I cry easily. And, this week, there have been many opportunities for the waterworks to start. First, for the senseless loss of life and maiming of people in Boston at what is, normally, a time of celebration. Then, tears of admiration for the first responders who were running in to help when everyone else, so terrified, was running away. Next, there were tears for the way our nation rallied around the hurt and the heroes as billboards and signs on social networking sites shouted out BOSTON STRONG reminding us that it’s not only a description but a way of life for our brothers and sisters on the east coast of this great land. There were tears when Neil Diamond showed up at the Red Sox game to lead the crowd in singing SWEET CAROLINE, his hit, which has become the ball team’s theme song. There were tears, too, for the relentless work of law enforcement officials who worked so quickly and so tirelessly to bring the perpetrators in and the bravery they showed in a shootout which left one young terrorist dead and his brother wounded and on the loose for awhile longer. But not much longer. And, finally, there were even tears for those two brothers whose young lives have shattered and ended amidst so much tragedy and pain. How could they have gotten to that place where they thought murdering and maiming people was a good idea? It is hard to wrap my brain around this. And their message was…WHAT? That the older one didn’t have any American friends? That the younger one was about to flunk out of college? I DON’T GET IT. We can call them Muslim terrorists but, in truth, they are two young men, two screwed up young men, who performed an act of terrorism and who also happen to be Muslim. I don’t know very many Muslim people, but the ones I know don’t hate Americans. They are peaceful people who just want to live their lives and practice the faith they grew up with. I think we are wrong in, once again, assigning blame to the people of the Muslim faith for the crappy actions of a few. I mean, haven’t we had a barrel full of bad apples from the Christian faith? Jewish faith? Hindu faith? Others?
Some years ago, I chatted with an Ethiopian-born cab driver in Dallas. I asked him why he had come to America and become a US citizen. He said, “Remember that song, ‘We Are the World’ which came out in 1984? The money raised by that song saved my village. I began to think about how, whenever there is a true need in the world, America always steps forward to help. Other wealthy nations do not do this. Saudi Arabia doesn’t; Germany doesn’t; France doesn’t; Japan doesn’t. America ALWAYS does. I decided I wanted to be one of those people who always steps forward to help. That is why I became an American.” I forgot to ask him about his faith, but it really doesn’t matter to me. He’s an American who loves his county. Like me.
Earlier in the week, right after the tragedy, when we were emerging from the smokey residue of two bombs and the bloody miasma of wounds and terror, I was half-listening to somebody from Boston talking on one of the news shows. When he said the words, “THEY HAVE MESSED WITH THE WRONG CITY,” tears exploded out of me and I sank into the couch, heaving big, snot-laden sobs, my heart, all at once, both heavy with sadness and soaring with pride. “Yes, indeed, ” I thought, “indeed they have.” What happened in Boston – what those two young men did – was evil. It was wicked. But, we all know for sure now, if we didn’t know it before, just as the signs people held up at the Red Sox game said: BOSTON STRONG. WICKED STRONG. Boston will get through this. And so will we all.

The thought of a whole bunch of people, every few years, all getting together and voting on my life is odd. Really odd. And, yet, that’s what happens. For some people, defining marriage means they will have a “lock” on what it means to be married; that, if only people are like them, then they, too, will be able to make the union with the one they love a legal thing, with all of the benefits and, hopefully, responsibilities that go with it. This always strikes me as a little absurd and, even more absurd is the idea that a gay marriage is somehow threatening to a heterosexual one. How does that work, exactly? My partner and I like to ask our straight friends outright, “Do you feel threatened by our relationship?” They usually recoil at such a question, shocked that we’d even think to ask it. But we ask it for a reason, which is to point out the absurdity of such an argument. I have always said to people who feel threatened by the fact that we love each other: IF MY RELATIONSHIP IS MAKING A MESS OF YOUR MARRIAGE, MAYBE I DON’T HAVE A LOT TO DO WITH IT. IF MY RELATIONSHIP IS, SOMEHOW, MAKING A MESS OF YOUR MARRIAGE, I’D GUESS THAT YOU’VE GOT BIGGER PROBLEMS TO DEAL WITH THAN THE TWO OF US. YOU NEED A COUNSELOR, NOT A BALLOT MEASURE. And, so, now lawyers on both sides of the gay marriage issue, along with their supporters, are heading to the Supreme Court, the 9 Justices who are set to determine whether or not excluding an entire group of Americans from WE THE PEOPLE is Constitutional. I know what my vote would be. I watched, for the second time, THE HELP last night on TV. It rocks my mind to think of where we were as a nation,in terms of civil rights, just 50 years ago. It made me remember, with great fondness and tears, a wonderful, gentle, patient young black woman named Emma who took care of my brother and me when we were just babies so our mother could go to work. We were not wealthy people and Emma was not our maid. She was hired to look after two very active and stubborn little kids, to keep us fed and clean and to teach us right from wrong. She did all of that and we loved her with pure little hearts, both of us standing on the couch, peering through the venetian blinds, squealing with delight when we saw Emma come walking up from the street car lines just down the hill. We had no idea about Emma’s life or what she had to endure as a black woman considered as “domestic help” in Dallas, Texas in the 1950’s. We only knew that she loved us, and we were as devoted to her as was Mae Mobley to Aibileen in THE HELP. Would it ever occur to me to vote for Emma to have less rights than my own? No. Would it ever occur to Emma to vote against my life now? I can’t say for sure, because the last time I saw her was 1961 but, knowing Emma, my guess would be No. She knew the sting of that, the exclusion, the back-breaking power and humiliation of being voted against, the unspoken message, the aura that says YOU’RE NOT AS GOOD AS WE ARE. CHANGE TO BE LIKE WE ARE AND MAYBE WE’LL LET YOU INTO THE CLUB. For Emma, a black woman, there was no choice in changing her race or color. For me, I can no more change who I am than I could my eye color. I suppose I could wrestle some bright blue contact lenses onto my eyeballs, but that would be no more true than my trying and pretending to be heterosexual. I’ve done that, which was about as comfortable as wearing a long-line bra. Ugh. There are lots of things for our Supremes to consider in making their decision, I suppose, but the most important one, I think, is this: EQUAL HAS NEVER MEANT ANYTHING OTHER THAN EQUAL. Let’s hope they remember that on this call.