Publishing online in fairly anonymous form like this can be therapeutic and also instructive. Sometimes I learn more from a diary’s blowback than from the supportive commentary. In this forum, I can share personal struggles in the hope that others will take away something for themselves.
A little over five years ago, I tested positive for HIV. Hard as it must be to imagine, my situation was fortunate – I had insurance and knew my own health well, knew I was very recently infected, and got onto medication rapidly. Even though the medication suppressed the infection well, it was like poison. It "helped" me lose forty pounds in three months. I couldn’t tolerate it for the long term.
I took the change as an opportunity to work in public health, for HIV and STI prevention. I view any personal challenge as an opportunity to work on myself and to offer what I can to others who experience a similar challenge. I have done similarly with the fight for equal rights as a gay person. For some reason, it took me until now – as I’m staring down unstellar test results and a return to medication – to draw tangled parallels between the two struggles.
Fast-forward four years from my last brush with medication. My life has changed drastically. I have a new career; I’m now married. Life has grown more stressful over the past year or so. To be short, weddings are stressful events. Then, my family showed their true colors and turned unsupportive. California’s voters got to vote on my marriage, and millions decided they wanted to take it away. Then, kinder folks took that measure to court. We’ve been in legal limbo ever since. Though we’re both committed to our relationship, and both feel it’s our lives’ bedrock, equality opponents work to shove doubt in around the seams.
That’s what the opposition want. They want to inject that doubt into our relationship.
We talked a lot about marriage ahead of time, and considered what taking that step really means for us and to society. When you stand up in front of family, friends, and community and take those vows, and when you sign those papers, there is an institution there, socially and legally, that can bind more strongly or tightly than the relationship alone. While this isn’t true for everyone, it is true for many, and it is that legal and social structure that, when people believe in it and rely on it, can encourage stability for couples, and for children in homes with married couples. (Again, this is not to say married relationships are the only valid ones - not so, in my view.) We agreed that we wanted that structure, that we wanted to participate in that institution and to tie ourselves more closely legally, financially, and emotionally – to become legally defined as family. And we wanted so strongly to do that with one another that we were willing to enter into a structure from which we have no legal exit. We were and remain so certain that we want to be together that we chose a marriage more restrictive than your average marriage. Even if we wanted to, there’s no legal basis for us to divorce. We don’t live in California, and the state in which we live doesn’t recognize our marriage. We simply can't divorce. Period. People who are against marriage equality should chew on that one for a while and see how it stacks up to the sanctity and permanence of their marriage. We don’t want to be able to get away from one another. Is everyone willing to take that one on?
But attacks on us as people and on our marriage – like Proposition 8 – have an objective. That objective is to destroy relationships and families. There is a whole continuum of viewpoints on the opposing side. Some who are against marriage equality may say they just don’t want to let gay people have the word "marriage". They just want "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships" or "reciprocal beneficiary status", or whatever other myriad names the separate (but supposedly equal) status might take. Some of these folks, I am quite certain, really do mean well, and with time grow to understand the distinction, and think about what marriage means for a couple and a family. Some just want us to have SOME legal recognitions – the ones that it makes them look bad to deny us, for example hospital visitation rights. Others who are against marriage equality are more brazenly discriminatory. They want no legal recognition whatsoever for us and our families. The point of the exclusionary tactics is not only for people to exclude GLBT people and their families from the societal structure and respect of the institution, but for GLBT people and their families to internalize that message, leading us to devalue ourselves and our relationships, eventually leading to failure.
Regardless of the position on the continuum of those who oppose equality for us, the effect is relatively similar. When legislatures and voting populaces campaign and pass legislation and constitutional amendments to restrict the liberty of GLBT people, the results for the attacked (yes, I said attacked) minority equate to post-traumatic stress disorder. We spend long periods of time subjected to campaigns which paint us as anything from less worthy of proper respect to outright threats to children and society. Some examples:
Same-sex marriage is a dangerous sociological experiment that I believe will have negative consequences for society as a whole. Children will be taught in schools that same-sex marriage and traditional marriage are simply different expressions of the same thing, and that the logical and consistent understanding that marriage and reproduction are intrinsically linked is no longer valid. These are profound changes that will reverberate throughout society with tragic consequences.
--Richard Malone, Bishop of the Maine Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, discussing Maine’s new marriage equality law
This is just the beginning of a long, downward slide in relation to all the things we consider abhorrent.
--Pat Robertson, commenting on marriage equality in Maine and the possibility of marriage equality in New Hampshire
I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children.
--Joe the Douchebag Plumber, Republican independent commentator
...those who seek to redefine marriage – with its specific characteristics – and to usurp the title "marriage" for their morally bankrupt relationships, are committing an act of fraud. It’s insulting to those who have entered the authentic, sacred and time-honored institution of marriage over the years.
--Thomas Tobin, Bishop of the Diocese of Providence (Rhode Island) of the Roman Catholic Church
Flood waters erode the soil. "Gay marriage" erodes the soul. A flood impacts for a decade. "Same-sex marriage" destroys generations. A flood draws a community together. "Homosexual marriage" tears the family apart.
--Pastor Eric Schumacher, writing about marriage equality in Iowa for the Baptist Press
What is the morals of a gay person? You can't answer that because anything goes. They're probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of.
--Utah State Senator Chris Buttars
Each time homosexual activists attempt to force their agenda on California, there have been raging, massive, incinerating fires sweeping across the California landscape.
--ex-gay James Hartline
Gay sex produces AIDS, which the state doesn't have -- or should have an interest in. They should charge homosexuals more for their -- for their health insurance than they charge the rest of us... Look, if you're gay and you want to have a relationship, and you want to have it -- you know, you want to have it legalized and sign a contract, I have no problem with that. Go ahead. I'm not gonna come knock on your door, it's not a problem for me. Just don't -- don't try to muddy the waters by calling it a marriage -- it's not.
--radio host Jim Quinn, commenting on California voters’ passage of Proposition 8
Studies show, no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades. . .
I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam. . .
They want to get them into the government schools so they can indoctrinate them . . . They are going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle.
--Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern (re-elected in November)
Even within our own families, we face attack. My husband’s mother refuses to mention me in letters. My parents and sister, like Joe "the Plumber", take issue with us being around children. I equate their interest in our success to that of Anita Bryant.
Faced with attacks like these, how do people and relationships survive? It’s a lot of hard work, I’ll tell you. It’s reminding ourselves that the idea is to insert doubt into our relationship. That the hope is that, denied the legal and societal bindings and respect – yes, respect – of marriage, our relationships and our families will suffer and, eventually, fail. And we do suffer. My husband and I have talked about how, in spite of the commitments we made to be together always, and that we chose to marry in California because we are committed to making it work even when the going gets tough, we’ve had those momentary thoughts: "What if the Supreme Court invalidates our marriage? Will he just walk away?" Sounds dumb, doesn’t it? It is. We’ve committed and recommitted to being married – even if California decides we’re not. If the bigot brigade gets their way in California, we’ll marry again someplace where our marriage is on safer legal ground. That could be Massachusetts or Connecticut. It might be Canada. But we’ll do it again.
Some of our friends point out that, if that happens, "You can just go get married again!" The point is, we should never have to do it again.
The stresses are going to be higher because of the very inconsistent ways in which different states and the federal government enforce the legal elements of marriage...In order to argue that they were entitled to marry, they thought they had to represent same-sex relationships as more committed, more loving, more altruistic than is realistic.
--Janet Halley, Harvard Law professor, quoted over at TalkingPointsMemo
We are subject to that. We’re trying extra-hard, because we know that we’re the example to a lot of straight people who are trying to see if this "gay marriage" thing is real. It is. And the fight for equality makes it harder, grittier, more REAL than we ever imagined it to be. And it’s really, really, really, ridiculously stressful.
Likewise, I'm trying to live an exemplary HIV-positive existence. When I say HIV-positive, I mean positive. I'm that guy who has his sights set on hiking and bagging the highest point in each of the 50 states (so far, I've done nine - I'm hoping to nab five this year). I've finally thrown off a lot of the depression concomitant with the stress of the past several months, and we've been in the gym and the pool -- I've lost almost 25 pounds. (On purpose.) I can swim a mile and then run four miles -- all together -- something I haven't been able to do for years. I'm planning for the future and working on my entrance into graduate school -- HIV hasn't stopped my career; if anything, it distilled it.
Even with all the positivity, stress has its effects on an immune system, and, though I’m not thrilled about it, I get to get friendly with HIV medication again starting sometime in the next couple of weeks. After my first round of medication several years ago, I’m very apprehensive about this new phase of living with HIV. But, as in the fight for equality, I have a supportive, loving husband and we are bound and determined to survive to see the day that we win both fights.
I have the distinct feeling that not everyone wishes for me to, but I’m gonna outlive this damned virus. And in spite of the other side's worst efforts, we're gonna outlast discrimination. In both cases, I plan to bring a whole lot of folks along.
We're in it for the long haul. We're partway up that mountain. I’ll see you at the top.