I'm a sucker for holiday tunes. And one of my favorites is "Grown-up Christmas List."
This season, with all that has happened, it strikes an even bigger chord with me, especially the opening line of the chorus:
No More Lives Torn Apart...
This was a hard year for our community. We lost too many lives to anti-LGBT violence. We saw amendments pass against our relationships, not just marriage but against civil unions and domestic partnerships in some states. We saw our right to adopt children taken away in one state. We greeted this holiday season with the news that some of our marriages may be dissolved against our will.
Lives torn apart...
There have been some bright moments, those sparkling seconds in time that allow us to keep hoping, to keep believing that change may come one day. It's these moments that allow us keep going, keep fighting.
There is the knowledge that no matter how hard others may try, they cannot take away my family. They can't touch what is in my heart. They can pass as many laws as they want, say as many horrible things about who I am and who I love as they can mutter. They can make life harder and unfortunately take lives away with their hate and violence.
But they can't change how I feel about those I love.
So this year, as I sit with my husband and our family, and we look back at the year behind us and at the year ahead, this will be my one wish. The one thing that I'll keep looking towards, my goal, the little candle that keeps burning in my heart even in the darkest times is that little refrain of a Christmas song:
No more lives torn apart.
And time will heal all hearts.
This is my grown-up Christmas list.
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3 Comments
« All Powerful Trannies Threaten Humanity | Home | Those hard lines we draw between "sexual orientation," "gender identity," and "gender expression" »
On the first day of Christmas, I really want to see, and one fully inclusive ENDA.
On the second day of Christmas, I really want to see, two Inauguration tickets.
Third day: three French kisses.
Fourth day: four winning lottery tickets.
Five lipstick lesbians!
Six days vacation.
Seven Blu-Ray movies.
Eight years of Obama.
Nine less deaths.
Ten years free gas.
Eleven LGBT positive laws
Twelve months of free mortgage.
MonicaHelms | December 24, 2008 3:57 PM
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No more lives torn apart, but also letting go of the idea that lives can't/shouldn't be torn apart. It happens to everyone. We can't avoid it, we can only avoid accepting it.
Alex Blaze | December 26, 2008 9:33 PM
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As you know I can feel things pretty intensely at times. Human injustice and tragic disasters really affect me, sometimes physically they make me ill.
That said, with the perspective I have of being sixteen and hearing on Chicago radio about the "homosexual riot" in Grenwich Village, knowing that the beginning of the struggle has come in 1969 and that there was a glimmer of a chance to be free?
When I compare 1969 with now? We have made such amazing progress and there is more to come as our movement continues. So many of the things you fight for were completely impossible to consider in 1969. We were still dealing with the very expression of our affection being an illegality. LANDLORDS COULD REFUSE TO RENT TO YOU AND ANY EMPLOYER COULD FIRE YOU.
As I have told you, the "smart, career oriented" Gay people on campus would have nothing to do with me socially.
The glass is not full, not even half full, but it has wine in the glass. As long as we have a fire in the belly to continue and will spend time organizing to achieve needed goals across the spectrum of GLBT wants, desires and constitutional rights all will continue to improve.
I doubt it will ever be perfect. Ask a Black man driving through a White neighborhood, or shopping in a mall, if he has felt "profiled." They have been at their struggle longer than we.
Robert Ganshorn | December 27, 2008 2:28 AM
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