Minnesota Marriage Amendment: In which I wade into politics

Here's the thing.

If you're reading here, you probably know me already.  If you don't...well, hello, it's nice to meet you.  The point is, I'm a white girl from the whitest town you can imagine (in terms of population and rhythm) and my husband isn't (in terms of skin color and rhythm-- the man has got some MOVES).  Up until 1967, my own marriage would have been illegal in 16 states.  It was only through the Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia that laws barring interracial marriage were struck down.  If it had been left to a state-by-state popular vote, who knows how long it would have taken for my marriage be legal in all 50 states, as "disapproval" of interracial relationships is still shockingly common -- I'm looking at you, former Louisiana Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell, who in 2009 refused to sign an interracial couple's marriage license because he disapproves of interracial relationships.  (You know what I disapprove of?  Bigots like that getting to have rights, BUT THAT IS WHY RIGHTS SHOULD NOT BE LEFT TO A POPULAR VOTE).

I cannot imagine how painful that would be-- to have people look at my marriage and say "Nope.  Not allowed," and then VOTE ON IT. But that is exactly what people are trying to do in Minnesota, by putting an amendment to "preserve marriage" on the ballot this fall.  It's a horrifying thought, this idea that the love between two consenting adults is somehow threatening to all marriages everywhere.  It's unimaginably unfair to our LGBT citizens that we're even considering this amendment.  (As for civil unions, they aren't the solution either since I think we can all agree that "separate but equal" was a shitty idea the first time around).  

How incredibly, incredibly arrogant to think we deserve the right to vote on another person's relationship.  Do we really want to be putting the validity of people's marriages to a vote?  Because I'm a bitch on wheels, and I really don't think those people would want me voting on their relationships.  I don't think they'd like the outcome.  (Oh, you're a bigot?  DIVORCES ALL AROUND!)  Besides, gay marriage is *already illegal* in the state of Minnesota.  This amendment is just to make extra-super-sure that if, say, a judge looks at the current law and says "Yeah, that's discriminatory" they wouldn't be able to overturn it.  Let me repeat: gay marriage is illegal in Minnesota, but some people are so worried that gay people might, at some point in the future, be able to get married and have legally recognized families, that they want to CHANGE THE STATE'S CONSTITUTION.  This is a drastic step, and quite frankly, it's disgusting.  I simply cannot understand why allowing two adults to get married is such a threat that we need to make it doubly illegal.

EDITED TO ADD:  According to my husband's research, Alabama was the last state to reverse their ban on interracial marriages, which had been added to the state's constitution (much like Minnesota is trying to do with gay marriage).  They finally undid the ban in 2000.  The point is not to trash Alabama (this law was likely unenforced since federal supersedes state law), but to point out that once you enshrine discrimination in the state's constitution, it takes a VERY long time to undo that damage.  Let's not make our children ashamed of us, okay Minnesotans?

On a lighter note, who on *earth* could be against more weddings?  WEDDINGS ARE SUPER FUN.  Booze, dinner with your friends, and then dancing for the rest of the night while everyone is in fancy clothes.  It's like prom, but with alcohol and lifelong commitment.  Several of our LGBT friends attended our wedding, and I cannot wait to return the favor and get drunk and dance to 90s pop at theirs.  Who could possibly be against that?

As a married person, I can confidently say that no one else's marriage or divorce has had any direct impact on my own.  Also, churches don't have to perform *any* wedding they disagree with, so there can be no complaining that marriage equality would discriminate against religions.  My lapsed-Catholic self and Buddhist husband couldn't have walked into a Baptist church or a mosque and demanded that they marry us no matter what.  In fact, a church could refuse to marry us simply for being an interracial couple, and that would be their right (they'd be bigots, but it'd be legal).  In short, there is no religious component involved in a legal document.  Your church doesn't believe in gay marriage?  Fine.  They don't have to perform them.  Plus, the bible says an awful lot of things we don't believe in any more--such as slavery being A-OK.  Either the bible is right 100% of the time, or it isn't.  So what will it be, folks: bringing back slavery, or gay marriage?  Personally, I'd chose "consenting adults marrying the person of their choice" over "people getting to own other people," but that's just me.

Finally, as I said before, I can't imagine how painful it would be to have the "morality" of my relationship be put to a popular vote.  I can't imagine a world where I couldn't marry my husband, or I could, but it only counted in some states, or it's called something else entirely so as to preserve the "sanctity" of a government contract that isn't religious in any way. (At least my marriage license has exactly zero mentions of God, Jesus, or the Church; I don't know about yours.)  It would break my heart for that to happen to me, so I can't stay silent as it happens to someone else.


There's enough pain and suffering in this world.  Don't add to it.

Vote no.

Thor: Totally underrated

When Thor first came out, I was skeptical.  After all, it looked *really* stupid: a movie about a demi-god in weird futuristic armor, based on Norse mythology?  I mean, I love comic book movies and all, but this just seemed...dumb.

And then I watched it.

The Five Most Embarrassing Movies I Own, and My Reasons For Purchasing Them

5) The Cutting Edge.  Reason:  It's not so much embarrassing to own, it's that I, a figure skater with a love of romantic comedies and fictional roguish men, did not see this movie until I was in COLLEGE.

4) Troy:  Reason: Eric Bana as Hector, my Favorite Male Character in Greek Literature, Category: Epic Poems, Subcategory: Homer.  Also: Hector's wife Andromache, which is my number one "If I ever own a cat" name.

3)  High School Musical.  Reason: I'M SOARING, I'M FLYING.  THERE'S NOT A STAR IN HEAVEN THAT WE CAN'T REACH.  And the fact that Zac Efron's voice was "too manly" so they redubbed it with someone else's voice so he'd sound less sexually threatening.  That's right, ladies and gents: lock up your wives, daughters, husbands, and sons: THE ZEFRON'S HERE.

2) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.  Reason: Go to hell, George Lucas.

1) The Lizzy McGuire Movie.  Reason: Because sometimes I just need to watch Hilary Duff bop around Rome pretending to be an Italian pop star.


Honorable Mention, Because My Husband Bought Them:  Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.  Reason:  None.  There is no goddamn reason to own these two movies.  It makes it worse that my husband and I own these two, but not the first one.  You know, THE GOOD ONE.

North and South: Pride and Prejudice and Unions

Oooh, North and South.  I forget how I found you, but I've watched you probably 4 times in the past two years.  It has everything a girl (or guy) could want: a brooding hero, a plucky heroine, misunderstandings, tension, and STRIKES.  It's like Newsies, only set 50 years earlier in a different country without singing and without Christian Bale dancing his feelings.

Okay, so it's nothing like Newsies.  But it's still AWESOME.

The Tudors: Trashy, trashy history

Oh, The Tudors.  You started out with so much promise: history, campiness, trashiness, and super over-the-top acting.  And then you decided to get serious, which: BORING.  Finishing this series felt like homework, and I'm someone who *likes* homework.  It was like they ran out of all their good ideas by the time Anne Boleyn was executed (uh, 500 year old spoiler alert?).

Things I've Learned From Law & Order

1) If I am arrested and the cops do not read me my Miranda Rights the very second they arrest me, I can confess to the crime and then go commit some more crimes and there's nothing they can do about it.

2) Alternatively, if the cops really dislike a suspect, it's totally fine for them to beat said suspect up.

3) Science is literally magic.

4) Psychologists are mind readers, and people with mental illnesses always present textbook symptoms, and ONLY textbook symptoms.
       4b) If I am arrested for a crime I hope B.D. Wong doesn't question me, because all he'd have to do is make his concerned-face-with-furrowed-brow and I'd start crying and reveal everything and then ask him for a hug.

5) The Manhattan SVU's hallway to the elevators is a super dangerous place, as about twice a year a grieving family member murders a suspect there.
      5b) In fact, stay out of the Manhattan SVU altogether, as THEY ONCE GOT BOMBED BY A PIZZA.

6) Elliott Stabler is kind of unstable, but apparently that makes him a phenomenal cop.

7) The layout of all of New York.  I've never been there, but I'm 75% sure I know where everything is and that it will only take about 5 minutes to get there, no matter where I start from.
      7b) When experiencing an emergency in New York, the best thing to do is call a cop you met once and wait for them to get there.  You will be dead when they arrive, but that will give them 30 more minutes of plot.

8) Ice-T is a cop now.

9) Cops shoot people all the time, and the therapy they have to attend later is bullshit that keeps them from doing their jobs.
    9b) Sometimes though, it has amazing relevance to the case they're investigating.

10)  Jack McCoy is the greatest lawyer that ever lawyered (with the exception of my husband, of course).




For real though, I respect Law and Order way more than other cop shows.  My attorney husband can't even be in the room with me when I'm watching it, which is a shame, because it is great TV comfort food.  In fact, I was sick earlier this summer and I spent most of a day laying on the couch watching Law and Order SVU on netflix, because I could drift in and out of consciousness and still follow the plot (granted, I've already seen every episode).  However, I distinguish Law and Order from crap like CSI because unlike those shows, Law and Order seems to take it's job of "educating" the public seriously, particularly SVU.  That show has done a really great job of bringing sexual assault out into the open, and showing people that even prostitutes get raped, or that many rapes are perpetrated by long-term partners, but that doesn't make it okay, and that men can be the victims of rape too.  It might sound facile-- and there's the whole "benefitting from our society's lurid fascination with sex and murder" thing to take into account-- but if you think about it, nearly every episode of SVU has a scene where the detectives sit around the squad room listing facts and debating the case.  Sometimes it's statistics about child abuse, or AIDS transmission, or domestic violence, and then one detective (usually Munch or Ice-T) brings up the usual doubts: is she lying?  Could he/she be doing this for attention?  Is this [completely overacted mental illness] real?  Then another detective (usually Olivia) responds with *more* statistics and a heartfelt plea to take the victim seriously.  In an age where a shocking amount of people (and public figures) think women make up rape claims at the drop of the hat, I think SVU does a lot of good in showing just how vulnerable we all are to sexual assault, and that *no one* deserves it.  If you think about Law and Order as a schlocky and kind of manipulative public service announcement, it gets a lot better-- as long as you realize that their presentation of the legal process is pretty much bullshit.

10 Things I Hate About You: The TV Show

It is a fact universally acknowledged that 10 Things I Hate About You is the best teen movie of all time.

 Kat Stratford was a prickly, self-righteous, sort of mean leading lady, and man, she spoke to me-- a self-righteous and sort of mean teenager.  (I was just emerging from my no-friends* era of middle school, and Kat's disdain for the popular kids gave me an extra layer of self-defense that every friendless girl adopts because it means she's choosing to not have friends).

Patrick Verona was a dreamboat.

It was a match made in angry nerd-girl heaven.

So I was more than a little apprehensive when I heard that the Middle School Girl Channel (aka ABC Family) was making a TV show out of my beloved movie.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that while the show stays true to the theme of the movie, it quickly developed into its own thoroughly enjoyable little show that really deserved more than one season.

*Disclaimer:  I did have some friends in middle school, it was just that they mostly didn't go to my school where I was a literal pariah for all of 7th grade.  To the few kids (at my school and otherwise) who did stick with me through that, I am forever grateful.  I don't mean to be a downer, but I do want those people to know just how much their friendship meant to me during an incredibly difficult time.  I probably didn't acknowledge that at the time, but I should have.