Anniversary 5/23 (non-dog)

Anniversaries for gay couples of our generation can be complicated. Today marks five years from when we were legally married and began filing joint tax returns, but we celebrated 23 years as a couple back in August. It's particularly tough on those of us like me, who are notoriously bad at remembering dates and time frames.

It's perhaps a little sad that I can relate certain dates surrounding our marriage by reference to court cases, but that is the reality. And thankfully I have the blog to serve as written memory at least for the past 10 years.

I wrote this post: "Of Marriage and Mary Chapin" in August, 2014, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its pro marriage equality opinion.

It was just a couple months later when the Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of the Fourth Circuit's opinion, inter alia, that marriage became a reality and I wrote "Licensed to Wed."

And then very next day, five years ago today, we said "I do" before a judge and witnesses in the Fluvanna County courthouse. I had forgotten about this, but I even put together a "Wedding Album" on Shutterfly that is still in existence.

Here we are five years later, X pounds heavier (where X = none of your business). To my knowledge no straight person's marriage has been attacked or dissolved or evaporated into thin air due to ours being recognized by the state. Yet, the progressive climate of that time has changed, turned dark and ugly thanks to Trump and the GOP. Five years ago the federal government had withdrawn all legal opposition to marriage equality. Conversely, today the Supreme Court is hearing cases in which the U.S. Justice Department is arguing that it should be lawful and appropriate to discriminate against gay people in employment and other areas.

Elections matter. They have real and tangible consequences on people's lives. Both sides are not the same. Another Republican appointment to the Supreme Court on top of frat boy Kavanaugh could mean the end to Roe v. Wade, Obergefell v. Hodges, and over fifty years of civil rights progress made in this country's legal system.

There is now much hue and cry from the right about how they are the victims of discrimination because decent people don't want to associate with them. Political appointees in D.C. can't get dates on Tinder. I'm sure the closeted ones don't fare any better on Grindr. I'm seeing all this garbage on Facebook about being friends with people regardless of who they vote for. I was thinking about this today when I saw this quote attributed to James Baldwin:

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

I can not be friends with anyone who thinks there were "fine people" on both sides of the nazi march in Charlottesville. I will not be friends with anyone who works against, votes against, my marriage and my basic civil rights. I can not be friends with anyone who thinks separating families and caging children is good immigration policy. I will not normalize the outrageous language and behavior and policies promulgated by Trump and backed by the GOP in its entirety. There is no common ground with white supremacists.  This is not the time to hold hands and sing a chorus of Kumbaya, it's the time to continue to fight back.

I love the impeachment buzz, but let's not forget that the end result of that would be a president Pence, the self-proclaimed guardian of his ignorant faith. The Republicans still have a majority in the Senate and none of them has the backbone of a jellyfish, so impeachment isn't likely to happen. What I would love to see is an overwhelming repudiation of Trump and the complicit Republican party at all levels of government in the next election. Bury the fuckers at the polls. That's the only way forward for true change.

So we celebrate our five years as a legally recognized married couple, and our 23 years together, but it's not safe to sit back and assume that yesterday's victories and progress won't be rolled back by some Republican evangelical regime, that is their goal.