Tuesday, June 9, 2009

On the Way to Fresno

The Saturday after the Day of the Decision on Prop. 8 on May 10th to be exact, there was a rally/march in Fresco for the Meet in the Middle 4 Equality campaign. I shared the bus organized by the Latino Equality Alliance (LEA) with 54 other riders from other orgs. (such as Bienestar, The Wall, Love, Honor, Cherish, Somos Familia, Honor Pac, Stonewall Young Democrats, Rainbow Pride Youth, and Gamba Adisa Quilombo). Several people have gone to Camp Courage so they decided to share their amazing stories with us.

So why meet in Fresno? Well, the gap between Yes vs. No on Prop 8: Same-sex Marriage Ban was about 4.4% or 526,095 voters, which is basically a size of a town like Fresno. It was time to unite outside of our safe zone and spread awareness that the queer communities and allies are everywhere and that Civil Rights is not something that people should be allowed to vote on and take away from others. It's discrimination just like how interracial dating/marriage wasn't allowed before, immigrants couldn't own lands or become citizens, womyn couldn't vote, the color of your skin determined where you sit on a bus, taxation without representation, Foreign Miner's Tax, etc. "This Too Shall Pass."

Before that Saturday, I really thought that we would be celebrating in Fresno. On the Day of the Decision, I rushed to work trying to listen to the hearing on the radio, but I was too late. Everywhere online were already displaying the headline "Court Upheld Prop. 8." That made me really sad and upset. I didn't feel like working at all. I am glad to hear that at least the court recognizes the 18,000 couples that have already gotten married, but it's completely unfair how much rights differences that people now have within a year time span.

Sadly, I have waited way too long to share their stories...so all the details are not as clear anymore, but I'll try my best to summarize them.

One man's story was about how he never thought that he would fall in love with someone who's HIV+, but he did. His partner lived in Mexico where HIV/AIDS medicines and resources are not as accessible than in the U.S. Because same-sex couples cannot sponsor their partners to residency, this man wasn't able to help his partner to better medical care here, which would have most likely extended his life. Unfortunately, his partner passed away last year. This is why he's fighting. Please support United American Families Act.

Another man shared a story about how when he was younger, he always wanted to grow up, be happy and get married. His mom always told him that anything is possible in America. Now that he's older, he realized that what his mom told him isn't true because he can't get married. Ok, there's more to this story but the point is that the idea of growing up and getting married is the root to every fairy tales. Why can't everyone have the same rights to express their love in marriage? Why have all of this hate and create barriers between one another?

One womyn shared that her parents sent her to "straight" school after they found out about her. Obviously, it didn't work. Her parents should ask for a refund.

Another person shared his coming out story. At first, he kept waiting for a good time to come so he could tell his mom. But the economy crisis came instead so he kept on waiting. Finally, one day he took his mom out to a casino where she won some money. She was so happy that he though that maybe this is the good time that he has been waiting for so he decided to tell her. His mom said that she knew and that she's happy that he finally told her.


"Hope will never be silent"--Harvey Milk