie. Rest in peace.

     

  • Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home


    Coming this December – a Must Read!

    Read the intimate personal essays of 21 native or adopted South Carolinians who contributed significantly to the organizing of the queer community in our state from the AIDS crisis in 1984 to marriage equality in 2014.

    http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2017/7813.html.

    Jim Blanton, Candace Chellew-Hodge, Matt Chisling, Michael Haigler, Harriet Hancock, Deborah Hawkins, Dick Hubbard, Linda Ketner, Ed Madden and Bert Easter, Alvin McEwen, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson, Jim and Warren Redman-Gress, Nekki Shutt, Tony Snell, Carole Stoneking (deceased), Tom Summers, Matt Tischler and Teresa Williams answer the questions surrounding the reasons for their activism in a conservative state in the South during a tumultuous time in American politics when many people assumed the only activists in the queer community lived in San Francisco or New York City. These folks chose to remain committed to home instead of fleeing South Carolina. Why?

    Although the book isn’t scheduled for release by the USC Press until December, I couldn’t let the Pride month of June (or the Obergefell Supreme Court decision two-year anniversary this week) go by without sharing my excitement over this book which has been in the making for the past 4 years. Harriet Hancock was my original creative impulse for undertaking the project and has been with me every step of the way toward the ultimate goal of collecting and sharing these stories.

    I am grateful to all contributors for their unwavering willingness to participate, to Harlan Greene for a wonderful foreword and to the USC Press for their commitment to “home” authors.

    Happy Pride!

     

     

  • Road to Equality – Revisiting the Obama Presidency


    President Barack Obama was the first American President I ever heard who openly supported marriage equality for LGBT citizens. My emotions were a mixture of joy and amazement the first time I heard him say the words. I felt an overwhelming sense of validation because a President of the United States declared my love for Teresa was as deserving of respect as his love for Michelle. He set me free with his words, my personal emancipation proclamation.

    He is also responsible for the appointments of two Supreme Court Justices without whom the votes on the bench could have gone differently. The road to marriage equality would have been a much longer one without the support of this American President throughout his presidency. His is a legacy of love.

    First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage?

    Ask the Supremes

    (originally published April 04, 2013)

    The dust has settled after the media frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court hearings on two cases affecting the future of same-sex marriage in the United States. Whew! The gays and gay-friendlies partied. Jon Stewart skewered DOMA and its supporters on Comedy Central. The Republicans tried desperately to find someone – ANYONE – in their party to explain their position on marriage on CNN in a way that the general citizenry wouldn’t characterize as narrow-minded at best or bigoted at worst. That search is ongoing and a generous reward is offered to the finder.

    The hearings are over and the rulings expected in June. Eight Associate Justices and the Chief Justice hold the key to opening doors of equality that have been slammed shut since the founding fathers held these truths to be Self-evident in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “…That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    I am amazed to realize I have seen all of these Supremes don the robes of the Court at the end of the required appointment process…

    … Justice Sonia Sotomayor … is a Yale graduate who was appointed by President Barack Obama. She is the sole Hispanic Supreme. Justice Elena Kagan is another Obama appointee …at the time of her appointment she was Dean of the Harvard Law School…

    In summation, Your Honors, I find that the fate of same-sex marriage in the United States in 2013 rests with folks who graduated either from Yale or Harvard law schools and were born in the New York/ New Jersey area on the East Coast or California on the West Coast with one stray Southerner thrown in for good measure. Well, maybe not good measure, but certainly thrown in.

    The question before us today is whether this hodgepodge of political appointees will take its place in history as the Court that restores the unalienable rights of a minority of its LGBT citizens who have been made to feel “lesser than” and treated with discrimination that often threatens their Lives and their Liberty and always endangers their pursuit of Happiness.

    I respectfully ask the Court to stand and deliver on the promises that have been the hopes and dreams of all Americans for more than two hundred years.

    I rest my case.

     Let’s Hear It for the Supremes!

    (originally published June 26, 2013)

    Well, I never.  No, really, I never.  Today’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to give equal federal treatment to same-sex marriage in the twelve states and District of Columbia that recognize these marriages is a stunning pivotal day in our nation’s history of constitutional revelation.  I honestly thought this day was my dream to be realized in a future generation.

    And while I understand the significance of this ruling for our country and for the message it sends around the world to other nations about American civil liberties, today the political became personal.

    I share this day especially with the woman I love, a woman who has been with me through the battles in our state for justice and equality for the past twenty years and a woman who raised a son during difficult times of  hurtful discrimination against them both.  We live in the states of South Carolina and Texas which are states that are unaffected by this ruling.  Yet we celebrate with our brothers and sisters who will benefit from the victory today and we will continue to work until all of us are treated fairly and have the opportunity to pursue happiness.  Teresa, I share this day with you.

    I have many personal heroes during the past twenty years of my activism in South Carolina – both sung and unsung.  I am grateful to all of them for the labor we’ve made together in the days before Will and Grace and afterwards.

    But today is Edith Windsor day for me.  I will forever remember the petite 84-year-old lesbian from New York who changed the course of history with an outrageous act and a not-so-everyday rebellion.  Thank you, Edie.

    001

     

  • …And Your So-Called Social Security…


    One of my favorite country singers and songwriters, Merle Haggard, wrote one of my favorite songs, Big City with lyrics that are much more meaningful to me in 2015 than they were in 1981 when I first heard them.

              “Gimme all I’ve got coming to me…

    and keep your retirement

    and your so-called Social Security.

    Big City, turn me loose and set me free.”

    Yep, in 1981 I was thirty-five years old and the owner of a very small CPA firm that had a growing clientele and low overhead.  How small was very small?  That would be one person: me.  I had been working full-time since 1967 and was in robust health – full of piss and vinegar – and had visions of acquiring great wealth through hard work and perseverance in America, the land of equal opportunity.  Retirement?  Social Security?  Bah, humbug.  Irrelevant and unimportant, but I paid my Social Security taxes right along with everyone else.

    Fast forward to 2008, the year I turned sixty-two.  My robust health became more of a pisser than vinegar, and I was forced to retire much earlier than I had planned – and long before acquiring great wealth.  I had worked for forty-one years in a variety of jobs with numbers as their primary common denominator and had made both good and bad career moves in those years.  I was moderately successful in the good years and financially challenged in the lean ones.

    Frank Sinatra sang about all the good and lean years and all the in-between years, and he could have been talking about my life as an entrepreneur.  Of course, he wasn’t, but still…

     Regardless of the triumphs and tragedies in my working life, I continued to pay my income taxes and Social Security taxes every year right along with everyone else and at age 62 I became disabled and began to receive my retirement benefits from the Social Security Administration.  At the end of each benefit year, the SSA sends me “Important Information” for the next year which typically includes my benefit amount, new rules and regulations, how to contact them if I have questions,  Medicare premiums, blah, blah, blah.

    At the end of 2013, I noticed a new bullet point:

    Benefits for Same-Sex Couples

    Due to a Supreme Court decision, we now are able to pay benefits to some

    same-sex couples.  We encourage people who think they may be eligible to apply now.

    It wasn’t a super-sized bullet point or anything like that.  As a matter of fact,  it was squeezed in between “How to Access my Social Security Online Services” and the “Affordable Care Act.”  If you blinked or skipped the info page to only look at “Your New Benefit Amount” which is probably what most people do, you would have missed it.  I read it with disbelief and amazement and a sense of immense satisfaction for the couples in places like Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and California – a few of the eighteen  states and District of Columbia where marriage equality was a reality at the end of 2013.  The SSA would be making re-calculations on a host of benefits for affected American citizens.

    This year, at the end of last week, my “Important Information” arrived from the SSA.  Once again, squeezed in between “To Access my Social Security Online Services” and the “Affordable Care Act” was the following:

    Benefits for Same-Sex Couples

    We now are able to pay benefits to more same-sex couples.

    We encourage people to contact us to find out if they or their children are eligible for

    benefits or a different benefit amount.

    Indeed.  “More same-sex couples” refers to the increasing number of states with marriage equality at the end of 2014.  The total is up to 35 plus the District of Columbia, and my feelings of disbelief and amazement and immense satisfaction are combined with the joy and exhilaration that comes with residing in the 35th. state, my second home state of South Carolina.  Yee Haw – pigs are now flying over the Palmetto State Capitol, and there is a definite chill to the weather in hell these days.

    Because my prospects for acquiring great wealth look slimmer than my prospects for acquiring great weight, I’m afraid I can’t sing along with Merle who apparently didn’t want his Social Security.  I’m happy to have mine and to be on the receiving end of what I paid into for more than forty years – and even happier to know that my family will be accorded the same respect and fair treatment that every American family deserves.

    Thanks Merle, but gimme all I got coming to me including my so-called Social Security, and then Big City, turn me loose and set me free.