The Politics of Love

Marriage is tough. I ought to know, as I have a notch of failure on my belt and in my heart. And while you could argue my divorce story is a “made for TV” movie in many ways (husband wakes up one day and informs wife he doesn’t love her anymore, leaving wife, family, friends and community members dazed and confused...wife picks up life and starts completely over...), I surely have to take responsibility for my own short comings and failures in that marriage.

But, I got the chance to try again.  And, try again I have.  I’m married for the second time to a man who also knows the failure of divorce.  We have a renewed commitment and resolve to doing things better this time. And we’ve got those notches to remind us that we are perfectly capable of fucking it all up. But, why did we bother doing it again, anyway?

I mean, nobody HAS to get married, right? Yet, there is just something about making that public commitment that we all crave. I heard someone say on the radio recently that marriage engages a community of people into the commitment in a way that two people just can’t do on their own. It makes sense...sure, sometimes we want to believe that we can stand together on a cliff overlooking the ocean proclaiming our love to each other privately and it’ll just be good enough, but we want more, don’t we? I’ve heard my pastor husband preach at many weddings about the commitment that everyone in the room/tent/yard is also making to the couple being married...to support them, to love them, to recognize their commitment to each other and to respect it. 

This year, Minnesota will vote on whether we should limit the freedom to engage in this public commitment to heterosexual men and women. No matter if they’ve been married a half dozen times previously, if they’ve molested their own children, if they’ve cheated on their spouse and given him/her an STD, if they’ve diminished and disrespected the honor and commitment of marriage in countless ways that would surely mean they should NEVER be allowed to marry again. Nope. All they have to be is heterosexual.  Oh, and a US citizen, I suppose.

And as time goes on and we inch closer to the election, I go round and round in my head, trying to understand how in the world we could be voting on something that would LIMIT freedom. I want to find just the right words to convince everyone how ridiculous this is. I want to proclaim how true conservative/Republican values feature LESS government in people’s lives, so regardless of your party affiliation, you should clearly be voting this hurtful amendment down.  

But, I’d be fooling myself if I didn’t admit that for me, it really comes down to the friends and family that I love. Friends and family members who happen to be gay. And there is one person in particular who comes to mind...every time.

His story isn’t mine to tell, but here I am telling it. Or my version, anyway. And I wonder if it will come as news to Chad that his 6th grade teacher has been taught more by HIM about love, courage, respect and hope than I ever could have hoped to teach others.

My first year out of college, I taught 5th/6th grade and Chad was in my first class. He was really a great kid to have in class, with his interest in history, his creative spirit and his good behavior. After all, I was just a 22-year-old, idealistic new teacher, fresh and green out of college, who may not have been as prepared as I thought I was for suburban elementary kids who were getting to the age where the opposite sex was clearly more interesting than what the teacher was trying to say. Which brings me back to Chad.

I knew he was gay. Maybe it was just a good guess. I can give you a long list of reasons why I knew, which would include a bunch of stereotypes, but none of that really matters now. Sexual preference didn’t get discussed in elementary classrooms and in the end, he was another kid in my class with a caring mom who always came to conferences and a dad who I knew existed, but was off on the fringes somewhere, not as involved in his kid’s life as any of us would have preferred. Little did I know, Chad was already beginning to notice more and more how different he was from the other boys.  And almost as quickly as those feelings surfaced, they were suppressed in ways even Chad couldn’t completely understand. There wasn’t room to even consider your own potential homosexuality in suburban White Bear Lake in 1991.

My teaching career was short, and Chad was one of a couple of students who kept in touch with me. I remember him writing to me a time or two when he was in high school, and he even thanked me for giving him an appreciation and love for writing.  I didn’t know exactly what was going on in his life, but I now know that he was busy trying to please his parents, attending his Catholic church (where he was beginning to develop quite a strong faith) and working to be what the world wanted/expected from him, as a young man. Because Chad was a good boy, who would grow into a good man.

Chad went on to college, and I vaguely knew that he was studying biology, but I was pretty wrapped up in my three kids during that time.  However, when his wedding invitation arrived, it gave me pause. So, he’s not gay, then? It never occurred to me that years and years of expectation and pressure that are so much a part of growing up, most of us don’t even notice them, had worn away at Chad like shoreline is worn away by the waves. So, of course he met a girl and was going to marry her.  That’s what boys do.  Especially Catholic boys.  But, none of that occurred to me at the time.  I just figured I must have had it all wrong...

It was a nice wedding. And I went back to my life and Chad headed on for whatever his would hold, too.

Turns out our marriages were unraveling at about the same time... teacher and student.  Much of that time is a bit of a blur for me, but I’ll never forget the day that Chad emailed me and said he had something important to tell me. His marriage had ended, ironically when his wife left him for another woman. But, it’s funny how things tend to twist and turn and in the end, Chad was finally able to come to terms with the fact that he was gay. I was honored that I had an important enough place in Chad’s life for me to be one of the people he felt he needed to “come out” to. I didn’t have the guts to tell him I had always known until we met for drinks a little while later.  

And suddenly, there we were...student and teacher, on equal footing. We shared war stories of online dating. We lamented broken marriages, failed expectations and shattered dreams. Neither of us had a fucking clue about what the future would hold, but we both knew that we had love in our hearts and wanted to find someone special to share that love. Nothing hetero or homo about it, folks. Just plain love. 

A lot of the arguments I’ve heard around limiting freedom to marry surround religion and religious views. For example, “according to the bible, homosexuality is wrong and a sin”. Ok. Let’s start proof-texting from the bible then, shall we? I will find a passage that states gluttony is a sin (yes, that’s in the bible, too).  Should we then prevent fat people from marrying, as they are clearly not following God’s plan with their shameless overeating? You think this is ridiculous?  It’s the SAME DAMN CONCEPT, people.  Or how about a passage condemning greed over material possessions, which last time I checked, appears to be the current foundation of our country. 

But I think my favorite ridiculous argument is the ignorant and completely irrational statement that gay people have actually made a choice to be gay, and could simply make a difference choice (feel free to insert “if they would only follow God” as needed)...

Right.  

You think that Chad made the CHOICE to be a gay man, which ultimately resulted in the loss of employment in his position as a youth director at a Catholic Church? (a job in which he was well respected by students and parents alike and a job he loved) He was fired immediately when they found out he was gay.

Or that Chad made the CHOICE to be a gay man, which meant that rather than bringing a girlfriend home to meet his conservative, suburban, homophobic father, he told his dad he was gay, and faced years of estrangement and painful relationships.  

I’ll tell you one thing, I wouldn’t choose to do that. But I don’t have to, do I?  Because I’m one of the lucky ones, who just so happened to have been born with a sexual preference that is a mainstream societal norm.

The thing is, my gay friends and family are among the most faithful, spiritual and loving people I know. And Chad is an amazing example of that. Chad seeks not only to be understood, but to understand. Chad has shown courage and integrity in the face of all kinds of adversity, his entire life.

So, when Chad decided to marry his partner this past summer, I was honored to not only be present, but to be a part of the ceremony. And on an absolutely perfect summer evening in June, in the front yard of Chad’s father’s home, they were married. Is the marriage recognized by the state? Nope. They had to go elsewhere for that recognition. Did everyone at the ceremony feel that homosexuality is ok? Nope. But, they had chosen to attend anyway, in the spirit of love for Chad and Troy. 

I have never attended a wedding where I was struck more by the presence of a courage, determination and even a sacrifice to simply be one’s own self. And I do not remember being at a wedding where the love of a father has so clearly overcome all kinds of adversity. And as I watched my daughter try to explain to her little brother why these two men had to go to a different state to “get married again” (he couldn’t even comprehend why such a thing would be necessary), I was struck with a sudden hope for the world.

This hurtful amendment will either pass or it will fail. And until our state gets its shit together, gay couples won’t be entitled to the same rights and privileges that I share with my husband. Privileges surrounding health care, visitation rights in medical facilities and tax benefits, among countless other things. I will vote and fight to change that fact for as long as I live.

However, if there’s one thing I know, we can’t vote to control love. Love transcends power and money and it most fucking definitely transcends politics. 

Thank you, Chad, for helping me to know that for certain.

Rummage Sale

I used to be quite the school volunteer.  I’ve done my time working unifix cubes with 1st grades, leading a student book club, teaching Omnibus small groups on topics like Ancient Egypt (yes, we walked like Egyptians..) and timing the 4th graders at their track and field day.

But, you know how it goes.  Next thing you know, you’re divorced, and your charmed life as a stay-at-home mom comes to an abrupt end.  Suddenly, you’re in the work force, crossing your fingers as your run out the door in the morning that your kids don’t miss the bus, forcing you to have to drive back and get them, which will mean missing nearly half the workday by the time you transport them to the multicultural “alternative” school program that seemed like a terrific idea back when you were in your old life, but suddenly is a huge fucking inconvenience and one more glaring example of the countless ways in which you’ve completely fallen down from everything you hoped for and wanted for your kids. #anotherparentfailure

I digress.

I didn’t really have as much time to volunteer.  Ok, I didn’t have any.  Well, I had a little, and I did attempt to do a couple of things when I was first working, but shit, I only had those 5 vacation days for the whole year.  And let me tell you, they get used up in a hurry!  So, I pretty quickly became yet another working mom, resenting the at-home moms not only for the time they had to volunteer, but also the time they had to get proper exercise, grocery shop and cook nutritional meals for their family, still have the energy to read somebody a bedtime story at night and possibly even have sex with their husbands.  And I suddenly understood why copies of Working Mother Magazine were in all the waiting rooms at the pediatrician’s office.  After a long, disappointing day of being barely appreciated and definitely underpaid at work, while waiting for your kid to get a throat culture, an article with a title like “Studies Show Taking Time For Yourself Has Positive Impact On Kids’ GPA”, while surely complete bullshit, can really make a gal feel better. (NOTE: As an at-home mom, I resented these magazines, vehement and entitled over how hard I worked and feeling the complete lack of respect that society had for my important work.  I always fantasized about starting a magazine called At-Home Mom Magazine, but justified not having the time in that I was working too hard being one...).

And now, here I am, with my three bio children in high school, my two bonus children in elementary school and enough guilt to power the space shuttle around the moon four times over not having done more volunteer work.  I mean, shit, I went into real estate so that I could be flexible, right?  But, by the time I’m done driving them to (and attending) their multitude of sporting events, social activities, music lessons and jobs, I’ve eaten up a pretty good chunk of the week. 

So, when the high school music department rummage sale came a callin’, it seemed it was time for me to step it up.  I had conflicts the last couple years and therefore didn’t really know what to expect, having never attended the event.  But, after their 5th reminder email, I finally clicked the link for “volunteer opportunities”, figuring I’m covering two of my kids with the one volunteer day. Dizzy and overwhelmed by the extensive list of duties and confused by job descriptions I didn’t understand, I simply emailed the coordinator, and said to plug me in on Saturday and I’d help wherever.  Big mistake.

I arrived late (a smattering of justification over the fact that I had to run a work errand on the way still lingering...self-serving, bullshit-excuses, working mother that I am).  I walked into the high school gym, which was filled with “rummage sale donations” that had been dropped off the day before.  The idea is that people donate items, we sell them, and all the proceeds go to the music program.  I checked in at the desk and was immediately sent to “pricing”.  If you think it means pricing the items, you’d be sort of right.  Only it’s worse.  You are given a “general” guideline of what things should cost, and then you have to add up the items and haggle with the fucking public at the table, eventually agreeing on the price and sending them to check out, which is surely the most sought after, candy-ass, easy volunteer job that there is.  Just try and stop me from grabbing that one next year.  Oh, and did I mention that we are raising money for a program whose families I can only assume are among the most wealthy in the district?After all, we’re paying beaucoup bucks for expensive instruments, private lessons, special concert clothing and trips all over the country.  So, I’m standing there with the moms in their red Stillwater sweatshirts (aka “Pony Gear”) and their Miss Me jeans, who drove up in their SUVs with no concern of any kind about the fact that it’s costing hundreds of dollars a week just to keep the thing gassed up. And I’m wearing the only red shirt I own, which happens to make me a little over dressed for the occasion.  One of the ladies gives me a compliment on my shirt (I vaguely remember that this is what suburban moms do, compliment each other on their outfits and jewelry) and I stammered out that it was the only thing I had that is red.  I then added that I was wearing red underwear, which was clearly taking things a little too far, because two ladies chuckled uncomfortably and one actually raised her hand to her mouth and sputtered out something that sounded like “oh, my!”.  Seriously ladies, try getting out a little more.

And then came the customers.  There were a few students purchasing items, as well as a couple of the volunteers.  But, mostly it was a bunch of people who clearly have MUCH LESS than the people they are purchasing these items from.  Let’s see if we have this straight:

1. Wealthy people vote NO in school referendums, requiring music departments to hold rummage sales to pay for things like school instruments and sheet music.
2. The same wealthy people then help out at the rummage sales, overpricing their personal garbage and selling it to people less fortunate. People who would surely benefit from having an affordable and more accessible music program in their school district.
3. So, the less fortunate are actually funding the music program by purchasing used microwaves, stuffed animals and old Longaberger baskets (which were originally purchased at wealthy person “home parties”) so that the wealthy people can keep their taxes lower.

Am I the only one in the high school gym that can see this is messed up?

And you want me to haggle with these customers over prices?  Oh, HELL to the NO.  Here’s how it went down:  If somebody rolled up with a stroller and a kid that looked like they probably regularly have to wait at daycare longer than they should because dad and mom both work two jobs, I added up the items, using the LOWEST suggested pricing and then usually rounded it down.  Meanwhile, behind me, the women were exhausted from the effort of haggling with customers over prices.  Seriously, ladies?  I was curious about these women, so I inched my way closer, wondering about their side conversations.  One mentioned that she’s leaving tomorrow morning for Jamaica for a mission trip with her family.  I considered mentioning the radio spot I heard recently about how gay people in Jamaica basically have to lie and hide their sexual orientation, or face certain torture and potential death.  But, then I realized that she’s probably heading there to stop just those types of sinful behaviors and turn the good (but could be better) people of Jamaica to the word of the Lord.  And then we’ll be talking about the Minnesota Marriage Amendment that’s on the ballot this election, and next thing I know, I’ll be insulting everyone in the place just in time for my children to arrive and volunteer, hanging their heads in “I don’t fit in here” shame.  

Next came the teachers, all asking for the “teacher discount”.  What is this, Walmart?  It’s a fucking rummage sale.  A rummage sale to support THREE OF YOUR FELLOW TEACHERS and their music program.  It’s a fundraiser!  I then began to hear their own stories, of how they have a budget of $0 for their classroom books and use all their own money to supply the room.  I know this is true.  I used to be a teacher.  And again with the irony, as they purchase used books from people who voted against raising more money for the schools so they can put said books in their classrooms and make it a better learning environment for the kids of the people who voted NO to the referendum.

Bored, irritated and frankly a bit frightened, I started to wander around the gym.  The entire place was a monument to suburban excess.  Discarded “Lucky” brand jeans that cost well over a hundred dollars, barely even worn.  Thousands upon thousands of unused craft items, most still in the package.  Home decor items galore - glittery fall leaves, table mirrors, items so useless and banal that we couldn’t even identify their use at the check out table.  I wondered briefly what the vast majority of the rest of the world, who live in extreme poverty, would think walking into a sale like this.  

As I drove home later, past a sea of conservative political yard signs, claiming the need for lowered taxes (even though Washington County is among the lowest taxed counties in the COUNTRY) and reminding me that legal gay marriage would somehow harm my own heterosexual marriage (ignorance abounds in Suburbia), I recalled a story I heard some years ago.  My mom knew a lady who stated she would never hold another rummage sale.  The woman said it was shameful for her to do so, because she didn’t need the money, and surely her items should be GIVEN to people who had so much less than her.  

I think I forgot that story when I agreed to sign up for this volunteer opportunity.

And next year, I think I’ll help do vision screening instead.