#aclu action

It's a simple form letter, but of course you can add a personal note to it. THIS is a thing we can change, I hope.

The voting has been extended again, so I'm just going to pretend this contest is like election day in Chicago, never ending. 

You can vote every day, using any and all email addresses at your disposal. You get one email asking you to confirm you're a real person, then I haven't seen any other email from the ACLU on my voting account.

That's Dave and me.

We were in NYC Tuesday. We could have picked up a marriage license right then and there (especially if I'd had the foresight to apply online). We could have gotten married right after, if I'd petitioned a judge to waive the 24-hour waiting period between license and marriage. Easy-peasy.

It would have solved all the issues we talked about in Paper Heart. It would have resolved the health insurance issues (because I am fortunately a federal employee, and despite whatever Pennsylvania's asshole governor decides to do with the remains of his tenure, our marriage will be recognized by my employer).

That would have been great for us, but still leaves the rest of Pennsylvania in the lurch, and the rest of the ass-backwards states that haven't moved forward on the marriage equality issue. 

I think that's the big thing. It's bigger than us. Sure the insurance is important for Dave, the marriage tax breaks would help both of us, as would legitimizing our relationship (no more having to take vacation to care for him when he's sick, go to a funeral on his side of the family, help out his mom). The Winter Olympics are starting soon, and I think having our relationship (and all the millions of others) "legitimized" by law would be a nice kick in the balls to that fascist closet-case Vladimir Putin, too. Or the numbnuts in Africa, spurred on by "Christian" crypto-homo-fascist fundamentalists, who've been talked into criminalizing gayness, for political leverage or as a source of fear to keep the great unwashed in line. It's spreading like the witch hunts from the 1690s. WTF?!

So we didn't jump the gun, or the broom, and get married in advance of the Big Gay Illegal Wedding contest ending. Because it's important. We were ambivalent about a contest, for fear it would trivialize the issue, but it would be kind of nice to win.

We'll be able to get married pretty easily in New York state regardless of the outcome. We're really happy about that, too. Not like the poor LGBTQIA folks in Russia, Africa, and the creeping weasle nations like Spain that are caving to pressure from Russia over gay adoption rights. It really has to stop. It really does.