Even though we were angry and most of California had just passed Prop 8, it was an exciting moment. It was the moment that tipped the movement for marriage equality. We were angry but the energy was huge nationwide.
Being a married lesbian in the US was very unusual at that moment and performing to that crowd was a great experience.
Life being what it is, I’m now working on Everything Is Subject to Change, post-divorce. But I stand by everything I said here.
It was a thrill to meet Lt Dan who is a powerful speaker and person. He actually saluted me when we said goodbye, then apologized and explained that it was out of habit.
If you somehow don’t already know, he is a West Point grad who’s completed 2 tours of duty in Iraq. He’s about to be discharged under Don’t Asked Don’t Tell even though he’s an Arabic linguist. He’s one of the few people in the military who could actually ask or tell people in Iraq anything.
It was literally 100 degrees. That explains the hair.
I just watched the trailer for Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk film for the first time and was surprised to find myself crying.
Crying because I never got to see Harvey Milk in person, though I’ve seen him on film, and somehow I felt some of his magic. Crying because of the power and beauty of a moment when he and other gay people stopped cowering and owned their lives in public. Crying because he’s not here now and in a little less than two months California will vote on whether or not the State Constitution should be changed so that I and “my kind” cannot be married and I am not sure enough straight people will know and care enough save my marriage. Crying because a “tough and masculine” and certainly straight actor Sean Penn is playing Harvey with such dignity and so beautifully and that I am living to see and American straight man publicly not cower from an act that could “threaten” the defensive-ness we call masculinity. Crying because I’m just so damn grateful that Robin WIlliams did not, as was once promised, play Harvey.
On November 4th, have the guts to live in hope. Vote no on Proposition 8.
