Bittersweet Love

Apr 28th, 2010 01:23 AM By Catie

I am a 23-year-old newlywed who married the greatest man I’ve ever known. When I met him, however, I wasn’t so sure he was the right man for me.

I was convinced that he was gay, and although he pursued me ruthlessly, I refused because I felt I was only a potential cover for a young man in deep denial. However, the more time I spent with him, the more I began to discover his true heart. He is bisexual, and had been with a few men, but women- probably for the same reasons as me- would never give him the time of day. Although he was still very much attracted to women, he was on the verge of coming out as simply gay and forgetting it.

I gave him a chance and 3 years later, we are happily married. He is my best friend, my lover, my world… and although I’m deliriously happy, it makes me a bit sad.  This amazing, kind, talented and Godly man, had he fallen in love with a man rather than a woman, would not be able to (legally) announce it to the world with a ceremony and a ring. All I can think is, what if I had been a man? What if I had been born with the same soul and personality but different organs; and what if I had fallen in love with the same person, and could not marry him, or even be at his bedside were he in the hospital? It’s heartbreaking that the beauty of love is tainted for so many people by a stigma and a lack of simple rights.

It’s time that straight people speak out in love for the people we hold dear. Even in the gay community, there seems to be a lack of acceptance for bisexuality; we need to all understand that sexual orientation is something we’re born with, and it’s not always black and white. It is a reality, not a ‘disease’ or a choice, and it’s something that no one should be ashamed to discover. Let people love each other, let them be together even in the most painful moments of their lives…. let them simply BE.

Same Sex Partner Benefits

Apr 28th, 2010 01:18 AM By Lynn

I am a 38 year old lesbian, and have been with my partner for almost 15 years. I was injured at work 5 years ago, and because I chose to pursue a lawsuit against my employer at the time, I lost my job.

I then began working at a local hospital as an RN with almost 18 years experience. The particular hospital is part of a larger health care system in our area, and as one of it’s employee benefits, they offer what they call “Same Sex Partner Benefits.” I had surgery in 2008 and was unable to return to work after that.

Since I couldn’t afford to continue my benefits on my own, we decided that it would be better for her to add me as a dependant on her health benefits. Neither of us had ever explored this option previously, because we had always both worked and carried our own insurance. We assumed there would be the obvious paperwork involved, but we NEVER expected what we were about to endure.

The entire process took MONTHS to complete, during which I was uninsured and had no prescription coverage. Aside from the usual, basic info required, we practically had to send these people our entire filing cabinet!

We both have seperate checking accounts, and for financial reasons, most of the utilities are in my name. Because of this, we were initially denied. Despite the fact that we provided proof of cohabitation for the past decade! I offered a copy of the certificate we received at our committment ceremony from 1999, but of course, that’s not a “legal document”!!

We also are each other’s beneficiary on out life insurance policies and retirement plans – through the same employer! We were listed as each other’s emergency contact, and our paychecks were direct deposited into the same checking account every payday! After countless phone calls, faxes, copies of documents, & finally having to pay a notary to verify that we were sending them true & accurate documents, they finally approved me as a dependent. But, not before numerous phone calls during which I was so frustrated I frequently ended up in tears!

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, we discovered that this process would repeat on a yearly basis! When I questioned HR reps on their policies, I was told that heterosexual couples are required to do NONE of this! They don’t even have to provide a copy of their marriage certificate! All they have to do is fill out a form & send it in, that’s it!

I voiced my frustrations on multiple occasions, but I’m sure that my concerns fell on deaf ears! I explained to every person I spoke with just how discriminatory their processes are, but as of now, none of them have changed! So to those of you who’ve not experienced this, or are in heterosexual relationships – I caution you, just because your employer tells you that they offer Same Sex Partner Benefits, it does NOT mean that you will not be discriminated against!

I give a damn because I don’t want others to have to go through the hell my partner and I endured just to get health insurance, when we’ve been together longer than most straight couples we know! If we could be legally married, they wouldn’t be able to treat us this way!

Constant Fear Because of Inequality

Apr 27th, 2010 11:14 AM By Badger

My partner and I have been together for 11 years. We have built a life together and work very hard. I found out he is illegal a year or two after we were together. I was too vested in him at the time to leave him for not telling me. He let is paperwork expire. I was in shock.

He has a valid social security card and pays taxes, but can not get a passport. He loves his family here and did not want to go back to Chile over twenty years ago. I was devastated to find this out. I can’t imagine the anguish and fear he has been living with and now I share in that anguish.

I am a poor kid from the midwest who pulled myself up out of poverty and it has not been easy. I finally found true love and hate the idea that I may be forced to choose between my home and country and my partner (though my partner would win out). I keep thinking to myself, “Why does life have to be so hard?”

I was once married to a woman. I loved her, but was naive about myself. As a person I am still the same smart, upstanding guy I always was. My relationship with my partner now, means more to me than my marriage, but yet I am not granted the same rights, dignity and respect for my relationship.

I should be able to sponsor my partner. I am no less of a human being. I am angry, hurt and frustrated that the bigoted majority gets to say whether we have a right to stay together in my country. My partner and I work hard for everything and pay taxes. We should be awarded the same rights. We should not have to live in fear of losing the life we have made for ourselves here.

My partner’s mother died while he has been here and he loves this country so much that he didn’t go back. He waits for the day when he can go back and visit his mother’s grave and return safely to his home here in the U.S. My partner spent most of his childhood here in the states attending school and living with his older sister who is a U.S. Citizen, which is why he didn’t want to leave. Equality has to happen and it has to happen now.

For the Love of My Children

Apr 04th, 2010 12:35 PM By Cheryl

I am a straight mother of three. I have a thirteen year old straight son who plays tuba and guitar,and wants to work in the tech field when he grows up. I have a seventeen year old straight daughter who plays baritone, has a beautiful singing voice, and wants to go to college to become a psychologist. I have a nineteen year old gay son who is broadly musically gifted, attends college, and wants to be a teacher. While my younger son and daughter will very possibly achieve their dreams, my oldest son may not. So, I give a damn.

Where we live, and where my son wants to teach, being openly gay will likely cost him his job. While my two younger children’s teacher’s can share stories of their husbands, wives, children and lives, if my son does so, parents will complain to the school board that my son is teaching their children immorality. But he hasn’t given up on his dream. He’ll be attending his second year of college next year to become a teacher, in hopes that when he begins teaching, his sexuality won’t matter to his students and their parents as much as his qualifications do. So, I give a damn.

My oldest son is in a committed relaionship with a wonderful boy who spent years in R.O.T.C., in hopes of becoming a flight engineer. He felt it would be not only wrong, but incredibly difficult to keep their relaionship a secret due to D.A.D.T., so unfortunately he chose to leave the R.O.T.C. This young man should have NEVER had to make such a choice. His sexual orientation shouldn’t have had to play a part in what he wanted to do with his education, and his life. So, I give a damn.

My children talk of the day they will be parents. I have no doubt that all three will be excellent at parenting. My younger son and daughter will be able to do so with no trouble. While if my oldest son and his committed partner want to adopt, they will likely be denied that right. So, I give a damn.

I want the opportunities my two straight children have, to be available for my gay child. I want to not have to worry that my son might be a victim of a hate crime. When my son chooses to commit his life to someone, I want to know that he’ll have the same rights and protection as a straight couple would. Most of all, I want my children to see and believe what I have taught them their entire lives; that you can grow up to be anything and anyone you want to be.

So, I GIVE A DAMN!

People Are People

Apr 04th, 2010 12:24 PM By Melissa

I feel fortunate to have been brought up in a home where there was no “black and white” and no “gay and straight”…we were just people.

I have family members who are lesbian, friends who are gay, and students (I used to work at the local school) who felt comfortable coming to me to discuss their sexual identity issues above everyone else. I’m glad of that and so incredibly happy that I have these people in my life!

My family, friends, and yes, my former students, enrich my life and remind me every day that “people are people.” Now, I am a parent and my children are learning that there is no reason to shun someone for any reason. We’re not in control of the color of skin we’re born with, the sexuality we’re born with, or the color of the eyes we’re born with…we just are, and God doesn’t make mistakes…so no one is better than another.

People are people.

My Daughter Gets It – Why Doesn’t Everybody?

Apr 04th, 2010 12:15 PM By Toni

My seven-year-old daughter and her friend were listening to the soundtrack to SPAM-A-LOT in the car one day, and we got to the song about everybody getting married. The friend asked, “So who does Prince Herbert marry?”

“Lancelot,” my daughter answered.

“No, Prince Herbert.”

“Lancelot.”

“No, HERBERT.”

“Lancelot!”

“Eww!”

“They’re just gay,” my daughter said. “It’s no big deal.”

If a seven-year-old daughter of straight parents can get it, why can’t everybody?

Nomads in My Own Country

Mar 30th, 2010 09:34 PM By Christopher

I give a damn about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality because I’ve been with my partner for over 8 years and still can’t sponsor him for immigration into the U.S.

We met cute like many college students. I was in art school studying film, he was in school studying music; we met at a rock show. (I still of course have the t-shirt I bought from the band that night.) Our first date was at a Brit Pop night at another club. It was clear rather quickly that this relationship was going to last. He moved in a year later after I returned from a summer internship in Chicago.

But something was very wrong.

His student visa was to expire, and he wasn’t able to continue with school. Now, had we been a straight couple, we would have easily married. We had already had a significant relationship over a length of time: there would have been no problems.

We made a decision to continue building our life together, hoping that the law would change. We co-signed leases; I made him my beneficiary on retirement and health directives. And time marched on. We decided to move to DC so that I could find work that would support us both. It was rough for both of us. He was particularly at a loss for a community to fit into in DC. It was incredibly hard on our relationship.

And still the law didn’t change.

In order to find a place where we both had opportunity, we finally moved to New York. Things have been better, but the older we get, the more we continue not to have stability. Well, I thank goodness he’s here, but I’m now in my mid-30s. Our peers are buying houses and settling down and starting families. My partner would like to open a restaurant.

We can’t have any of that damn stability! That damn American dream–because we’ve been forced into being nomads in my own country.

It’s particularly upsetting as I’m very much an American. I can trace my history not only to my immigrant great-grandparents, but also to at least one American president and none other than the man who first codified the American language: Noah Webster. I grew up in the Great Middle West, my grandparents were farmers, I attended public schools, I’ve always voted. All these things that are supposedly harbingers of our American identity, and I can’t do the one thing that I want the most and that my ancestors were able to do: marry the one I love and welcome him as a citizen of the U.S. And frankly, that’s a damn outrage.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are very much Americans. We’ve toiled along with the rest of you. We share your stories. We need the same rights as other Americans–including the right to sponsor our foreign-born partners to join us as Americans.

Marriage in DC

Mar 30th, 2010 03:48 AM By Bob

For nearly forty years, I have felt passionate about human rights in many ways from my youthful despair learning details about the Holocaust, to watching the nightmare of oppression faced by black citizens in Selma, Alabama where my older brother marched in 1965, to the rise of gay people and same-sex couples to achieve full equality and recognition, which connected with me personally.

In all of these stories, I see simply human beings, and how we all are connected. Everyone’s despair is mine, anyone’s second-class status is mine, and every story explains why.

Fast forward to 2010 in Washington DC. In my lifetime, here in my hometown, I have a President and his family who now are African-American, and I see the gay and lesbian couples in Washington DC now eligible for full marriage equality. That brings me to my story, or the story I am told about the day marriage licenses were first issued to same-sex couples here in our nation’s capital just a few days ago.

Our openly gay city councilmember, David Catania, and author of this long-overdue civil rights legislation, spent that first day at our city bureau as wedding licenses were formally issued to over a hundred same-sex couples. He told us how sweet, joyful and historic that occasion was for him, and most of all for the couples who had waited so long, days, weeks, months and years.

He ran into one solitary couple, a man and a woman, patiently waiting for their turn. Surrounded by jubilant same-sex couples on that unique occasion, they seemed to stand out. Catania simply joked to them that they obviously picked the wrong day to stand in line for a marriage license!

They told him, “not at all.” In fact, they disclosed that they actually had waited for 6 years to get their marriage license and to be wed, believing that it was unfair for them to have this right, if their lesbian and gay friends were denied the equal right to marry too. They made a special point that day to join everyone else to get their own license.

Of all the events and words and images that last that day, knowing that we have straight friends, allies and loved ones who “give a damn,” and in fact, pay a personal sacrifice to join us in equality — it is one of the greatest gifts I’ve witnessed in many years.

It is a reminder to us that we are not alone, and that having allies who believe as we do and as the Reverend Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

My Daughters

Mar 28th, 2010 10:11 AM By Nancy

I give a DAMN about equality… ONE of my daughters is gay…

I have raised three daughters. I’ve taught them the fundamentals of life and living in this world, then went beyond this to teach tolerance, equality, independence, faith, compassion and love.

What a joy to watch three beautiful young children grow into the adults they now are! What a joy to nurture each as individuals while treating them equally. What a joy to teach them to be anything they wanted to be. What a joy to watch them learn to love and develop healthy relationships. What a joy to witness them embracing each day.

Each day brings new discoveries for all three. Along the way, my youngest daughter discovered her sexuality as a lesbian. Within our family, this discovery was recognized and acknowledged. We did not judge, and our family still lives with the values of respect and equality that we’ve always lived by.

But for me, the need for social equality outside of our family became more important than ever! I was to send my youngest daughter into the world–and she would learn that the teachings and equality in our home would not necessarily follow her.

I have raised three daughters… and as individual as they are, now they are not treated equally.

TWO of my daughters can…

• Walk safely down any street holding hands with their significant others
• Practice careers without fear of discrimination
• Marry legally (if they choose) in a courtroom – OR – in a religious environment of their choosing
• Have an open relationship with a member of our armed forces
• Practice their religious upbringing openly–not questioning their faith because of a lack of tolerance
• Reap the benefits of “joint” tax returns, health insurance, marriage law…

The list goes on and on.

I hope that someday, this will change to: “All THREE of my daughters can…”