Yesterday I got three copies of an email through various lists about the Texas legislature hearing on the anti-gay-marriage amendment that’s been proposed. LGRL had put the word out to turn out, saying the hearing would likely go past midnight. My work day sucked yesterday and I was stuck in a meeting until 7pm which left my brain mostly unglued. I wasn’t going to go. And then I got in my car and got really really mad. I was mad at The Man! Fuck the Man! The Man WANTS me to be tired after work and go home and watch tv and be a lazy slug. The Man wants me to believe that I won’t make a difference and someone else will go and sign in against the amendment. The Man does not get enough good sex, says me; it’s why he’s so cranky and always trying to deny the rest of us good sex.
Screw that shit.
I drove downtown, was blessed with a lovely parking spot just north of the capital and found the room easily, immediately running into my friend Marty whom I met at the Democratic state convention last summer.
The room was packed. They had been there since two that afternoon. The LGRL people estimated that a few hundred people had already testified, and only one person was there in favor of the amendment.
(There are actually two amendments, one with nastier language than the first, but both brought by predictable conservatives Warren Chisum and Robert Talton. Talton’s is the worse of the two, denying even the chance of civil unions. Chisum is consistent with his virulently right-wing bills since I’ve been following him.)
I sat down next to Marty and her girlfriend to fill out my form against the amendment, kind of half-listening to a guy talk about how hard it was to buy a house together as a gay couple. The committee looked glazed. It was hot. He finished up, and another fellow went up to the podium. He started talking about his wife (?) and then about his son: his 19 year old gay son that this law was going to screw over, by telling him yet again that he was not good enough, not equal, not accepted. It was very moving. Then his wife got up and gave an impassioned speech about their family and how she wanted such a family for her son and his children. She talked about how her son tried to take his life a few years ago after bullying and threats. There were a lot of folks wiping tears from their eyes in the room. And then their son got up. 19 and sweet looking and nervous, he knocked our socks off, saying he simply wanted to ask “Why? Why now? Why us? Why always us?”
I can’t do justice to this family’s moving and powerful testimony. The committee was obviously touched and one member spoke with the kid. I was so glad I’d gone. I don’t think my one little piece of paper signed against this amendment will change anything, but it was really heartening to see how many people turned out to speak against this injustice and to show their faces, the faces that would be affected by it. I don’t want to be dulled by my job and stupid, small complaints when there are larger problems that I can do my tiny part to try to rectify. I want to be awake, I want to act mindfully.
As I left the capital, I felt re-energized. It was warm and the bats were coming out, flying through the spotlights that shine up onto the capital through the night sky. There may be darkness, but light can easily pierce it.