Nine and a Half Out of Twenty-Some Out of Untold Years Preceding
Superstring01 said:
Plus, we have lots of sex. That part is fun.
Well, yeah. So, dude, how you been? Good show, cheerio, and all of that.
But, hey ... so, at any rate we in Seattle are enjoying our first Super Bowl win, and first men's sports league title in over thirty years. It's weird, in a way. It's anti-climactic. Compared to the despair of losing, such as we felt less than a decade ago, the satisfaction of seeing our home team win is strangely anticlimactic.
I mention this because as I noted
in December ... it's over.
Holy dude salami, Batman! It's
over!
Dude ... we
won.
And ... yet ....
Yeah. Same thing. I mean, sure, the big party comes once we've finished mopping up the intransigents, but, you know ... just like that Super Bowl, it took us years to accept that we lost. Then again, it took Pittsburgh fans years to accept that they won. Weirdest thing, that.
But winning?
For all the frustration, all of the slackjawed shock and awe over the insane efforts put on by the traditionalists ... I mean ....
Lawrence was one thing.
Windsor was a triumph.
But
Kitchen? The judge in Virginia recognized exactly three hugely significant symbolic aspects about the result of her duty, and used them to her fullest, closing with Lincoln after absolutely piling on the legal justifications and, apparently, enjoying that exercise as much as duty would allow. But she opened her
Bostic ruling with Mildred Loving. Even before the title, "Opinion and Order".
Kitchen v. Herbert is marriage equality's
Loving.
We won in Utah.
Utah begged the Supreme Court.
And the Court said no.
We won, and every judge in the land knows it. One can suggest gritted teeth as Heyburn handed down his ruling in Virginia, but likewise can one suggest the extranaeity of even bothering with an Article IV decision—the Equal Protection question is so glaring that there is no reason to bother with the Full Faith and Credit decision. It remains to be seen which state will put up the Article IV argument, and perhaps
that will become for the traditionalists what
Loving was to the racists.
But holy shit, dude ... we
won.
Let me try that again:
We won.
I'm not crying, but
this is happening.
Maybe it's just that the victory has always seemed so far off. With the 'Hawks, it's easy enough to remind that statistics would suggest the organization finally winning a Super Bowl almost
must happen during my lifetime. And now that it's here, I can certainly accept it but I'm having a hard time filing those memories of desperation.
This, though? When I started this topic in 2004, my arrogant hope was five years. My
realistic hope was a decade or two.
Nine and a half years later, though, the American Gay Fray came to an end in a federal courthouse in
Utah.
I've never really liked saying, "I'm in shock". That is, I'm sure I've said it, but it's kind of a silly thing to say. To the other, that would explain it; sudden paradigmatic transformations, be they so petty as the Lombardi trophy or vital as the civil rights of my American neighbors, are certainly a "shock to the system".
After the bang, your hearing is flat. Or gravity seems amiss when you finally climb off the bicycle. Some part of me is comfortably numb following two decades of exercise since the Christian zealots set me in motion. At some point, I'm going to awaken to the next morning, when we are sore, or the morning after that when the lactic acid buildup
really takes its sensory and functional tolls.
Or the hangover.
Or just another Monday, and there's still more to do. ("Run, rabbit, run. Dig the hole, forget the sun. And when at last the work is done, don't sit down—it's time to dig another one.")
Where is that joyous, celebratory ejaculation of catharsis? I'm not sure it's part of something like this, but I'm okay with that. Perhaps the sensation of victory is simply sublime, and abates slowly. We've our gay friends around the world to stand for, and there's plenty going on in this country that demands our attention.
Remember Huey Long, and Dr. King. Coretta Scott has lived long enough to see
us surpass African-Americans in societal respect. There is still work to do.
Remember our sisters and mothers, friends and daughters, who have never actually been people under the Constitution. Say what one will about riding to the maidens' rescues; it's not that, but, rather, the decency of word and deed we owe any person.
Our transgender friends and neighbors still need political support, period. There's so much left to do on that front. I can't even begin to countenance the work that remains.
Ethnicity, creed, sex and gender—there is so much left to do.
The big part comes when we can finally count to fifty and beyond.
But holy shit, dude ... we
won. Or ...
we won.
We won?
Holy scrotes!
We won!
And, yet, it takes an effort to get myself worked up about that.
You know ...
Huh? We won? A'ight. I'm'a get a drink.
So, yeah. Good show on all the stuff you've been up do. And happy happy on the future plans. Howzabeen, dude? Oh, by the way, did you hear that it's over?
And we won?