Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon made history - again - at 5:07 p.m. Monday when they were declared “spouses for life.”
At that moment, standing next to each other in the mayor’s office in San Francisco City Hall in front of cheering friends and relatives, the couple of 55 years became the first same-sex newlyweds in San Francisco and among the first in California under a new right bestowed by the state Supreme Court.
(Read the rest of the article here.)
They’ve been together fifty-five years. The moral of this story? Don’t give up on what you want and deserve, even if it takes five decades to get it. Never give up.
Jay sent me a terrific New York Times article about guerrilla gardening in London:
Just after sunset on one of the first mild nights of spring, Richard Reynolds parked his hatchback near a traffic circle in the London neighborhood of Hoxton. Tied to his roof were a potted honeysuckle and a dozen box hedge plants, spilling out of garbage bags. Trays of bright white Paris daisies filled the trunk, and cartons of variegated ivy were wedged in the passenger seat. Hipsters drank indifferently outside a nearby pub.
What is guerrilla gardening, you ask?
Reynolds defines guerrilla gardening as “the cultivation of someone else’s land without permission.” He didn’t invent the term or the tactic but has become, as he puts it, “a self-appointed publicist for the movement” and the breadth of impulses and ideologies behind it.
Last week he published a book, On Guerrilla Gardening. It’s a political history of people growing things where they shouldn’t — from Honduran squatters to the artists and students he credits with originating the term “guerrilla gardening” in New York City in the early ’70s. During the city’s financial crisis, the self-styled Green Guerillas began cultivating derelict lots around the Lower East Side, either by clipping barbed wire fences or chucking “seed bombs” over them — Christmas ornaments or condoms filled with tomato seeds, water and fertilizer. After early confrontations, the city ultimately gave in and legitimized many of their plots into one of the country’s first community-garden programs, staking a claim for green space before gentrification vaulted the value of all that abandoned land.
What a fabulous, amazing idea! Perfect for us insomniacs, too. Just hose me down with Deep Woods Off and point me toward the nearest plot of neglected land..
A few years ago, I wrote a post called Life Lessons Learned the Hard Way. In it, I tried to describe that moment of awareness for a young girl who is suddenly realizing-- in a very frightening way-- that rape can happen at the hands of the cute, popular boy. It’s a subject that I come back to time and again-- this idea that girls (and women) endure things because we’ve been taught we’re supposed to endure them. Even now, even in 2008.
Heather Corinna has been going through a bit of a firestorm recently over a T-shirt for the I Was Raped project. Not that she can’t handle it-- she’s been through the fire before because she deals with sexuality in a straightforward, down-to-earth, honest way. She runs the popular-- and much needed-- Scarleteen. She has also written a terrific teen sexuality guide called S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College, which even most adults could learn a thing or two from. Still, this latest controversy leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I can’t imagine doing what Heather does, day in and day out, and then being taken to task by using my own experiences against me.
Something Heather wrote today made me want to share it with everyone who reads my blog-- especially parents of daughters. This part, in particular, struck a nerve with me:
However, even for plenty of people who know something about sex, who are smart and relatively informed, figuring out what sex is and what rape is aren’t so easy, particularly when you’re raised female. Even if we look at classical literature - much of Greek mythology, all sorts of folktales, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the Bronte Sisters, you name it, and this was the kind of reading I did as a kid — it doesn’t take a genius to notice that usually, when rape happens, it’s often presented as sex or, at best, “sex by force.” It’s rarely, if ever, called rape. In that literature, in religion, in common parlance, in romance novels, in films, in family gossip young women have for eons been taught, more than not, that we are passive sexually, that sex for us is something a person “takes” or we “give” (rather than as something shared), and that often enough our sexual awakening is supposed to be about men deciding to indoctrinate us.
(Please read the rest of Heather’s post here.)
I have been keeping up with Heather for at least ten years and I admire the hell out of her. She puts herself out there, sharing her life and the trauma she has endured, all in the name of fighting for what’s right, giving a voice to the silenced and providing answers when others shrug in apathy. It is a thankless job, as far as I can tell.
Now that tax time is behind us and as you’re contemplating charitable contributions for 2008, consider kicking some money Heather’s way. There are a number of ways you can help her keep fighting the good fight:
--Donate directly to Scarleteen.
--If you are a survivor of sexual assault, buy an I Was Raped T-shirt.
--Buy Heather’s book, S.E.X., for the teenagers in your life-- or your local public library.
--If you enjoy fine art photography, particularly that which explores gender and body imagery or simply makes you look at life a little differently, purchase a Femmerotic membership, Heather’s personal website.
Also, check out Heather’s All Girl Army and share it with the young women in your life.
Thanks, Heather, for all that you do. I know I’ve said it before, but you rock.
Two nights ago a friend of mine told me she’s ready to move back to her home state of California. She doesn’t mind Virginia, she said, she just can’t deal with the narrow-minded people any more. I tried to discourage her from moving by telling her those people were the minority-- and I do believe it. Virginia may not be as liberal as California, but it’s not so bad. Right? After this afternoon, I’m ready to pack my suitcase and move to California with her.
I have spent the past four hours sitting next to two middle-aged men. God-loving Christian men (or so they seemed to claim-- over and over and over again). For nearly four hours they have condemned gays (they bring disease and destruction to our world), music (if it doesn’t praise god, it is distracting and will lead you astray), animal rights (animal rights activists don’t care about the slaughtering of babies in the womb), abortion (if she doesn’t want a baby, she shouldn’t have sex), Amsterdam (the modern-day Sodom, apparently) MySpace (it distracts teenagers from god and encourages them to have sex), video games (destroying not only the minds of children, but adults, too), sex education (it is pornography disguised as education) and-- gasp!-- radical liberal women (the downfall of modern society can be attributed to women having jobs and abortions).
The longer I listened (and I really wasn’t eavesdropping-- they would simply get louder when they were trying to make a point), the angrier I got. They pulled out every bigoted, racist, sexist, misogynistic cliche under the sun. Pure vitriol dripping in “aren’t we good Christians” honey. Ick. I’m not a timid person or one to keep my opinions to myself and had they in any way, shape or form tried to include me in their little hate-fest, I would have told them what I thought-- loudly. However, it was a private conversation and though I’m opinionated, I am not rude. Would that they weren’t, either. So, rather than going toe-to-toe with the crazies, I sat in my corner of Starbucks and fought back.
First, I pulled out my copy of the Lambda Directory. I thumbed through it slowly, taking note of the church that announces “Christ Loves Us All” in their add and has the rainbow flag on their website.
I took a look at the gay and lesbian club listings and added The Hershee Bar as a friend on my MySpace page. Might have to check it out one Saturday night.
I IM’d Jay with some choice snippets of their conversation and told him we must breed immediately. It was on the to-do list anyway, but it’s become an even bigger priority. Must not let them outnumber us.
I went to Etsy and ordered the most adorable necklace from Gee Lizzie. It’s a retro image of a man and woman with the words “There’d been lust.” You know, just to support those radical liberal women who support themselves by creating art that encourages women to be radical liberals.
I popped over to Planned Parenthood and made a donation. Just ‘cause I’m a radical liberal woman with my own bank account.
Now I’m going to finish my latest juicy, naughty, woman-empowered erotic story. It’s my very personal way of fighting back against ignorant, hateful men who want to invade my office-away-from-home with their negative energy. And later tonight, I’m going to laugh my ass off at The Norva as Margaret Cho mocks morons like the ones I’ve had the displeasure of sharing space with today.
Take that, you bastards.
OM.
This is very cool and very addictive:
About FreeRice
FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.
FreeRice has two goals:
Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.
Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.
Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.
So far, I’ve donated over 3000 grains of rice and have gotten to level 45.
(I first read about FreeRice on Mary Anne’s blog.)
Life. Love. Writing. Friendship.
Sex. Books. Movies. Travel. Politics. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Rants. Raves. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Some names have been changed, some stories have been embellished. Thanks for stopping by and beware of the dog. Read more...
