Stilts for the measured man

"I will always have more; I will always be more than you." This is this unspoken message that friendship attempts to ignore while a civil injustice if taking place on one in the relationship. When people who genuinely like each other choose to do this, they perpetuate our separate classes and allow the "tyranny of men [humans]" to grow.

Lorena sent out an e-mail earlier in the week that she had defended her dissertation. I sent a short e-mail back congratulating her. I received a response which provoked this commentary on the injustice of denying marriage to gays & lesbians:

"Alas, the memories of childhood do not override or compensate for the people we become as adults. We must all learn to live with ourselves and be comfortable with the things that we consider to be values. I've never been good at turning the other cheek or letting something slide just because it's politically correct to do so. Injustice is injustice no matter what light is put upon it. In global terms, for a nation to allow injustice to take place for a segment of it's people (let's say female circumcision in some African nations) because that's what the culture says is "okay" does not make it okay. The world looks to Africa and humanistcally says, "Bad bad...how terrible to treat women this way." While it also intellectually
says, "This is culture...what right do we have to interfere with another's customs?" And so philosophy and ethics and debates are formed...Who is right? What is right?

For America to continue to deny civil rights to a segment of it's population (and in this case myself) is not okay. It's not okay for me to have friends who feel that this injustice is okay. It's akin to the white master and the black slave who over time develop a truly genuine friendship. They may eat at the same table in private, be allowed into each other's family lives, know facts about the other that no one else knows, but at the end of the day, one will always be protected and respected in society more because of a purely unjust way of thinking. Sadly, the simple uprising of slaves or indentured servants was never enough to enact social change by itself. Society often has to wait for the proverbial "white master" to "get it" and for them to join the uprising before change happens.

We (Americans) think that we have moved far from the 50's & 60's in this civil strife, but the truth is that we've put a layer of paint over a badly damaged wall and said, "There there...doesn't that look better?" We say the right words in public and in private hold beliefs that limit others. It's ironic that on May 17th (possibly), that the very issue that I raised over a
year ago will be something actually legal in Massachusetts; that will be the beginning of legal battles in California and in other states. But even when marriage becomes legal for me, I will still have to contend with the prejudice that is behind the words on paper or in person. I don't ever want to be around people as friends who feel that it's okay for me to be denied something that they themselves are privy to, especially if the reasoning behind this feeling/belief is religious dogma; antiquated and unchallenged values of a world that does not exist anymore."