Saturday, December 06, 2008

From 8 to Love

Hi, Mishpuchah. Sorry it's take so long to shake off the weird combination of euphoria and horror (euphorror?) that followed the election and cobble together a post.

On the one hand, welcome to the Obama era, right? Lots of good stuff is going to happen! Yay!

On the other, what the fuck's up with passing Prop 8, Cali? (For our readers in Bahrain and Dublin who've been out of the loop, California narrowly passed a ballot initiative that changed our consititution to ban gay marriage.) That's some bullshit. And though the writing is on the wall, historically speaking, and 8 will be invalidated either by a court or by another popular vote (possible slogan for the counter-initiative: This time it's even more personal), we'd be lying if we said we weren't stung by this loss, this disgusting slap in the face to our friends.

So, let's review just a bit of recent history. Gay people turn their queer eye on your crappy fashion and make you prettier so you can get laid and advise you on turning your dump of a living room into a suburban palace and pepper your lame-ass sitcom with witty dialogue and produce your awards shows and write your speeches and take your temperature and administer your company and engineer your buildings and you're all, like, what have you done for me lately? Let's face it: If the gays ever go on strike, the straight world will end up curled up in a fetal position on the floor in about 14 hours. But their pursuit of happiness? Talk to the fuckin' hand.

But ranting gets us nowhere, and there's enough of it going on.

This whole struggle is about love. Those of us who argued against 8 - and we get it, we could've been louder, clearer and more effective - were motivated by the heart.

So we're going to shine our Jew-light on love. We're going to start telling love stories - gay, straight, whatevs. Relationships and valentines and ooey-gooey tales of romance. Bring it on. Because no matter what anybody says, love is love.

Tell us your love stories.




2 comments:

susannah eanes said...

God, I love your attitude. Yeah, LET'S FLOOD THE WORLD WITH THE BEAUTY OF LOVE - ALL OF IT.

*twirls*

I can't select just one story. There are so many! But watching a certain couple fall in love recently has been the happiest thing I've known in a while. It doesn't matter - it truly doesn't matter - WHAT you are. It's WHO you are.

I want everyone to know the happiness I've found with my chosen (heterosexual) partner. But if something were to happen to end that, and perhaps at some point if I were to fall in love with a woman, I'd want the right to have just as much happiness with her as I have found with him. Why should that even be an issue? Why is that anyone's business except my own?

I think we make the world too difficult, and use up a lot of energy making rules that have no bearing in common sense or reality. Think what we could do if we just LET PEOPLE LOVE EACH OTHER.

God. Imagining that world makes me want to work harder to GET THERE.

The Minstrel Boy said...

i don't know if what i have going on right now is actually a love story. it's more of a "like" story. kind of like jimmy stewart's father character in shenandoah, i have a deep and abiding like for my partner.

i come from years and years of playing rock and roll on the road. not a lot of abstinence, or even discretion there. four disasterously failed marriages. i had made peace with the idea that while i respect and honor the institution of marriage i simply had to admit that i was no good at it. therefore, the best honor i could pay would be to not do it anymore.

i also sobered up in the process, and became a single parent to three marvelous kids.

in my meetings i met her. she is an ex-stripper, single mom, sober a long time, and currently working as an "escort" in palm springs.

we've been, together, such as we are, for the last eight years. it's pretty off hand, but so far, it works for us. we like each other. it doesn't mean there aren't complications, i played a fund raiser for hillary during the primaries, and was seen, by a collegue of hers to be constantly in the company of an old flame who was there to sing backup. nothing but old friends catching up, i'm too old, too tired, too lazy, too a great many things to bother with stuff like that.

at one point a while back she, out of the blue began laughing out loud at me. i said "what's so funny?" she said "after all these years, after all those marriages that were destroyed by your infidelities, you finally have a relationship where you're faithful. it's ironic."

i said "i don't see the irony."

she said "i'm a hooker."

i said well, if you want to call being a high ticket escort in palm springs being a hooker i guess...."

she cut me off with it's unattractive when you're purposefully stupid. i like your brains. just stop now.

anyway, that's my strange, and often wonderfull love story.