Pet Peeve

I woke up yesterday morning and was listening to some news on TV and started getting in an irritable mood, so this may just be you getting to see my petty side. I thought if I just wrote this out it might help me get rid of some of my irritability. Or it might just make me more irritable. Anyway, here goes.

Every time I see or hear the term "gay marriage," something inside me cringes. I know all the reasons people use this term, and to be honest, I've used it many times myself. But the more I think about it, the more irritable I get.

I'm not trying to be the PC police here. If you use the term, fine. It's not like I would ever say you're a bad person or that it's a "make or break" deal with me. Like I say, I've used the term myself and probably will use it again. It still irritates me, though.

The term I really like is "marriage equality." Nobody goes around talking about "straight marriage," so why are we talking about "gay marriage"? Shouldn't we just be talking about "Marriage"? Marriage for everyone? "Marriage Equality"? Isn't that what this is all about? Equality?

Calling it "gay marriage" sorta makes it sound like there are two different categories of marriage. At least to my ears. We're not talking about setting up two different categories of marriage. This is about "Marriage." One category. Period.

Okay. End of rant. I feel a little better now. Thanks for listening.

What do you think?

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Enjoy the victory but we need to keep working!

I have a confession to make.

Please don't hate me for it.

I slept through the election results last night.

I tried to stay up with Matty, but I kept falling asleep. Maybe I was ready for this thing to just be over. Maybe I was feeling really stressed about the outcome. I just couldn't take the possibility we'd be left with a cliffhanger that would last for days and weeks.

When did I find out the results? It was close to midnight (Eastern time zone) when Matty climbed in bed and was bouncing around, hugging me, and all I could hear as he nuzzled up to me was, "You asleep? Hmm? You awake? Sweetie? I love you. Are you awake?"

I knew this was more than just a booty call.

I turned over and didn't even have to ask who won the election.

Matty reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Then he ran down all the results we were interested in, from President, to U.S. Senate, to local Congressman, to the ballot questions.

We both just hugged each other for the longest time. Then we had a booty call celebration!

This morning I went back and looked at the the two paragraphs I contributed to our joint post from yesterday:

As valuable and important as voting is, walking in your polling center, making some marks on the ballot, and walking out is just the beginning. It's also important to take all the steps after that.
 

Do you stay aware of what elected officials are doing after they get in office? Do you express your opinion about important issues they are debating? Do you talk to other people about issues that matter to you? 

So as we are celebrating many victories, it's important to see this as just the beginning. Our work is not done until ALL people are treated equally under the law.

Let's enjoy the many positive results (and all the booty calls that go with them!), then let's get back to work. We're not done yet!

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Transgender Miss Universe Canada Contestant Wins Congeniality Award

We don't think we've written anything about people who are transgender, but since we have that little "Embrace the Rainbow" logo over there on the right, and since we have some online friends who are transgender, we wanted to post this article from The Advocate we found. It's a shame that it took Mr. Trump so long to get this right! But the very last sentence in this article says to us that there's still a way to go before this is totally right!

Jenna Talackova, the first-ever transgender contestant to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant, made it to the top 12 finalists and became one of four women who shared the title of Miss Congeniality, reports People magazine.

Talackova, 23, was initially disqualified from competing for not being a “naturally born female.” After coaxing from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and a petition signed by 30,000 people, Donald Trump, who runs the Miss Universe Organization, subsequently overruled that decision and allowed Talackova to compete with 61 contestants.

Gloria Allred, Talackova's high-profile attorney, released a statement, saying, "She's still a winner as far as I'm concerned. She won an 'herstoric' civil rights victory and that I think is frankly more important than anything, any victory she would win, even representing Miss Canada."

Miss Universe publicity director Brenda Mendoza has said transgender competitors are now welcome in all of its pageants around the world, but says it will be left to the individual franchises to determine if the recent policy change is carried out.

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