I started
writing this on June 26, 2015 – LOVE WINS DAY! Photos are from San Francisco Pride. What a weekend!!!
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| Friday on Castro, after Supreme Court announcement Shut that street DOWN! |
Last week was
one of the great weeks of my life, even within the grief. Things happened that
I never thought would happen.
In classes I
taught over the years there would be discussions of “socialized medicine” as a
concept, but not as something anyone thought would happen in the U.S. Nobody I
ever knew gave a rat’s ass about “socialized” – we just wanted everyone to have
access to decent healthcare. And some of us dedicated our lives to providing as
much healthcare as we could to as many underserved people as possible, but it
was a long, uphill effort. Now, after more than 50 attempts by conservative
lawmakers to destroy the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), it’s a reality.
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| Keeping the peace |
Early Friday
morning (June 26, 2015 – mark that date!) I got a text from my son: “Marriage Equality is a
reality!” Here is what the Court said:
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the
highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a
marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some
of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that
may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say
they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it,
respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.
Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of
civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of
the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
Love wins!
And Gay Liberation rolls on like a mighty river.
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| Delores Park - the Dyke March |
AND, I had
the great good fortune to be in San Francisco on Pride weekend! Beautiful – as
I type at this moment there are rainbows on my keyboard (from crystal hanging
in the window). I danced with more than a million people! Literally!
FREEDOM!
Though not as
personally important to me as the previous…
Then there
was SC decision about fair housing – disparate impact, i.e., if housing
policies result in discrimination, even if discrimination is unintended, it’s
discrimination (depend on me for your legal information).
The Supreme
Court also stopped Texas’ war on women by blocking the state’s laws blocking
access to abortion clinics (depend on me for clarity in writing).
The Supreme
Court threw a monkey wrench into the awful gerrymandering that is a crippling part
of politics as usual in the U.S.
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| Oil wrestling in Delores Park at the Dyke March |
It’s as if
this week is a capstone to what started in the 1960s. Though much is undone or
needs more work, still, look at what we did!
- Equality in Marriage comes 51 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- We stopped the Vietnam War (or as the Vietnamese call it, the American War).
- We brought
the consciousness revolution to the world and despite millions of
incarcerations and trillions of dollars spent to stop it and lies without end,
it’s alive and very well.
Cops, keeping the peace - WE brought dying and death out of the closet. WE made hospice a reality.
- Sexual revolution? We’ll take the credit for that, too (with all its side effects).
- Environmental awareness? That was seriously fringe in the 60s and into the 70s. We are a bunch of unrepentant tree-huggers (Talk about a lot more work needed, though!).
- And then there’s rock & roll! From the moon-June-spoon pap peddled by record companies to Bob Dylan singing, “Equality,” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow.
- Free speech – this is a family-oriented journal so I won’t include the photo of me sitting on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley (where the Free Speech movement was born), shooting the finger to whomever (think Ted Cruz, Jeb Hensarling, Franklin Graham, all those people).
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| At the main stage - what a party! (Representing Atrium Obscurum) |
Equality, I spoke the word as if a wedding vow.
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