Papaya Mom

Reading through poetry trying to find a nice quotation for my Christmas Card.  I was really happy to see the timelessness of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.“

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep.
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The wrong shall fail,
The right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men!“

In this time the subjection of individual rights by popular vote is a sad reality, people are still spouting extremist views, hiding behind the veil of religion, or tradition or some other thing that makes them feel safe in their hypocritical hate speech.  To pick an easy one - tradition - our country was created on Christian values which although they have some obvious merit, also seemed perfectly comfortable with enslaving other humans.  So if we can legislate today based on the “Christian” understanding of our founding fathers then let’s get back to enslaving people of color, taking away the rights of women, oh…wait, it’s an obvious bad idea!

Through all this whirlwind of hate surrounding me,

I find myself comforted by reading Longfellow’s poem.

Remembering the fight for civil rights throughout history has never been fast or easy is a start.  Our children will someday look back and learn about these times in a history class and probably think of it as many of us remember facing racism - as the product of twisted politics by greedy people for starts.  Papaya will be able to tell her children that her Mother stood up for the side of the oppressed, spoke out against hypocritical religious extremists (and regular extremists too) and did all that she could.

Because even if you say;

both before the California Supreme Court case and after the passage of Prop 8, every adult Californian had the exact same right as every other, granted by legislative action — the right (if not imprisoned) to marry exactly one consenting unmarried person of the opposite sex who was of age and not too closely related. Just because gays and lesbians choose not to exercise that right doesn’t mean it is lost to them.

This commentary sounds a bit different in the mirror of race, which can be no more changed that someone’s sexual orientation.  You see - legislating people’s minds, hearts, and who they can love - it’s plain mean spirited and I can’t imagine that the God that many of us Christians (if you are wondering, I identify as Quaker) agree exists (although we all enjoy different interpretations of what books are holy, divinely inspired, etc.) is at all happy looking down on the actions that some of his followers engage in whilst willfully forgetting the ethic of reciprocity (Leviticus 19:18, Luke 3:61, and many more) which is one of two commandments given to Christians by Jesus.  Hello?

So let’s look at that quote again, with the mirror (read: editing in bold) of race:

both before the California Supreme Court case and after the passage of Prop 8, every adult Californian had the exact same right as every other, granted by legislative action — the right (if not imprisoned) to marry exactly one consenting unmarried person of the same race who was of age and not too closely related. Just because blacks who mix with whites choose not to exercise that right doesn’t mean it is lost to them.

And yes, taking away a right (marriage) IS different than these people just choosing not to marry someone they are not in a romantic loving relationship with.  How the heck would this guy, or the thousands of other people who voted for this illegal proposition, feel if our society mandated that he marry anther man.  Let’s not cop out with the whole “but it’s not that way” - let us really think about it!  What if the Mormon Legal Group (I’d call it a Church if they were acting like one, and in this area, they sure are not) had “won” and run the country as a whole and people were forced into plural marriage even if they were born with an innate need for monogamy?  Whoa!

The thing is - The United States Supreme Court spoke at length about this in Loving v. Virginia.  The California Supreme Court was the first to rid itself of the racist ban on interracial marriage with Perez v. Sharp with commentary that included “the right to marry is the right to join in marriage with the person of one’s choice.” 

I know without a shadow of a doubt that one day in the near future the civil right to civil marriage will not be marred by the lies of hate groups, not be misrepresented by those who feel their own unions are threatened by other healthy unions of consenting adults.  I know that before I leave this earth, my country will catch up with the rest of the world and provide civil rights to all of it’s citizens.  I am only disappointed it took this proposition in a State I no longer inhabit to wake me up to the long-term real problem of legal inequality for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual and Transgendered Americans.  I wish I could say I was fighting for this, something I have always believed in, before it became a national issue - I wish I’d not let the grassroots work fall onto the oppressed on their own.  That will be my only regret.

Popularity: 64% [?]