Ding Dong, DOMA's Dead

Holy smokes. To be honest, my head is still sort of spinning. Wow.   Yesterday, Gina and I went to our town's middle school to vote in the Massachusetts special senate election, and patient wife that she is, Gina graciously walked beside me even though I insisted on donning my shiny and not un-garish woman's suffrage sash to  march into the polling station.  I bought the sash in Rochester NY at Susan B. Anthony's house. And I have been looking forward to busting it out at election time. And not just for its strikingly handsome color combination (Yellow for victory! White for purity! Purple for––I forget what purple is for. Temperance, probably, but I'll say Courage!).  It's easy to forget sometimes that less than a short century ago, our nation, conceived in liberty and all of that was still an enthusiastic spouter-offer of any number of justifications for why fully half its members of society shouldn't be allowed to vote. Susan B. Anthony, in her address before the judiciary committee asking the committee to adopt a woman's suffrage amendment, said this in response to the protest that perhaps the woman's vote was best decided by popular vote at a state by state level: 

 

It was tried in Kansas, it was tried in New York, and everywhere that it was submitted the question was voted down overwhelmingly. . . . Why? Because the question of the enfranchisement of women is a question of government, a question of philosophy, of understanding, of great fundamental principle, and the masses of the hard-working people of this nation, men and women, do not think upon principles.

Here's another quote, this one from Lucretia Mott. She is talking about marriage here. You know, that sacred and ever eternal institution whose purpose is to join the wife and husband into one person; the husband:  

"On no good ground can the legal existence of the wife be suspended during marriage, and her property surrendered to her husband. In intelligent ranks of society the wife may not in point of fact be so degraded as the law would degrade her; because public sentiment is above the law. Still, while the law stands, she is liable to the disabilities which it imposes." 

Today, Gina and I got married, thanks to the supreme court's decision to strike down DOMA. So now we have a second wedding anniversary to celebrate. We only wanted one anniversary, we're not greedy, but until today, our marriage had a sort of specially nebulous haze of murkiness about it has been the special provence of gay marriages. Because gay marriages are like unicorns. Not everybody can see them. And also because they're sparkly and magical. Actually, they're not, because that's the thing. Those who can see gay marriages and know they exist know the truth about them: they are every bit as boring and domestic and unthreatening as your run of the mill straight marriages (Which I guess would be horsies in this analogy.)  Massachusetts sees unicorns, but at the federal level, we dissipate into a haze of nothing.

NOTHING.

Let's take a moment and think about what it feels like to be nothing. 

But now it's like the government can now see unicorns. The same unicorns the states have been telling them about for all this time. Our marriage is now visible to the feds. 

Yes, I am happy. I cried when I found out in a totally spontaneous and unanticipated little shower of tears.  I also know I have personally done very little in this fight to get the government to open its eyes and finally acknowledge we exist. Maybe I was crying some guilty tears of the apathetic. Activists and advocates and fighters and speakers far more courageous than I deserve that credit and I know it is their bravery that I am indebted to. On the other hand, I have only ever tried live my life with honesty and honor and integrity and kindness and I hope that has helped too, in its own small way.  Here's another Lucretia Mott quote from the same speech, which she delivered at the 5th National Women's Rights Convention. In 1854. "What does woman want, more than she enjoys? What is she seeking to obtain? . . . I answer, she asks nothing as favor, but as right; she wants to be acknowledged a moral, responsible being." 

 Acknowledgement. That is what visibility is. That is what equality means.

Displacement Activities

Sometimes I set goals for myself. Like when I sit down to write, I’ll set forth this goal that my writing really ought to have some sort of point to it. A purpose. At a bare minimum, it should have depth, insight, and the power to stir minds. Which means that at the very least, it has to be profound enough to potentially merit a Pulitzer Prize. Or a Nobel. Which means that unless I am confident I could look forward to an early morning phone call from Sweden over whatever emerging writing I am working on, I must abandon all hope of literary aptitude and instead go do something that is more commensurate with my obviously limited abilities. This includes and is strictly limited to menial housework tasks such as washing dishes, sweeping floors or ––I know!––washing my living room windows. Here’s a helpful life hint:  Should you ever find yourself despairing over an appalling inability to meet the simplest little goal you set up for yourself, washing windows affords a good low-investment, high-reward measure to demonstrate that you are at least still good at something. Even if it’s washing windows.

            Our downstairs windows are more immaculate than they have ever been, and not just because we recently bought this crazy cleaner stuff that claims to have some sort of miracle enzymatic cleansing power along with 500+ official uses (Because it cleans windows! And window sills! And counters! Wow!) And never mind that a mysterious film, which appeared shortly after I had finished my flurry of industry now causes me to perpetually believe it is hazier outside than it actually is. At least at the end of the day, I can look at my windows and windowsills and bask in their gentle enzymatically scrubbed glow, and say to myself, I did that! I was so productive! On the other hand, I can also say that I’ve cleaned my windows more recently than I’ve posted to my blog. And for anybody who has seen my housekeeping skills, you understand how this illustrates the depths to which I’ve sunk. 

            But I have other goals that help get me back on track. For instance, one of my more recent goals goes like this: Today I will finish the remaining work I have to do for my mfa program’s residency, which begins next week. Which means I absolutely will finish today. Which means that if, in an emergency-sort-of-way, I don’t, you know, finish finish, it’s okay because I still have tomorrow. Which is a relief because suddenly our sluggish washing machine seems like an urgent concern. And so does the fact that we don’t have an air conditioner and it’s hot and they’re on sale right now at Lowe’s, which is just down the road. And so does the fact that it’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged.

            Which reminds me, I think my windows really could use some washing.