This song, while maybe overplayed and considered cliche by the hipster types (I am sooo not one), really speaks to me and I’ve been meaning to post about it because it does so …
When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay,
‘Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight.
I told my mom, tears rushing down my face
She’s like “Ben you’ve loved girls since before pre-k, trippin’ ”
Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn’t she?
Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.
I remember doing the math like, “Yeah, I’m good at little league”
A preconceived idea of what it all meant
For those that liked the same sex
Had the characteristics
The right wing conservatives think it’s a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don’t know
And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago
I don’t know …
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warmIf I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me
Have you read the YouTube comments lately?
“Man, that’s gay” gets dropped on the daily
We become so numb to what we’re saying
A culture founded from oppression
Yet we don’t have acceptance for ’em
Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board
A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It’s the same hate that’s caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It’s human rights for everybody, there is no difference!
Live on and be yourself
When I was at church they taught me something else
If you preach hate at the service those words aren’t anointed
That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned
When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen
I might not be the same, but that’s not important
No freedom till we’re equal, damn right I support it(I don’t know)
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warmWe press play, don’t press pause
Progress, march on
With the veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
When kids are walking ’round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper isn’t gonna solve it all
But it’s a damn good place to start
No law is gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it’s all the same love
About time that we raised up… sexAnd I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warmLove is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind …
The last few days have seen court decisions that bring a lovely rosy hue to a wonderful year that saw equality spread to Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, and (for now) Utah.
The 10th Circuit Court on Tuesday refused to grant an emergency stay:
Having considered the district court’s decision and the parties’ arguments concerning the stay factors, we conclude that a stay is not warranted. Accordingly, we deny Defendants-Appellants’ emergency motions for a stay pending appeal and for a temporary stay. In addition, we direct expedited consideration of this appeal. The Clerk is directed to issue a separate order setting deadlines for briefing. http://thinkprogress.org/defau…
According to Twitter UT is going to ask SCOTUS via Justice Sotomayer (!) to grant a stay. I can only assume that since she doesn’t seem a likely candidate to be chosen by opponents of same sex marriage that she’s the only choice they have.
Jeffrey Toobin, writing for The New Yorker, makes a few interesting observations:
There was really very little fuss made by the Mormon Church other than a rather tepid statement …
“The Church has been consistent in its support of traditional marriage while teaching that all people should be treated with respect,” the Church statement said. “This ruling by a district court will work its way through the judicial process.”
It this because the Church is trying to mend its reputation after Prop 8 or has the Church, as Toobin suggests, figured out that continuing to fight marriage equality is a lost cause?
Toobin also sees the much-less-heralded decision in Ohio has a much bigger deal as it relates to states who have bans on same sex marriage recognizing out-of-state marriages.
In anticipation of [John] Arthur’s death, the couple petitioned the state of Ohio for Arthur to be listed as “married” on his Ohio death certificate, and to record [James] Obergefell as the “surviving spouse.” Ohio, which does not allow same-sex marriages, refused, but federal judge Timothy S. Black ruled against the state and in favor of the couple. The judge said it was “not a complicated case.” Throughout Ohio’s history, Ohio has treated marriages solemnized out of state as valid in Ohio. “How then can Ohio, especially given the historical status of Ohio law, single out same-sex marriage as ones it will not recognize?” Black asked in his opinion. “The short answer is Ohio cannot.”
The Ohio decision is crucial because people in the United States tend to move from state to state. Like Obergefell and Arthur, people in same-sex marriages may well end up living in states where such marriages are illegal. Once they are in those states, these couples will become enmeshed in the legal system in the way that heterosexual married couples do. They will have children; they may divorce and dispute child custody; they will seek to file joint tax returns; they will visit each other in the hospital; they will want to be with each other when they die. Their lives will intersect with the legal system in scores of ways at those junctures. In light of this, many judges will face dilemmas similar to the one Black just resolved.
And these judges will almost certainly decide their cases the same way. It would be a disorderly mess to have separate spheres of law for gay married couples and straight married couples-and, more important, there is no moral or legal justification for doing so. When it comes to marriage, states have granted each other reciprocity since the dawn of the republic.
Justice Scalia saw the writing on the wall when the Windsor decision was handed down. And Robert Shelby, the judge in the UT case, knew that Scalia knew it; he took great delight (I’m hoping) in pointing it out. And oh by they way, Shelby was originally the choice of Orrin Hatch and enjoyed the backing of Mike Lee.
What Shelby and all these judges are seeing is that it is impossible to offer gay people some rights and not others. They are either full citizens, or they are not. In case after case, and now state after state, judges are drawing the only principled conclusions they can. So, increasingly, is the broader citizenry. Gay people are winning-as are we all.
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