With Bated Breath

The various news sites and bloggers who should know about these things say that the Supreme Court will rule on the DOMA and Prop 8 cases today.  And when they do, all sorts of people will be saying, "Well, I knew the Court would rule that way . . . " - but that's all bullshit. As of this moment, nobody but the nine justices themselves knows how the rulings are going to go.  As we saw in yesterday's Voting Rights Act ruling, the conservatives can easily muster five votes when they want to; so the Court could very well uphold both DOMA and Prop 8, though I think it unlikely they will. 

But we just can't and won't know for sure until the court begins issuing its rulings at 10 a.m. Washington time today:  the quickest and likely most accurate way to get the news is by following the live feed over at SCOTUSblog, beginning at 9 a.m.

Meanwhile, it happens that today is the tenth anniversary of the momentous 6-3 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down the enforcement of sodomy laws in the fourteen states that still had them in 2003.  This short video from Lambda Legal reviews the connection between that case and todays' cases.

Overruled!



Map of U. S. sodomy laws on the eve of Lawrence v. Texas;
states shown in dark red still had such laws in effect until that time.

A short film from Lambda Legal explaining the background and significance of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas.  This is the first time I've ever seen an interview with the late John Lawrence, one of the two men arrested and convicted of the crime of "deviant sexual intercourse" by the state of Texas in 1998.

The Story Behind Lawrence v. Texas

Excerpt from the New Yorker's review of Flagrant Conduct by Dale Carpenter, professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law, about the landmark 2003 Supreme Court case:

Lawrence and Garner may have been reluctant to talk to civil-rights lawyers from the outset, and reluctant to become the face of gay sodomy in Texas, and yet this imperfect test case could be made over into something more than serviceable. Lambda Legal, a national gay-rights advocacy group, agreed to represent them as a means both of directly challenging Bowers v. Hardwick and of highlighting the consequences of criminalizing consensual gay sex. Sodomy laws were almost never enforced, but their very existence legitimatized a culture of homophobia, and as long as Bowers was still on the books gay-rights arguments would be stymied in the courts.

The legal opportunity depended, however, upon persuading the defendants to go along with an unusual strategy. High-powered lawyers would represent Lawrence and Garner, as long as they agreed to stop saying they weren’t guilty and instead entered a “no contest” plea. By doing so, the two were promised relative personal privacy, and given a chance to become a part of gay-civil-rights history. The cause was greater than the facts themselves. Lawrence and Garner understood that they were being asked to keep the dirty secret that there was no dirty secret.

That’s the punch line: the case that affirmed the right of gay couples to have consensual sex in private spaces seems to have involved two men who were neither a couple nor having sex. In order to appeal to the conservative Justices on the high court, the story of a booze-soaked quarrel was repackaged as a love story. Nobody had to know that the gay-rights case of the century was actually about three or four men getting drunk in front of a television in a Harris County apartment decorated with bad James Dean erotica.

Fear and Loathing in East Texas, Cont'd

Kudos to GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) for prodding NBC affiliate KETK in Tyler, Texas, to apologize for their outrageous simulcast Wednesday with sister station KTBB, asking whether "gays will be the downfall of America."

Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God. uploaded the original clip to YouTube, but KETB has had it removed, ostensibly as a "copyright violation."  Nevertheless, you can still see the smear piece over at the Courage Campaign's site here - where you can also sign a petition to ask NBC Universal to end its corporate relationship with KETK, if you like.

The apology - and I leave it up to my truckbuddies to say whether it's a half-ass one or not - by KETK general manager Dave Tillery is here on their own site or here on GLAAD's.  In writing it goes like this:

This past Wednesday, our radio partner – KTBB – presented a Talkback question regarding homosexuality. That question was also simulcast during our morning news broadcast. Many of our viewers and their listeners found the wording of that question to be offensive. We understand and respect their comments. We have discussed these comments with KTBB and agree that the question was poorly worded. For that, they have apologized. And since the question also appeared on our air, we are sorry for any offense that was taken.

Sound Familiar?

OMG!  If we let those people marry, it will destroy the whole institution of marriage - not to mention the whole country - and bring the world to a screeching halt!  It just ain't Christian, I tell ya.  We have to stop this terrible thing before it destroys us all - and think of the poor little babies too . . . and yada yada yada.

Since Judge Walker posted his ruling last week, there's been a lot of good stuff on marriage equality coming out, and here's another bit I just found, from a commenter on the Guardian's article about the ruling:

“[If interracial couples have a right to marry], all our marriage acts forbidding intermarriage between persons within certain degrees of consanguinity are void.”

(Source: Perez v. Lippold, 198 P.2d at 40 (Shenk, J., dissenting, quoting from a prior court case)

“The underlying factors that constitute justification for laws against miscegenation closely parallel those which sustain the validity of prohibitions against incest and incestuous marriages.”

(Source: Perez v. Lippold, 198 P.2d at 46 (Shenk, J., dissenting, quoting from a prior court case)

“[T]he State's prohibition of interracial marriage . . . stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage, or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry, and the prevention of the marriage of people who are mentally incompetent.”

(Source: Excerpted United States Supreme Court oral argument transcripts from Loving v. Virginia, from Peter Irons and Stephanie Guitton, eds., May it Please the Court (1993) at 282-283, quoting Virginia Assistant Attorney General R. D. McIlwaine, arguing for Virginia's ban on interracial marriage)

“Each [party seeking to marry a member of a different race] has the right and the privilege of marrying within his or her own group.”

(Source: Perez v. Lippold, 198 P.2d at 46 (Shenk, J., dissenting, quoting from a prior court case)

“When people of [different races] marry, they cannot possibly have any progeny, . . . and such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid their marriages.”

(Source: A judge in a Missouri case, quoted in Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May 19,1996)

Allowing interracial marriages “necessarily involves the degradation” of conventional marriage, an institution that “deserves admiration rather than execration.”

(Source: A U.S. representative from Georgia quoted in Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1996)

“[S]uch laws [banning interracial marriage] have been in effect in this country since before our national independence and in this state since our first legislative session. They have never been declared unconstitutional by any court in the land although frequently they have been under attack. It is difficult to see why such laws, valid when enacted and constitutionally enforceable in this state for nearly one hundred years and elsewhere for a much longer period of time, are now unconstitutional under the same constitution.”

(Source: Perez v. Lippold, 198 P.2d at 35 (Shenk, J. dissenting))

 Note - Perez v. Lippold, aka Perez v. Sharp, is the landmark 1948 decision by the California Supreme Court allowing interracial marriages in that state.

Loving v. Virginia is the 1967 ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court striking down Virginia's miscegenation law, and ending all such bans on interracial marriage throughout the nation.

It's important to understand that both of these cases determined that the laws in question violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment - which is exactly what Judge Walker found to be wrong with Prop 8 in the Perry case.


All these points of comparison and more are found in an excellent handout produced by Vermont Freedom to Marry: download the entire 2-page pdf document here.

Send a copy to your nearest and dearest while you're at it.  Probly won't change anybody's mind - but at least now you can quote them chapter and verse, if that's what they like to do to you.


P.S. - From the New York Times, November 12, 2000:

Alabama voters quietly removed one piece of arcana from their Jim Crow-era constitution: a 1901 state law banning marriage between a Negro and Caucasian. The Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1967, but until last week, when voters passed a ballot initiative to purge that law from the books, it held on as the last such state law in the nation. The margin by which the measure passed was itself a statement. A clear majority, 60 percent, voted to remove the miscegenation statute from the state constitution, but 40 percent of Alabamans -- nearly 526,000 people -- voted to keep it.

Also, FYI:  That Texas sodomy statute that the Supremes struck down in 2003?  It's still on the books here in God's Country.  Old times here are not forgotten, oh hell no.


Check out this parody of a Prop 8 ad, from the 2008 election in California:

The Big Court Case

It's about your right to exist.  To exist as a free and equal human being like every other mother's son.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - you know, all those things you thought you were buying into when you said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school?  It's about whether you are as good as anyone else - or just a misfit, a reject in the scheme of things.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger commenced yesterday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and you should pay attention to it, fellas, because either way it goes, it is sure to have a huge effect on your life for many years to come.

In a nutshell:  The case seeks to invalidate Prop 8 out in California on these grounds:

• Violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ["no state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".]
• Violates the Due Process Clause by impinging on fundamental liberties.  ["No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"]
• Singles out gays and lesbians for a disfavored legal status, thereby creating a category of “second-class citizens.”
• Discriminates on the basis of gender.
• Discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Theodore Olson and David Boies, the attorneys for the two California couples who are plaintiffs in this case, are determined to take the case all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court if necessary.  Many gay-rights groups have criticized the case as being inopportune:  a victory would, of course, require California and perhaps other states to extend marriage to same-sex couples; but a loss in the Supreme Court would set us back a long, long time, as did Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, when the Supremes ruled 5-4 that the Constitution did not confer "a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy."

Thus, sodomy laws in thirteen states remained in effect in 24 states at that time; not until seventeen years later, in 2003, when the Court reversed itself in Lawrence v. Texas, were sodomy laws invalidated throughout the country; 13 states still had sodomy laws at that time.  In fact, the law is still part of Texas statutes, though now unenforceable; the Texas Legislature has never seen fit to remove the law, which is still on the books here.

Thus, many who are well-versed in the legal aspects of civil rights and same-sex marriage fear that an unfavorable Supreme Court decision could set our cause back for many years to come.  It is a truism that the Supremes rarely get too far ahead of public opinion or state laws; at the time of the famous Loving v. Virginia decision in 1967, striking down bans on interracial marriage, only about 15 states still prohibited it.

So we'll see how this all shakes out; keep your fingers crossed, fellas, it's bound to be a momentous decision either way it goes, first in the district court, then at the Supreme Court.

On a personal note:  your Head Trucker was not as politically aware then as he is now, but I remember vividly the news of the Bowers decision back in June of 1986.  At the time I was dating a really hot guy from Birmingham, and we were having a fun vacation in Atlanta, going to the theater and fancy restaurants.  We organized our own little two-man protest against the decision by committing sodomy frequently and vocally in our room on the 17th floor of the Marriott downtown, night and day.

Didn't have any effect on the Court's decision.  But hell, nobody ever had a better time protesting than we did that weekend.  I tell you what.

If you want to read it - and it is very worthwhile reading - here is Ted Olson's opening argument in the case:

This case is about marriage and equality. Plaintiffs are being denied both the right to marry, and the right to equality under the law.

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly described the right to marriage as “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men;” a “basic civil right;” a component of the constitutional rights to liberty, privacy, association, and intimate choice; an expression of emotional support and public commitment; the exercise of spiritual unity; and a fulfillment of one’s self.

In short, in the words of the highest court in the land, marriage is “the most important relation in life,” and “of fundamental importance for all individuals.”

As the witnesses in this case will elaborate, marriage is central to life in America. It promotes mental, physical and emotional health and the economic strength and stability of those who enter into a marital union. It is the building block of family, neighborhood and community. The California Supreme Court has declared that the right to marry is of “central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society.”

Proposition 8 ended the dream of marriage, the most important relation in life, for the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of Californians.

Continued after the jump . . .

Shootings at Ft. Hood

The horrific news:  12 dead, 31 wounded.  Victims were preparing to deploy overseas.  One shooter is among the dead, the Army is searching for two more shooters has two more in custody, all soldiers.  Not many more details available at the moment.  Ft. Hood, which is a huge installation north of Austin, is closed down, they won't even let journalists on base, where they are doing a sweep of the place.

The dead shooter's name, they just said on CNN, is  Major Malik Nadal Hasan.  Sounds Arabic / Muslim; I was afraid of that.  But nobody so far is using the word "terrorism."  Still, with 3 shooters, it was some kind of plot, seems to me.

I certainly hope no rightwing idiots retaliate against innocent people. 

The President has already made a statement, but I missed it.  Gov. Perry is giving a news conference now, has ordered flags in Texas to be flown at half-mast.  Hospitals in the area are calling for blood donations ASAP for the wounded.

In Washington, the House of Representatives just observed a moment of silence.  So awful, a very sad day here in Texas where ironically the weather is so beautiful:  sunny and mild, autumn leaves glowing in the sun.

Overseas truckbuddies, you can see live reports of the tragedy at cnn.com.

Update, 5:25 p.m.:  WFAA, the oldest Dallas TV station, reports on the dead shooter:

A defense official speaking on condition of anonymity says Hasan was a mental health professional - an Army psychologist or psychiatrist. It was not known whether he was treating people at the base. Officials say it was not clear what Hasan's religion was, but investigators are trying to determine if Hasan was his birth name or if he may have changed his name and converted to the Islamic faith at some point.

The New York Times news blog is providing breaking reports as they come in.

Update, 11/6, 9:55 a.m.:  The shooter, as you all know by now, is alive, contrary to first reports.  The other two suspects were interrogated and released. Latest updates, including photos and videos, here.

Write to Marry Day: My Story

I've been overwhelmed with my real job lately, not to mention a bad cold, so I've not blogged here in several weeks. Which is no great loss to the world, as I can't keep up with the professional bloggers anyway, especially with all the election-campaign stories coming out so fast and furious these days. But today I found a good reason to take a little time to make another post here in the Blue Truck: Write to Marry Day.

All gay people should understand how absolutely vital it is that California’s Proposition 8 go down in defeat next Tuesday; this is the big, fat turning point in our struggle for equal rights and the equal protection of the laws. If the California Supreme Court’s beautifully well-reasoned ruling on the constitutional issue is allowed to stand, many other states will follow suit. If it is overturned by the hateful forces promoting Prop 8, our struggle may be set back for another generation. That must not happen; happiness, security, and dignity must not be denied to millions of gay people, as it has been for most of my life. The changing legal and social landscape for gays may not benefit me much at this late stage of my life, but it’s high time the old laws and old attitudes changed, forever; changed for good.

In support of Write to Marry Day, all I know to do is share my particular story to show why equal marriage is so important to me; it’s not just a pretty phrase, a nice idea. It’s a fundamental right that bears directly on not only matters of love, but also money, property, inheritance, taxes, pensions, rights and responsibilities – all the real-world practical matters that give love a place to root itself, bloom, and grow. It’s not an abstract idea: it’s concrete protection for everyone who loves another of the same gender.

Here’s my story, for what it’s worth to anyone; a very small and perhaps insignificant story in the scheme of the universe, but part of the bigger picture of equal rights for all queer people.


In 1998, my late partner Cody and I met online and from the first time we talked, we both recognized something very special in each other. Though we lived a thousand miles apart, we carried on a year-long courtship by computer and telephone, running up some truly huge long-distance bills with our daily talks. We visited back and forth in person several times, too.

Finally we felt ready to take the big leap and make the big commitment – for life. We spoke the marriage service to each other; at that time, gay marriage and civil unions were still not on the radar for us Southern boys. But we felt secure making our vows privately; we were both in our 40’s and we both had loved and lost before. We meant all that we promised.

Because he had a family, a business, and a house, and I had none of those things, I made the move to be with him in a little Texas town far out on the prairie, population 5,000. All of my family was dead and gone by this time, but one side was Texan, so it wasn’t a huge culture shock, and I’d lived in small towns before. Though I gave up a secure civil-service job, a decent paycheck, and significant seniority, I was happy to love and be loved, to have a home to come back to each night, not just an empty apartment. And the moment I arrived and walked through the door, the very first thing Cody did was hand me a key to the house, saying “This is your home.” And from that moment, it was, and I knew it was worth all I’d left behind to be here with the man I loved, the man who loved me.

Over the next five years, we had our ups and downs like any couple, but on balance the good outweighed the bad; and we were very happy together, living a quiet, respectable life like any of our neighbors, paying our bills, paying our taxes, volunteering in community projects, keeping the grass cut and the shades drawn at night. Because my husband was the organist at the local Methodist Church, we were even in church every Sunday. Just like all the straight couples in town, old and young. And after church each week, we ate a big dinner with his parents at a local restaurant, and for every single holiday we were front and center at his sister’s house, bringing our share of cookery and goodies to share with the whole family, and his sister's crowd of children and grandchildren.

It was a good life: quiet, predictable, far from the madding crowd. Secure—I thought. Though time and again over those five years, I warned him that we really, really needed to make wills and other legal documents. I’d already made him the beneficiary of all my life insurance and pension plans. But he was an artist, not an accountant; he would always reply, “I’m working on it, just give me a little time.” But he never did get around to changing his life insurance or doing any of the other legal necessities to protect me in case something happened to him. Not that we could imagine any such tragedy actually occurring; and as he repeatedly assured me, “Oh my family loves you; they would never be unkind to you.” And they themselves all said to my face, “Oh we love you, you’re part of our family.” Right.

I was deeply skeptical; I had already seen what happened in my own family when my father had died without a will, back when I was in high school. And Cody had been brusquely disregarded and overwhelmed by the cruelty of his first partner’s family when he had died, ten years before. But Cody kept assuring me nothing like that could ever happen with his own family; and of course we couldn’t bear to think fate would part us, not after having taken so long to find each other and create a loving life and home together.

Well. One day, between midnight and morning, the unthinkable suddenly happened and our happy little world disappeared: my darling man died of a completely unexpected heart attack, age 54. And just as suddenly, his sweet, loving, accepting family turned sour and menacing, just as I’d feared. I woke the next morning to find myself alone in a homophobic small town, without friends, without family, without help, without any recourse to the laws. As far as the laws of the great Lone Star State were concerned, I was no more than a stranger living in Cody’s house – for it was in his name only. And as a local attorney informed me, Texas law would allow the family to evict me in only three days’ time. The law was utterly indifferent to my protection, as if I were a wild beast.

So were the townspeople; a few were genuinely sympathetic and a couple of folks even brought me some platters of food, as the Southern custom is. But so many at the viewing, at the funeral, and even at the graveside service, ignored me as if I were not there – pretended not to notice my presence, did not shake my hand, look me in the eye, offer a single word of condolence. Walked between me and my husband’s open grave, passing by not 12 inches away from me, and didn’t even glance at me – all those good Christian people. What contempt. They knew who I was; for more than five years, Cody and I had done everything together in this tiny town, where he had lived his entire life. Of course we didn’t hold hands or kiss or do anything “shocking”; we wore jeans and flannel shirts and cowboy boots like everyone else, we fit in, we did the whole Uncle Tom routine, as I realize now. We were “good,” we “behaved,” we didn’t “flaunt” ourselves.

But everyone knew. And after all that, my reward was to be – despised, sneered at, ignored, cold-shouldered. Yet none of them would have behaved that way at the funeral of the lowest dope dealer or wife beater in town. It was a real Damascus Road experience for me, standing there by his casket, and at his grave. The scales fell from my eyes. I'd always thought that somehow if people knew me, knew us, up close, they would understand and accept. But this is the South, my beautiful, terrible, tragic native land: I should have known better.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, his family started in on me with the accusations and the grievances and the demands. Had we been a straight couple, the laws of Texas would have given all of Cody’s assets, including the house, to me when he died without a will. But because I was a man, not a woman, I was entitled to nothing whatsoever, not a cup or a pencil or a shirt button, not even the little dog. And his family could walk in at any moment and cart off anything they pleased, claiming it was Cody’s, even my own furniture and clothes – if I called the police, who do you think they would believe: me, the queer outsider, or them, the good, Christian, long-time local residents? The handwriting on the wall was very plain.

Though it wasn't really about the money, the house, the car, all that: the little house was all paid for, but it was a small house in a tiny town. Cody's estate was not large, we were at the lower range of the middle class. What it was about was protection for me, left all alone suddenly in the middle of nowhere, in a place where I didn't belong anymore. Protection; dignity; respect. That's what it was and is all about, and that's what was completely lacking. His family were already coming in the house while I was at work, though they promised with straight faces they would never do that, and combing through our things, and indeed took some things without asking. One morning his car was suddenly gone from the driveway, taken off to be sold. How long would it be till I came home from work one day to find a padlock on the door?

The spite, the malice, the contempt grew from day to day. By force of will, I had held myself together through all the making of funeral arrangements, that long, stunned first day of grief. When we finally got to see Cody lying in his casket in a private viewing, I suddenly broke down, couldn't control myself for a couple of minutes, crying and sobbing. His parents, his sister and brother in law, their adult children and spouses, eight close relatives were all right there around me. And not one of them moved to comfort me, embrace me, lay a hand on my shoulder, or say a single kind word. Not one of them.

I asked very politely if I could put my husband's wedding ring on his finger, after the funeral, at the very last moment before the casket was closed so no one else would see. They refused me, point blank.

We had never worn our rings, being "good boys" and not wanting to "embarrass" the family. I started wearing mine, now that he was dead; what could it matter now? But I was ordered not to wear that ring. Of course, I kept on wearing it.

I was ordered not to cry at his funeral. Of course, I behaved with all the dignity I could muster--but because it was the right thing to do, not because of them. When I couldn't help weeping, I covered my face with my hand; but not because of them.

The Sunday after he was buried, I asked the preacher at our church to let me thank the congregation from the pulpit for their kindness to me and "my wonderful Cody." The family weren't there that day, but before the day was out I got a blistering phone call, reprimanding me for making a public statement of affection like that, and ordering me never to do such a thing again in "their town." Which apparently they thought they owned.

You can see that this situation could not last. Cody had been treated the same way after his first partner died; and so have many other gay Texans. This, and much worse than this, is typical, not unusual, for Texas families--the very same ones who are so proud to be Christians and Americans, as their church signs all say.

Fortunately, it just so happened that by the time Cody died, I had somehow managed to accumulate a little money in a savings account. After the funeral, when the ugly, ugly confrontations and conversations with his family began, it didn’t take long for me to get the drift of where that situation was going. So I thought, better to make a clean break and leave before they got the sheriff to set me on the curb with only the clothes on my back.

So I packed up the truck with my clothes and computer and other necessary things, and with only our little dog for company – and technically, he was not my property, they could have taken him away from me too – we left in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, driving miles and miles through the darkness to another town, another county. Just a few days before, I’d gone to sleep in our bed, in our home, thinking all was right with the world; suddenly, my little dog and I had no home – we belonged nowhere now. There was no one anywhere to take us in.

Before dawn broke, we holed up in a motel, nowhere to go, and I felt just like a homeless man with all his belongings balled up in cardboard boxes and garbage bags. I’ll never forget that feeling of being all alone, save my faithful little dog, without friends, without resources, without protection. Invisible in the eyes of the law, and at the mercy of an irrational, self-righteous bunch of Christianists.

Twenty-four hours later, I returned with a moving van and a crew of hired movers--thank God I had a little cash on hand--who in just four hours packed, stacked, and loaded all my possessions and got them out of town. I followed shortly with my own truck loaded again with the very last pieces of our life together. On the way out of town, I passed a church with a big sign out front: “A Christian Family Is A Treasure.” The irony was not lost on me.

Well to wrap up what is not, after all, a terribly dramatic story to anyone but me, I was lucky enough to find a nice little house to rent, with a big fenced yard for the little dog to play safely in; and within 10 days, we were settling in to a new home and a new life without Cody. It’s a shorter drive to my job from here, and it pays me well enough to live a quiet, modest life with a few bucks left over at the end of the month: so I have all I really need, and a few of life’s small luxuries too. For all that, I’m grateful.

Though it was a horrifying, deeply upsetting experience for me, fortunately, nothing truly terrible happened – except the realization that there is no American Dream for a gay couple in Texas; there is no life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, no equal justice under law if you are queer in the Lone Star State. They can’t lock us up anymore, thanks to the momentous ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, 2003; but as far as 3 out of 4 Texans are concerned (the number who voted for a state constitutional amendment banning all forms of gay unions in 2006; and actually 9 out of 10 in these rural counties), our relationships are no more important than a dog’s or a cow’s. They simply don’t exist, legally or socially. We gay people are lower, in their estimation, than blacks, Indians, or Mexicans – and that’s saying a lot. Trust me.

I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on all this since Cody died; and I am quite certain that nothing less than equal marriage will ever change this state of affairs; because people here, and anywhere else you care to mention, simply Will.Not.Respect. anything else. There is just no substitute for equal dignity and respect, and nothing less than equal marriage will bring that to pass. I remember vividly the rigidly segregated South of my childhood, the separate drinking fountains, the separate bathrooms and entrances and schools and libraries and neighborhoods, all of it. None of that would have ever changed, if the laws had not been changed first.

As it was with African-Americans, so it is with gays. Change must come; and though it may come too late to make a difference in my life, it will make a huge, huge difference in the lives of many millions of gay men and women in the generations to come. I hope I live to see the day when Texas sheds its hateful past and truly embraces the real American Dream: liberty and justice for all.

Overruled! The Movie

"We were inside of a private residence" . . . "The next thing I knew, the police were in the house. . . . They said, 'We're taking you downtown.' . . . I wasn't allowed to put clothes on. I was handcuffed and dragged down the stairs."

Lambda Legal, a group worthy of your support btw, has been a leader in many LGBT court cases around the country, including the California Supreme Court decision this year establishing equal marriage in that state. Now they've produced a 19-minute documentary for use in schools, explaining the background and ramifications of the historic Lawrence v. Texas ruling in 2003, by which the United States Supreme Court struck down all remaining sodomy laws in the country.

When my late partner and I set up housekeeping on the prairie in 1999, we were, technically, criminals in the eyes of the great Lone Star State. At any 4 a.m. they pleased, the local yokel troopers could have busted down the front door, marched right into our bedroom, kicked the little dog off the bed, and slammed us into a concrete cell. And we would have had no recourse whatsoever at law, none. We could have been hit with a fine and jail time and permanently marked as sexual offenders. Just for being us: two men and a little fuzzy dog living as quietly, peaceably, and responsibly as any of our good Christian neighbors.

But no longer can anyone be jailed and branded with a criminal record for life just for loving whom they please. If you aren't already familiar with this case and its monumental implications for every queer in the country, watch the whole video right here. And pass it along to your friends. It's too important to our lives and our freedoms to be forgotten.