Letting Go

NOTE: This entry was composed at 6:20 AM on Sunday, July 25, 2010, in anticipation of August 14, 2010.

I compose this entry, which will mark the final entry of this blog, in anticipation of August 14, 2010, the date that would have been my first wedding anniversary. Rather than spending this day next to "my partner-in-life, soul mate, man of my dreams, and ... legal spouse" (see my post of Tuesday, July 7, 2009), in celebration, I will pass the day hundreds of miles away from him, mostly alone. On Thursday, January 21, 2010, Charlie announced his decision to go his own way. Less than six months after our wedding, my marriage ended, not of my accord. In order for me to marry Charlie, I had to believe that January 21 was an impossibility, and I did. I honestly thought Charlie was going to be the man to bury me.

Much of this year has been spent grieving. Only the death of a spouse could rival this loss. In many ways, it feels like death. As one coworker put it, "It's the death of a dream." In the aftermath, I have been left with a series of questions, which will probably haunt me for the rest of my life, the most significant one being, "Why?" Why did my marriage die? I haven't received a satisfactory answer. I'm not sure I ever will.

Oddly enough, Charlie and I continue as a married couple, though our lives couldn't be anymore separated. On a spiritual level, the marriage has died; our bond has been broken. But, the state that married us (i.e., Iowa) refuses to allow us to divorce, because neither of us is a resident of that state. From a constitutional perspective, neither Missouri, the state in which I now reside, nor Texas, where Charlie remained, recognizes our marriage. Interestingly enough, a district court judge in Texas has asserted that "Texas' ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law," averring that "the court 'has jurisdiction to hear a suit for divorce filed by persons legally married in another jurisdiction'" ("Texas judge," 2009, ¶1 and ¶ 2). So, I guess Charlie could file for divorce if he wanted to … if he was aware of this case … if he gave it a passing thought.

Why Our Battle Is (or Should Be) Your Battle

As I think I conveyed with some degree of success in last night's post, Charlie and I experienced the whole gamut of emotions yesterday. Suddenly, Texas's constitutional band on same-sex marriages became a personal slap in the face. For me, it was a wakeup call, informing me that it is not acceptable to abscond in my happy, comfortable life. In the course of a few minutes yesterday morning, I realized that discrimination against the GLBTQI community, homophobia, ignorance, and hate are all very much alive and well. As much as I might want to remain sequestered in the safety of my own little world, in good conscience, I cannot.

Late last night, in the aftermath of our experience, I spent a good deal of time reflecting. After coming home from the DMV, I already knew what our course of action would be: I would send an email to the major players for GLBTQI equality (i.e., the ACLU, Equality Texas, HRC, Marriage Equality USA, People for the American Way, et al.), entreating their assistance in the matter. If the law isn't on our side, then, at the very least, we can draw public attention to this incident to increase awareness of the injustices being perpetrated. And I did just that. I sent the email, and I blind copied it to a list of people Charlie and I regard as friends. Out of that list, only a single person took the time to write back and express support. Initially, I was both hurt and offended. But, after allowing those emotions to arise and pass through me, I began to ruminate at a deeper level regarding why our friends did not see fit to comment. Of course, some of them might not have received the email. But, they are all pretty "plugged in," so that's not likely. One or two might have had urgent family matters that took precedent. Definitely understandable. But what about the others? There were three primary reasons that came to mind:

1. They didn't feel that the name on our license was a big deal;
2. They didn't feel like the issue affected them;
3. They are apathetic toward the plight of GLBTQI Americans.

Tonight, I'd like to address all three.

A Higher Law

2009 was a personally challenging year for Charlie and I. There was our relo from Brownsville to Austin, my mom's surgery, a death in the family, deaths among friends, the stress of being unemployed, the angst of being betrayed by a "friend," and the list goes on. Amidst this sea of turbulence and chaos came one of the happiest moments of our lives: our wedding. On Friday, August 14, 2009 at 3:00 p.m., before Polk County District Court Judge Eliza Ovrum, Charlie and I exchanged vows, promising to walk side-by-side "'til death due us part." It's a moment I won't forget. I'm a pretty strong guy; I don't cry often. But that day, as I spoke my vows, a tear rolled down my cheek.

Today, on the second anniversary of our engagement, Charlie and I finally got around to getting down to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to change the names on our licenses. Last summer, when we made application for our marriage license, we had the option of changing our names once we were married. We elected a common surname, which was an alphabetically correct, hyphenated version of our birth surnames—except that Iowa statutes wouldn't allow hyphens, which is an entirely different story! So, with thoughts of our beachside engagement dancing through our heads, we strode happily into our local DMV this morning and requested to change our names. I was first in line. The (obviously) gay attendant at the front desk beckoned me over. With a gleam in his eye, he said everything looked good, congratulated me on my wedding, and allowed his supervisor to look over the Certificate of Marriage (Certificate). Initially, the supervisor expressed his consent. Thinking it was going to be another great day in Austin, I took the number handed to me (to wait for the DMV representative to assist me with my new license) and handed Charlie our Certificate, as he was next in line, and began to walk away. That was a fatal mistake. As Charlie approached, the supervisor exclaimed, "Hey, wait a minute! We can't do this; Texas doesn't recognize same-sex marriages."

GOP: Good Ol' Pharisees

Time for the daily post, folks. Sorry it's a bit late. I'd like to take a quick detour this evening to rail against something that irks me to no end: hypocrisy. On a good day, I can't stand the Republican Party. But when I hear about another example of blatant hypocrisy among the GOP ranks, well, let's just say my blood pressure rises to dangerous levels. Take the latest two "falls from grace" in an ongoing litany of Republican SNAFUs: that of Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, and John Ensign, senator from Nevada. Their extramarital affairs are old news by now, but in case you've just come out of a coma, I'll briefly recap:

• Sandford did a disappearing act over Father's Day weekend to go play hanky-panky with his mistress, "Maria," in Argentina, whilst his family and the entire state of South Carolina thought he just "wanted some space." Apparently he wanted more than space.
  
• Late last month, Ensign confessed to an extramarital affair with his campaign treasurer, Cindy Hampton, who was also married. Now we're learning that Ensign's daddy, a Las Vegas casino mogul, made "restitution" to the tune of $96,000 to Mrs. Hampton and her cuckolded husband, Doug. Sounds like a little hush money to me.

But don't worry, Sanford and Ensign have issued "sincere" apologies, which makes everything better. Hell, we even got a tear from Sanford. Good work, boys!

Now, before someone flies off and starts clamoring about the Democrats and their trysts—and God knows they have plenty of them, let me just explain the reason Republican dalliances pack a much bigger punch, ethically speaking: Both Sandford and Ensign are self-proclaimed evangelical Christians, publicly flaunting their moral rectitude. Both staunchly tout the "sanctity of marriage." And both, as you might well have guessed, stand vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage. Democrats don't claim God's favor, folks; your good 'ol GOPers do. And, as Michelangelo Signorile so aptly pointed out in a recent broadcast, Democrats don't run on a platform of "family values"; Republicans do. Most Democrats don't give a rat's *ss what you do in your bedroom; the GOP wants to make certain you're doing nothing but procreating in there—missionary style. (And you better not enjoy it.) So, what difference does all this make between the parties regarding their affaires de coeur? Democrats seem all too miscreant in their sins while Republicans emerge as sanctimonious hypocrites. Big, BIG difference.

The Pink Birds and Bees – Part 1

DISCLAIMER: This post is intended for emotionally mature audiences only. If words like "penis" and "vagina" make you blush or frank, non-scientific discussions of what we do with them make you want to put your hands over your ears/eyes and repeatedly sing "LA LA LA LA," the next few posts aren't for you. If, however, you haven't come down with a nasty case of "family values," read on.

Remaining true to my primary intention of devoting this blog to discussions of same-sex marriage—at least initially, I'm going to examine homosexual pairings from a biological standpoint over the next couple of posts, since that's often where opponents start. For the time being, we'll leave religion and politics out of the bedroom and focus strictly on the biology of making love!¹

Early in life, I arrived at the conclusion that human beings possess four distinct but integrated components. Listed in order from most basic to most advanced, they are as follow: the physical, the emotional, the psychological, and the spiritual. (From an evolutionary perspective, this is also the likely order in which the components evolved in our species.) Since this idea approximates Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (Hierarchy), I'm assuming it's not original. In order for a person to be whole, all four components must be nurtured; neglect of one or more inevitably produces disorders in the others. While this connection has been respected in the East for millennia, Western medicine has only recently begun to acknowledge it. Of course, many see our composition in simpler terms, dividing the human into two distinct parts: the body, comprising the physical and the emotional, and the soul/spirit, composed of the psychological and the spiritual. However you choose to think about it, most agree that we have both "lower" and "higher" natures, the lower nature representing our most primal existence as creatures of flesh and blood—biological organisms, if you will—and the higher nature encompassing our consciousness or soul. For the sake of simplicity, we'll use the terms "body" and "mind" going forward. Assuming the preceding to be true then, interactions between human beings necessarily involve body or mind or both; in short, we use our bodies and/or minds to relate to one another.

In the course of our lives, most question the nature of individual existence. Am I simply a body? Or, do I have a soul too? I think ... therefore, I must be!² But, am I just an animal, subject to the whims of my biological instincts—those myriad chemical reactions in my brain? Or, can I use reason, ethics, and beliefs at a higher level of cognition to overrule my more aggressive biological impulses? In the course of this reflection, most conclude that we have a higher nature (i.e., mind), which we may believe to be temporal or eternal, and a lower nature (i.e., body) that all but the most dysfunctional of us realize is mortal. Through the process of socialization and acculturation, many also come to believe that the body is evil or bad or at least suspect, while the mind is transcendent or good or somehow better. And thus begins the dichotomy that has had Western civilization at odds with itself since the dawn of the "Enlightenment." Thank you, Monsieur Descartes.