Why You Should Give A Damn!

Newsletter Archive

Newsletter #2, September, 2005

A Day of Prayer

by Davina Kotulski, Ph.D.

Today George Bush called for a "Day of Prayer." I'm praying all right today. Not only am I praying that those who were harmed by the hurricane will get the help that they so desperately need and that their suffering will be minimized by the love and caring that they find among their fellow Americans, but I am also praying that perhaps this will distract people from their pettiness and hate-mongering against LGBT people. I know that this is unlikely.

In Louisiana voters were only temporarily slowed down by the hurricane that occurred during last year's election and ended up coming out to vote against our families in the midst of the storm. This year Texans, who will show their humanitarianism to the displaced storm refugees, will not connect the dots to the suffering that LGBT people will face when they cast their ballots against us and vote us out of the constitution. Gay Americans, like was the case with Jews in Europe, continue to be outsiders within their own country of origin.

Today, I am beside myself with anger and frustration at an immigrant Governor who enjoys the benefits of citizenship, but will not sign a bill that would share those benefits with other American citizens. I am outraged to learn that Blue Cross has dumped domestic partners from its benefits in Montana because Montana residents voted LGBT families into a state of permanent second-class citizenship.

Our lives and livelihoods are at stake, and unlike the Hurricane Victims, our casualties go unnoticed. We lose our homes and worldly possessions, not to an unfeeling weather event, but to unfeeling government officials who treat us as legal strangers and reassess our homes, deny us survivor benefits, and force us into poverty. Or, to prejudiced family members of our partners who take away everything we had built together, purchased together, because of some technicality in a will, or because we have no rights in certain states. We lose our dignity to our unfeeling fellow American citizens who are apathetic, if not downright hostile, to our plight, who pass these unthinkable constitutional amendments that take away our freedoms, our liberties, and our pursuit of happiness.

This month I traveled to concentration camps and ghettos in Poland and killing fields in Lithuania. I walked past mass grave sites, through crematoriums, and down streets that are vacant of the thriving communities that once lived and loved there. Eastern Europe seems far from my home in California, but the kind of hatred and vitriol that is erupting across this country against LGBT people, the blame that gays are causing the end of Western Civilization, the failure of marriage, the destruction that occurred on 9/11 and caused by Hurricane Katrina, is similar to the blame that sparked the savage death and dismemberment of almost all of Europe's Jewry. It is absurd that some people utter these shockingly hateful things like "Gays caused Hurricane Katrina."

As Gay Americans there are places we are tolerated, ghettoized to. And, there are places that our homes would be set on fire and we would be savagely beaten if we were identifiable. How can we "never forget" what we have never learned? Martin Luther King Jr. repeated it again and again, but we look the other way, we don't connect the dots, we like what he says here, but ignore the other things he said there when we feel like it. I will repeat it, since injustice silenced his voice before I was even born. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." It's that simple.

We can't let our fellow Americans vote anyone out of the constitution! We can't stand by and let gay seniors end up homeless because they don't have access to the same financial benefits as their straight counterparts because of marriage discrimination. We cannot allow people to have to sit in a hospital waiting room while their partner dies alone or fear that if they agitate to be with their partner that the hospital staff will fail to act or act out of homophobia and let them die. We cannot let these injustices continue. We must act!

1. Call the Governor of California. His # is 916-445-2841. Listen to your choices and support marriage equality when you hear "share your opinion on 'hot button' issues."
2. Write Blue Cross and tell them it is a crime that they have dropped Domestic Partnership Benefits in Montana and are using the Montana constitutional amendment as a justification for this mean-spirited action against LGBT couples and families and cohabitating heterosexual seniors. Their address is Blue Cross P.O. Box 37494 Washington, DC 20013-7494.
3. Contact Brian Davis at brian@eqca.org and sign up to walk door to door and help educate voters about the upcoming constitutional amendments in California.
4. Donate to Marriage Equality USA. We need funds to help pay a webmaster if we can't find a volunteer. We also need funds to send Marriage Equality Reps. to states that are fighting constitutional amendments and need additional organizing help. Go to www.marriageequality.org and make a donation online or send a check to Marriage Equality USA 4043 Piedmont Ave #334 Oakland, CA 94611.
5. Marriage Equality USA needs a volunteer webmaster. Contact me if you or someone you know might be interested in volunteering.
6. Buy another copy of Why You Should Give A Damn About Gay Marriage and send it to a fence-sitter.
7. Continue to contact your elected officials (city council members, mayors, legislators, senators, governors, and yes even the President).