Sometimes it’s a nationwide march for equality. Sometimes it’s congressional strategy and an extensive lobbying campaign. Today in Mississippi, it’s a high school senior in a tux.

Ceara Sturgis is a 17 year old woman attending Wesson High School in Copiah county, Mississippi. What sets her apart from her classmates is that she is an out lesbian. In a state without inclusive non-discrimination policies, no anti-bullying policy and only one high school GSA (at a school hundreds of miles away from Ceara’s), this is no easy task.

Formal senior photographs are a rite of passage in many high schools. When Ceara was preparing for hers, she decided she looked better in a tux than in the drape that most of her female classmates wore. This matter of personal style, however, was so adverse to the administration’s idea of “boys wear tuxes, girls wear drapes” that they removed her from the senior line up in the yearbook, but Ceara was brave enough to fight back.

Though it’s never an easy decision to go against the system, Ceara is being met with massive support from the Mississippi lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community and now her story is spreading across the country. Help send the message to Mississippi schools that discrimation based on sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other factor is wrong and will not be tolerated and show your support for a brave young world-changer.

Become Ceara’s fan on facebook to stay informed about her case and how you can help send a message of support: <a href=”http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=1284330218#/pages/Ceara-Sturgis/285076765455″>Ceara Sturgis</a>

last month (july) i attended my second chickball in jackson, ms. chickball for those of you who don’t know is an annual fundraiser put on by the jackson free press to raise money for domestic violence prevention. it was always in the forefront of my mind that this event marked the beginning of my involvement in Mississippi NOW, but that year anniversary meant a lot that has nothing to do with me personally. (if you can separate activism from the personal which frankly i cannot.)

when i was working the door volunteering at my first chickball a woman walked in who was to literally change my life. when i left kentucky and moved back to mississippi it was the beginning of a shift in my life. i was tired with working a job that i hated just because i made good money. i wanted to get up in the morning and know that i was somehow making a difference in someone’s life or in the world. after one of my mother’s many surgeries i decided that none of us were getting any younger, and that the time had come to make a radical change - a change that i had swore i would never make. when i left vicksburg, mississippi at eighteen i swore i would never again live in mississippi. my first year here was difficult. the economy was just starting to slow and i had a very hard time finding a job. i went back to retail for the first time since i was a teenager, and eventually found a job utilizing my web skills, yet i wasn’t doing what i wanted to do when i left kentucky - making a difference.

a few steps outside what i was used to and suddenly there i was, at the door of hal & mals taking people’s cover into the event. my first active volunteer role. then a woman, jenni smith, walked in and asked if she could put out some flyers for the mississippi national organization for women. i’d already had several things happen that i didn’t have an answer to: people who said they were on the guest list when i hadn’t been given one; artists who had donated pieces who wanted to get in for free; so i answered the best way i could “i think that’s ok. i don’t know.” the rest, as they say, is history. actually the rest is a lot of brainstorming, dreaming aloud, hard hard work, teamwork, and testament to the sheer force of will that is the MS NOW president, jenni smith. people can say a lot about her, God knows we all have. whatever she isn’t, she’s a person that never gave up on what she knew MS NOW could be. when i met her there were no active chapters here, and one that wanted to start again, my dear friend izzy pellegrine’s chapter in starkville.

in the last year we have seen FOUR active chapters begin here. we have seen countless people who didn’t know they were activists realize they are, that they have a passion for women’s rights. young people, older people, women, men, transgender, gay, straight, bi, whatever in between, i have gotten to watch all of them find their place in NOW and in activism and it’s been more rewarding than anything i’ve ever done before in my life. it was just a glimmer when i sat in que sera sera with jenni, tom head and izzy when she could get away from school, and we talked about what we wanted to do and see here. jenni taught us what she knew. we all learned not only what it meant to be officers in NOW but what it meant to be ourselves. the social justice film series, the liberty party for roe v. wade day, take back the night, the vagina monologues, the protests against prop 8 not only in jackson but the protest we organized against the american family association on their own turf, these are just a few things that highlight the last year for me.

the first informational meeting we held in starkville where half the people there said “i’m here because izzy told me i had to be.” most of those people are now activists in their own right. the first meeting at oxford where i convinced the library staff to let us have the whiteboard out of the children’s section for our presentation. i’d never have had the guts to do that before NOW, but there wasn’t an option. we needed something to write the priority issues on and i was simply going to find it. i think for all of us it is probably difficult to separate our own personal journeys this past year from what we have done with NOW because they cannot really be separated. all the people i have met and spoken with, the countless smiles, all the times my heart was lifted that people cared about feminism and about what we are doing, all the lessons learned, all the things i am going to do better the next time i have the chance, all of these things are priceless gifts.

yet it’s still the most simple things i find most rewarding. when i sent ladonna’s email about the membership drive on the gulf coast this past weekend out to the MS NOW mailing list i received and excited message back from someone from the coast. she’s out of state now for school, but she was visibly excited and encouraged to hear that there’s a NOW chapter there and promises that she will participate whenever she’s home. this is the kind of thing you read about in books or see in movies but don’t think actually happens. i’m here to tell you that it DOES. we went from having no chapters in mississippi to having four and i know there are more on the way. what those chapters do is going to impact this state. i’m not saying it didn’t take time, because it did. it took time and a lot of hard work and effort from many of us involved. it took heart. it took believing not only in ourselves and each other but in what this state is and can do and WANTS. i know there are activists out there we haven’t met yet. our laurel/usm activists, our meridian activists, our vicksburg activists, and any other town where there is a person that believes in feminism, women’s rights, and wants to try to make a difference.

i don’t believe we are a success story that cannot be replicated. i believe that we are what every single state can be if there are people who want to make it happen. are there no chapters in your state? or only one? make it six. you have the power. i know that we have only seen a tiny bit of what the people in mississippi have the ability to do and WILL do. we have some great things on the horizon for MS NOW and in the individual chapters. this isn’t our crowing achievement you see, this is our re-birth. i’m not satisfied with just this though. i want more for this state and for YOUR state. it doesn’t matter if you’re not a NOW officer yet or not a NOW member yet. you can be. you can take NOW and use it to make a difference in your city, in your state, and in this country. i feel beyond privileged that i can be a part of NOW and MS NOW at this time. this is just the beginning. so congratulations to MS NOW in what they/we have done. i can start to name names but i will not because i don’t want to leave out anyone i’ve not had the pleasure of meeting yet. chapter leaders, officers, members, supporters, every single person who has given time or money or ideas is equally important in my eyes. this is YOUR success. we are all each and every one of us a team, working together to make equality a reality in mississippi and beyond.

Mississippi only has one abortion clinic and, like most things in the state that might positively affect the rights of women, it’s not exactly well funded. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization opened its doors on February 8, 1995 and has had the same funky coral pink interior design scheme ever since. Our new clinic director and long time feminist activist, Nancy Kohsin-Kintigh, decided it needed a face lift, so a small crew of volunteers signed up to help.

When I showed up Sunday morning, I expected to get right back to work, painting the surgical hallway where I’d left off the night before. Instead, I found Nancy terribly upset, having just heard about the sudden murder of her very good friend and coworker Dr. George Tiller. He was shot, point blank, in his church. Nancy said he’d just come back from a week at Disneyworld with his family.

There was no time to be sad. The volunteers divided into two groups. Nancy, MS NOW president Jenni Smith, and others quickly set the ball rolling on a press conference with local media while myself and some fantastic volunteers and members from Starkville NOW got back to painting, knowing the clinic had to be open for business the next morning. Meanwhile, we all waited for the national media to pick up the story.

Before the press conference, Nancy gathered all of us in the waiting room to tell us about her friend. Dr. Tiller ran one of the three clinics that performed late term abortions in the country. Patients came from, quite literally, all over the world. He primarily helped women whose lives were in danger, women whose pregnancies had developed extreme physical or genetic complications, and very young rape/incest victims (whose pregnancies are often not detected until later). He had been shot twice, his clinic had been burned and bombed, and anti-choice extremists had done everything they could to make his life difficult.

Dr. Tiller was often asked why he didn’t just give up. He said he would be working as long as women needed him. Nancy called him a “total feminist.” She said once, when the anti’s had surrounded his clinic, he had his staff hang a huge banner across the building: “Women need abortions. I’m going to do them. -Dr. Tiller”

That is what a feminist looks like. That is why we are a pro-choice movement and will continue to fight for the control of our bodies that is legally ours - abortion: on demand, without apology.

Thirty or so paint streaked volunteers gathered behind Nancy, Jenni, Shawna (reproductive freedom coordinator of the ACLU of MS) and Todd as they told the news cameras what had happened. They told about how it is also unsafe for our doctor here and how we’re having to ask for federal marshals. Again.

We got the painting done that night. The walls are a nice tan with rust colored trim and carefully placed accent walls. That weird coral wallpaper is all gone. The waiting room has been pleasantly rearranged and the purple plant Kellum put on the receptionist desk ties it all together quite well. As Mississippi women walk with the guards, past the harassment at the gates, and through the metal detector at the front door, hopefully they’ll find it a bit more comfortable. Women need abortions, and we’re going to make sure they can access them.

this is a difficult post to write, as it is a very difficult time. this past sunday may 30th dr. george tiller was viciously murdered in his church during the service as he served as an usher. by now most everyone has heard about this horrific act of violence. sunday was a blur of at first shock followed by disbelief, sadness and then activity. the fact that Jackson Women’s Health Organization director Nancy Kohsin-Kintigh had to begin organizing a press conference when she should have been allowed to grieve the loss of her friend is just the tip of the indignity that the act of a gunman who was clearly out of his mind caused.

i’m not even going to try to hide the fact that i am angry.

i am angry that a movement that claims to be protecting life would take it. i am angry that these organizations will immediately (20 minutes after the act? really?) condemn the action but remind people that dr. tiller was “a mass murderer”. whether or not they want to admit it, these pro-life organizations nurture and create killers like the man that took dr. tiller away from his family, his friends, and the women that he helped each day. i believe that organizations like operation rescue are directly responsible for the murder of dr. tiller.

these groups want to say that abortion is murder. ok, well what is murder? if anyone reads my blogs here and elsewhere you probably already know that i am a “wordie”. i perhaps just made that up right now but it’s like “foodie”. i love words. so when i begin a thought or a blog post that has something to do with a word i start at the beginning - let’s take a look at what the word means so that we can truly begin to understand it. let’s start at the source. because words can get perverted, their meaning can be changed by popular culture, by incorrect usage, by slang, by any number of things. so before i go any further let’s look for a second at the word: murder.

according to the random house dictionary which is used on the website dictionary.com murder is defined as: “the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law.” or to be more specific look at what wikipedia has to say about murder: “Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice aforethought), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide.” so murder is something unlawful aka against the law, and as we all know abortion is NOT against the law it is legal. so when groups like operation rescue call dr. tiller a “mass murderer” what they are really doing is using inflaming language to incite people who are anti-abortion. incite them to what? well, we already know the answer to that don’t we?

the truth is abortion is a tricky subject in the united states, and especially here in the south. in mississippi we have left today only one abortion clinic in the entire state. i had the opportunity to spend all day yesterday in the MS Dept of Archives & History reading room with our Starkville NOW President izzy pellegrine who is doing research on a personal project involving abortion in the state. as we looked at newspaper clippings beginning in 1975 a shocking pattern became clear: since roe v. wade the anti-abortion activists have had the exact same argument and so have we. a quote that we read from the 1980s could easily have been followed by the name “Jenni Smith” instead of the name of the then-President of MS NOW. izzy and i both remarked on that. the question became what have we been doing for the last 36 years? well i know what izzy and i have been doing, neither of us were born in 1973; but what have the feminists, the pro-choice movement been doing the last 36 years? because somehow we aren’t changing any minds.

it’s true that it’s hard to argue with religion. we can obviously, and have and do, but how do you change the mind of someone who has a closed mind? you can’t and it’s clear that we are not. how do you identify an extremist? that actually is not so hard. it’s easy to spot a ticking time bomb, just not so easy to see when he or she will go off. the new york times magazine featured a jackson area activist back in october of 1994. in her cover story “kill for life?” lisa belkin profiled “rev” roy mcmillan and his wife beverly. in the piece federal marshalls walk dr. booker into the now-defunct new woman medical center in jackson, to prevent mcmillan from killing him. fifteen years and the faces haven’t changed. neither have the sides that they are on. in that same story it states: “The day after Britton [an abortion doctor in florida that was killed by mcmillan's personal friend paul hill] was shot, Booker’s security guard says he heard McMillan shout, “You could be next, Booker.”

what sense does it make to kill for “life”? it makes no sense in my mind but it’s apparent that the people that do believe that the end justifies the means. kill an abortionist and you stop abortions. that’s short-sighted in that another doctor will take the place of the doctor you kill. it’s also short-sighted in that the same people who want to “save babies” have no interest in making sure that they have food or health care after they are born. this is what has always boggled my mind: the exact same people who stand outside the abortion clinics with their signs featuring mangled fetuses or whatever they claim to be “murdered babies” are also the people that want to do away with medicaid and welfare. as soon as the baby can breathe on its own it must fend for itself, literally. they want to protect it in the womb but they don’t want their tax dollars to help pay for food for it to eat or insurance to get it shots or doctor’s visits once it goes to wherever it will go to try and survive.

an unwanted child will not be nurtured. it will not be loved, it will not be adequately cared for, but that doesn’t seem to matter to roy mcmillan and the other thousands of pro-”life” activists around the country. what about the babies that are killed? left for dead by teenage mothers that do not and never wanted them? why would you kill for an infant to live for ten or fifteen days of abuse before it is smothered and left in a dumpster? they scream “let us help you love your baby!” but how do they do that? they don’t. they only want to confuse and intimidate young women past the point that they can obtain a legal abortion.

i know i tend to go on, and honestly with this subject i could go on and on. perhaps i will make this a series of blog posts. i want to end this post and leave you with this true story. a few months ago a friend and i were on a bench swing enjoying the sunshine at laurel street park in the belhaven area of jackson. it was a pretty day so the park was full of children and their care-takers enjoying the warmth, and one heterosexual couple swinging on the swings. a man entered the park a short time after we arrived with four african american children. something tugged on the back of my mind, but i wasn’t sure what. i think i recognized the hat that he wore but all i thought to myself somewhat unconsciously was “that man doesn’t look like he would have four adopted black children.”

my friend and i continued our conversation until the man in the funny white hat approached us. he looked at my friend and said “do you know where i met these children?” she was a little confused and laughed but said “where?” he then began to tell us a story. it was about that time that i realized who the man was, “rev” roy mcmillan. i recognized his distinctive hat because i passed him each day on the way to work, he held up signs that said things like “abortion is black genocide” on the corner of state st and fondren place, the corner that he could stand on given the restraining order. i realized that he must’ve seen the bumper stickers on my car “pro-child, pro-choice, every child a wanted child”, “i’ll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy” and my HRC sticker and by process of elimination decided that of all the people in the park she and i would be the ones driving that car. he told us a story of a young woman who was homeless, living in her car with her four children. she had no job, no way to work with so many young children, and had no home for them except a car. she came to jackson to have an abortion because she was pregnant with her fifth child. he interceded and talked her out of having an abortion, he helped them find a place in a homeless shelter. (i imagine simms house. i know it because a friend lived there for a time and i have issues with their policies.) the baby was born on christmas day, a little girl. his voice was oddly calm and his demeanor was frankly a bit creepy even before i realized who he was. at that point one of the children ran over and told mcmillan that he had to go to the bathroom. mcmillan replied “that’s ok. we are going to chuck-e-cheese now.” and wandered away as inexplicably as he had wandered over. my friend looked at me confused and said “what was that?” i said “that was roy mcmillan.”

what i took from that conversation is this. there is no ounce of common sense in convincing a woman who lives in her car with four children to have another child she does not want and bring it into homelessness and poverty. when it comes right down to it the reason that i am pro-choice is this: it is hard to raise a child even under the best circumstances. children deserve love. if you love a child he or she may never notice that they grow up in poverty, but they deserve to be loved and wanted. when someone does not want a child they do not treat them with love or respect. no child deserves to be abused. i can tell you stories of friends and acquaintances that you would think came from a lifetime original movie. no 8 year old girl should be pimped out by her father for money. no one should have their arm broken by a father when they make too much noise. children should be loved and wanted and i do not think that anyone should be forced to carry and raise a child that they do not want. abortion is still legal in this country and i will give my own blood to see that it remains so, but i don’t think that anyone should have to die for doing something that is LEGAL, that is OPTIONAL, and that women seek out because they WANT and NEED it.

the last few days the internet has been ablaze with the news that singer chris brown allegedly assaulted his girlfriend, pop superstar rihanna. people are shocked, angry, and upset which i find surprising in a country where three women die each day as a result of domestic violence (according to the National Network to End Domestic Violence NNEDV.)

i guess that it has to take something drastic to make people understand the reality of what violence against women is. to see these young successful talented people in a new light is very difficult. rihanna is 20 years old and has won 3 american music awards, 3 billboard music awards, and a grammy - 46 awards all together. brown is 19 and has had two number one US singles and has done charity work for the st. jude’s children’s hospital. as we usher in a new era where it means something very new and exciting in america to be young, gifted, and black - we have the first african american president after all - it’s a blow to our perception of the american dream.

we want to believe that violence against women exists in a neat little package that makes some sort of sense: a drunken husband, a trailer park. collectively we want to believe that educated, young, successful people are immune. this doesn’t happen in “nice” neighborhoods to “good” people. it doesn’t happen to me, it’s not going to happen to my daughter because _______ [insert whatever faulty reasoning helps us sleep better at night here].

violence touches each and every one of us - gay straight black white rich poor and we don’t want to believe that because if we do then we have to assess not only our risk but our culpability. this is not just a personal problem for some abusers or people who are abused it is a societal problam that cannot begin to be fixed until we fix our perceptions of it. it should not take a famous young women being harmed to make us focus on the reality of violence against women. NOW president kim gandy stated: “When it involves public figures, domestic violence gets attention - but what about the rest of us? We just watched the Senate attempt to cut the very modest Violence Against Women Act funding from the economic recovery package, in order to attract Republican support…”

so i ask YOU, you reading this right now: what are you doing to change your perceptions of violence against women? what preconceived notions do you have that need to be challenged? we all have them from the most informed activist to the layperson who doesn’t want to turn on the news because it’s so depressing. someone said of the alleged rihanna attack: “i wonder what happened to provoke it?”
what i heard was: “what did she do to deserve that?”

because that would make it make sense, and as human beings we look for answers, we want things to make sense to us. the violent beating of a young women doesn’t make sense. we don’t want to live in a world where a young innocent woman will be left with contusions on her face, a bloody nose and bite marks on her fingers and arm; where she would have to hear the man she loves say “i’m going to kill you.” yet if we take a step back and really look, can anything she “did to provoke” that attack really warrant that? can you think of anything that would make that ok? according to the ny daily news sources close to brown says he “feels very bad”. probably not as bad as rihanna feels.

take some time today to think about violence against women, REALLY think. it’s time to make some changes.

for more information about what you can do to help stop violence against women visit the NOW national site.

news and info sources: mercury news blog
new york daily news
splash news online
wikipedia bios of chris brown & rihanna

As my eight year old brother and I drove past the Capitol building last Saturday, he noticed the huge glass case full of pennies on the street corner ahead. It was only a few days before that a friend had explained its significance to me, so when my brother asked what it was, I told him that every penny in the box stood for a woman that was able to get healthcare when she needed it. He told me that it was cool, and I agreed.

Tomorrow will mark the 36^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Anti-choice activists will line up to tell our eight year olds (and everyone else) that those pennies stand for “murder,” that the women going into the clinic are “baby killers,” and that a small cluster of cells should have all the rights of a fully developed human being. They won’t be the only ones, as groups around the state organize demonstrations and programs to remind us that they don’t feel women should be in charge of their own reproductive health.

Being pro-choice in Mississippi is an uphill battle. The state is notorious for having only one abortion clinic for its nearly 1.5 million women. As if the parental consent laws, state mandated misinformation, skyrocketing cost (not covered by Medicaid) and harassing “sidewalk counselors” weren’t enough, every legislative session sees new, creative attacks on women’s rights to control their bodies. These attacks are echoed on every one of the more than 50,000 (as of ’06) “choose life” license plates on Mississippi cars.

Against all of this, pro-choicers have defended women’s right to choose for thirty six years. We don’t have nearly the same resources and we don’t have a license plate (yet) but here it is, 2009 and we haven’t given up. Mississippi has an amazing group of activists who spend every day fighting for reproductive freedom and we are gaining ground. Tomorrow, know what those pennies really mean, think about the women who, despite the challenges, will still be able to get the healthcare they need, and celebrate.

this past saturday we took on the american family association on their turf. these so-called “pro-family” organizations really irk me. “family” is as varried a term as “person”; there is no one definition for it in today’s society. when groups talk about “defending marriage” or “protecting families” or “values” i want to ask them who they’re defending marriage from, what families are they protecting? not mine, probably not yours, and exactly why does marriage need to be defended against us anyway?

equality is such a simple thing really. i want what you have, i deserve it, i have rights. it gets a little bit tiring sometimes, trying to bring common sense into a battle that is about religion, fear, and arguements so ridiculous that the mind boggles trying to combat them. (if we let two men marry we will have to let a man marry a goat…huh?) yes, it can get a little tiring and dishearting at times fighting for equality, but on saturday january the 10th in tupelo, ms there was a new life and hope breathed into me and our fight for marriage equality.

twentytwo people who believe in equal rights - male, female, transgender, gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, old, young, all different types of people came together to send a message to the afa about what we think of their “pro-family” work and their donation of $500,000 to “Yes on 8″. that message was: “love not hate, all families matter.”

i’ll admit to you that before it began some of us were a little worried. our permit allowed us to stand on a strip of grass across the street from the afa headquarters, and their building was not on a very main or high-traffic street. many of the people coming from around the state of mississippi were college students, for some this was their first protest ever. “will they be disappointed?” we wondered, “will they feel let down? will they protest again after this?” our fears were beyond unfounded. we held signs and chanted even when there were no cars going by, even when the practically-deserted building was quiet. as the clouds rolled in we pulled out ponchos and umbrellas, and as it began to pour harder we started to yell “we’re here! we’re queer! we’re waterproof!”

finally we retreated to our cars, soaked to the bone, signs all but ruined - and something amazing happened - not one person left. it would’ve been so easy to say “oh well, we’re in our car, we’re soaked, let’s just go.” we waited out the rain and as the sun emerged even brighter than it had been before, we walked back to our permitted strip of grass which was now squishy and muddy, and continued as though we had just arrived. new signs came out of trunks and back seats, we salvaged what we could of the ones that had been rained on, and we went right back to chanting as though we were not cold, wet, a little cranky, and tired.

seeing the passion and devotion to equality in those young people nearly brought tears to my eyes. we were rewarded for our committment. our state president jenni smith and starkville president izzy pellegrine got the opportunity to speak directly to afa founder don wildmon and explain to him and his wife why we were there. a little while later a car drove slowly by and a woman rolled down her window. “i identify with what you are doing here.” she called out to us. then she drove into the afa parking lot (where we were not allowed to park) and came to speak with the crowd. she identified herself as angela wildmon, daughter of afa founder don wildon.

at first we were not really sure what to expect and i don’t think she was either. i could see a little hesitance and perhaps even fear in her eyes as she shook the hand of each person out there. she began to explain to us why she identifies with lgbtq people who are not allowed to marry. angela’s boyfriend is palestinian but because of her families predjudices she has never been allowed to marry him for fear of her family severing ties with her. to choose between a family and the person you love must be heart-wrenching, because she began to cry. we stood in a little circle around her as she spoke, and as she composed herself we reached out to her with love and compassion. angela agreed to take a photograph with us, she is the one in the blue jacket and gray hat next to state president jenni smith who is holding an equal marriage NOW round.

L-R: breanne uriz, not sure his name, walt johnson, james paul johnson, barbara bugg, will elle, tobias sumrall, steven, zola pickett, cassandra pittman, stacey aldridge, andy bearden, not sure, anna claire davis, angela wildmon, jenni smith, rachel mcfalls, izzy pellegrine, chris elam, jessica manrriquez

there were many lessons for me personally that day. one is that love really is love and when two people love each other they should be allowed to express it in any way that their hearts move them to do. gay, straight, black, white, male, female, whatever nationality if they want to marry they should be allowed to. discrimination is not just a legal issue, it is an issue in the minds and preconceived notions of people, and it is not just lgbtq people who aren’t able to express their love freely, openly, and without fear.

second is that margaret mead was right. “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” we may not have changed the world yet, but i believe that this was a step on the way to doing so. it warmed my heart and gave me a new hope for the future that all the people out there put aside their personal comfort to stand out there in the rain and send a message not only to the afa but to the world that equal rights are not special rights and we deserve them.

peace,
s

This past Saturday the 15th I had the opportunity to participate in my first protest - ever! I was very excited about it while at the same time reminding myself that the reason for it was a deeply disappointing one. I don’t think anyone imagined that we would lose marriage equality in California to Proposition 8. I knew it was something that we were being fought on but I don’t think anyone truly believed (feared perhaps, but not believed) that after having had it such a short time it would be taken away. It wasn’t quite the same as when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newscome began issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples back in 2004.

at the protest brent cox of MS ACLU - one of the organizers of the Jackson protest - had his video camera, and he asked me why i was there that day. i said “because i believe i should have the right to marry a woman.”
then he asked: “what does marriage mean to you? describe it in one word.”
i went over it in my mind very quickly, made a face and said “i don’t think i’m the right person to ask that question to.”

the truth is, i couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say about marriage on a personal level. i was married and it wasn’t a great experience. sure there are all kinds of reasons that it wasn’t and most of that has nothing to do with the institution of marriage. i don’t know a lot of people who have had great marriages. i know a few but they always seem to be exceptions rather than the rule.

relationships - be them gay or straight or anything in between - are complicated. there are no perfect people and therefore there can be no perfect relationship. i don’t know that i would ever get legally married again, but i know that i believe that equal rights are not special rights. sometimes it really strikes me that i don’t necessarily believe in marriage yet i know gay and lesbian couples who aren’t out there protesting or fighting for their rights; i am. to me it’s the principal. you can’t say that some americans are more important or better than others, no one has the right to legislate morality.

there have been countless blogs on this topic, and i don’t think that i can necessarily say anything better than anyone else has. melissa etheridge summed it up pretty well i think. what frustrates me is that in my opinion the reason that people don’t want to let us get married but are willing to give us “civil unions” or something like that is simply because they know that if they allow us to get married that we are more credible. if they allow us to get married then they have to accept that our love is the same as their love. that we are the same as them, and aren’t we? aren’t we all just people? americans?

the thing that is frustrating to me is that as americans we focus on our differences instead of our similarities. i’m a democrat, you’re a republican. i’m an lgbtq american, you’re an african american…we just go on and on putting ourselves and each other into these boxes that emphasize our differences instead of reminding us that ultimately we are all on the same side. we all love. we all get up in the morning - some of us bounce up and go to jog and others moan and snooze the alarm but we all do. we all have things that make us happy and angry. we’re all human. is love a human right? i hope so, but actually no one can take away our right to love. we’re all going to continue loving whether it’s legitimized by the word or institution of marriage or not.

in truth we really have no guarantees to anything even when we can get married. relationships end (both gay and straight!), people change, things fall apart, and sometimes defying all reason things do not. i think that’s the bottom line for me - hope. we can read the statistics and know that probably all marriages have a 50-50 shot at working and i don’t think that will change much when gay marriage is legal. two people meet, they have a connection, despite the odds they fall in love and want to devote their lives to one another; that is a beautiful miraculous thing. whether they are two men or two women or a man and a woman doesn’t really matter to me. it takes bravery to make the step to say “you are my one and only until death do us part.” it takes hope, faith, devotion, and it’s something that taps into a part of us that we forget as we grow older. the part of us that believes that love can defy logic and statistics. the part of us that we never gave up from when we were children that believed there was one person out there waiting for us who would love us for exactly who we are and make our lives better. there are very few people i think in the world that don’t want a deep connection with another person.

america is a wonderful place to live even with the hardships that we face. it’s a great place to be a woman, it’s a great place to be gay, and a lot of us are working very hard to make it a better place for women and the lgbtq community. we’re not going to be killed legally for who we are and that’s a very comforting thing. we’re also given the right to speak our minds aloud and come together publically like we did at the protest. i’m not sure what the founding fathers would think about gay marriage, but i’d like to hope that they really meant what they said when they wrote: “all men are created equal.” we’ve challenged that at times in this country. our ancestors have tried to say that all people are not equal, but history has proven that is not true. we are all equal but equality sadly at times has to be fought for. i for one am not really ready to settle for civil unions, i want civil marriage. not for me necessarily, though it would be nice if i decided i wanted that some day. even if only one lgbtq couple wanted to get married that would be worth fighting for. there’s no such thing as separate but equal, and no one - no government - has the right to say that some people can get married while others cannot. i’m proud of all the mississippians who came out and stood up for equality, and i am so honored that i was able to be a part of what i am sure will go down in the history books as a major milestone in the fight for lgbt equality.

peace,
~s

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