The defeat of this amendment was caused by four interrelated factors.  The first is electoral politics.  In the general election last fall, every single marriage equality supporter who ran won re-election, while a couple of marriage equality opponents lost.  Additionally, our supporters have won a few special elections since the general.  Not only did we pick up votes via elections, but those elections also showed people who were closet supporters of marriage equality that a backlash for such a vote was unlikely.  The legislature itself is different than it was during the 2004 ConCon:

Late in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down its ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.  They ruled that the Bay State's exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage violated the Commonwealth's constitution.

Last spring, the General Court met as a Constitutional Convention to debate an amendment to the Constitution that would bar marriage equality.  After four days of maneuvering, debating, and voting, stretched out over a couple of months, the General Court passed an amendment that would ban marriage equality but create civil unions by a vote of 105-101.  We lost, but the most odious amendments were all defeated.

I'm not the type of person who usually cries at weddings.  (I often avoid weddings altogether.)  Today, tears were rolling down my face.  Part of that was, of course, happiness for my aunts.  They had had a rough couple of weeks.  A friend of theirs died recently after a long and difficult struggle with cancer.  Additionally, prior to leaving for this trip, they had to put their dog to sleep.  Her own nine-year struggle with heart problems--Sweetie wasn't supposed to live more than a few months when they got her--along with breathing problems had finally become too much for her to bear.

Today, though, was a day for celebration.

In part, that discomfort comes from what we can't do.   To be honest, at this moment in life, I can't even afford to go out for a decent dinner, something I really, really enjoy.  Right from the start, I have to place limits on what we're able to do.

As I write this, I'm watching the Canadian House of Commons' final debate on bill C-38: The Civil Marriage Act, a law to extend marriage equality to all Canadians (currently, eight of ten provinces and one of three territories have established equal marriage rights).  This bill's path to tonight's final reading has been a bumpy one, from the Liberal's surviving a no-confidence vote, to a bold strategy that caught the Tories off guard and passed the budget (keeping the Government from falling), to cutting off debate last night.  Cabinet member Joe Camuzzo resigned his cabinet position rather than follow Prime Minister Martin's order for all members of the Cabinet to vote for C-38.

The passage of C-38 is not in doubt tonight, nor is passage in the Senate.  The votes exist for marriage equality.  

Below, you will read the harrowing tale of an underground network, of the fighting skills they're developing, of the incendiary things they say about us humans.  Be afraid...the hairballs left in your shoes are just the preliminary phase.  

If a straight woman directing a fashion institute has lost her gaydar, what chance to I, a lowly academic working mostly among heteros, have?

(Fuck Godwin)

It feels like we've been here before.  Early in the AIDS crisis, William Saffire proposed having HIV-positive gay men tattood on the ass.  But we're all familiar with the actual practice of putting visible "warning labels" on homsexuals.

If you're anything like me, you don't read very much fiction. I love a good novel, but I don't have enough opportunity.  Lunch hour during my summer job provides one.

I'm looking for good books.  I'll toss out a few of my faves, please do the same.  Doesn't have to be recent, just has to be a good read.

I have an ambivalent relationship to Pride.  The first NY Gay Pride was an anniversary march for the Stonewall Riots.  I miss the deep politics that caused Pride to begin.  I love the way queer folks come together to celebrate during these times.   I get a little tired of corporate sponsorship and constant advertising--we've become more of a market niche than a political community.  Whatever, that's the context today.

Today, I'm gonna talk a bit about gender, knowledge, and the body.  The discussion will take a few detours along the way, but I think they'll all make sense in the end.  At least, I hope so.

Yesterday at Fenway Park we learned that Carson Kressley is not a pitcher.  The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy gang was in town doing promotional work for tomorrow's season premier, in which the Fab Five make over--excuse me, make better--members of the Boston Red Sox.  Yesterday, Jai sang the national anthem while Thom, Carson and Kyann "threw" out the first pitch.

While his throwing style ensures he'll never have a career on the diamond, some of the reactions from yesterday's game make it seem as though we learned about Kressley's pitcher/catcher status in the adult sense of the word.  You'd think that he was on his knees on the pitcher's mound, being hammered from in front and behind by the bats of the Sox he just made over.  Local Homohater Brian Cammenker was very fussy in yesterday's Boston Herald (Cammenker's ideological kin, the Phelps clan of Topeka, Kansas, was also in town yesterday.):

I'm thinking about this because these cookouts make me a little homesick.  In some ways, they remind me I am not of this place I'm currently living.  Home is where the bratwurst are.  And my parents' garden.

My jazz collection is far less extensive than my classical collection.  It's a genre I've finally started to "get."  For a very long time, it escaped me.  No longer.  So, below I'll toss out a few of my favorite discs...I'd ask you to do the same.