Our Families, Our Stories

Just a reminder to all you Natomas LGBTQs out there that you can join our wonderful Yahoo! Group, located on the sidebar to your left. We now have, um, like five members. Yes, you are all coming out of the woodwork like crazy and thank you! Heh.

We’ll be organizing another breakfast very soon and as soon as a few more of you have let us know of your existence, we’ll start adding other things on the calendar.

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Lauren Hester, 25-year veteran police detective lieutenant in Ocean County, New Jersey she was dying of cancer. As it stood, her partner, Stacie Albee, was not entitled to Hester’s pension when she died. They spent the last months of Hester’s life fighting to have Albee receive her pension benefits so Albee could keep the home they shared. Director Cynthia Wade chronicled their story in, “Freeheld,” the 2008 Academy Award winning documentary about their fight with the Freeholders, the local elected officials of Ocean County. The excellent blog, Pam’s House Blend kept us updated regularly on their progress to the conclusion of their quest.

I had heard and read about Hester’s struggle to secure thisright, that had they been a heterosexual couple, would have been automatic. The New Jersey civil unions bill didn’t come until nine months after Hester’s death.

I pay a lot of taxes. I take care of my home. My children are well-behaved, loving, and kind. My lawn is mowed regularly. I do unto my neighbor like I’d like them to do unto me. When I was partnered, I took it just as seriously as if it was a marriage, though I was denied many of its rights or responsibilities. Our relationship failed for much the same reason over 50% of het marriages fail. I am not really any different except that when I love, I love a woman, not a man. Why should I not enjoy every single right you so carelessly take for granted and may even actively seek to keep me from gaining?

We are not causing any danger to marriage. Marriage is a civil institution, bound by laws in this country. The religious part, you can keep. I believe the only way to provide some equanimity in this country for all consenting adults, is to go to a civil union system across the country, where all couples, both gay and straight are bound by the same rules. Like the Europeans do. Interject your religious beliefs on your relationship after you’ve followed the rule of law.

Stop keeping me a second class citizen. And, hey, if you want to throw out that we are somehow destroying marriage, show me how without pulling the religion card (your arguments there are more than weak too, by the way).

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