1. Rainbow
Years ago I had a quaint dream, full of intensity, of which I remember virtually nothing except for crowds spilling into the streets, shouting “Rainbow! Rainbow!”
I thought of it today, taken by surprise as I walked into the gym under the television screens that I always say I hate. On every one something like the video on this page was playing live, only without the sound.
From kansascity.com
I still have my sign from the 1993 Gay Rights march, my late and ex husband identifying ourselves as “straight married suburban squares” promoting the acceptance of “domestic partnerships.” On account we figured that was all the country would see in our lifetimes. Leapfrogged right over that sucker, didn’t we?
Crying at weddings is traditional so I front-loaded a few sniffles there in front of the parallel pin stack leg press.
2. Old Beaux
I have alluded occasionally to my Nazi Ex. He was primed to become an ex on numerous counts, thirty-some years back, but finding out he had joined one of the country’s assorted white power groups was the last straw. He was one of the ones that the shooter in last week’s murder spree derided as “all talk,” but I have wondered glumly, off and on, what sort of damage he was doing with his above-average IQ and linguistic skills.
The news from Charleston made me go questing on Google again.
He got married last year. To a black lady.
I guess I have to call him my ex-Nazi ex now. I’ll never know when he got over it or what grace stole up on him, but it makes me wonder who the Charleston shooter would be in twenty years if he hadn’t been able to get his hands on that gun.
At least one person eventually walked away from insanity.
Sixteen Tons 
You made my day with this. So smart. Happy Friday to you, sled.
And to you. Now we have another landmark decision to use on our timeline (‘member?).
Yep, I do remember. And maybe it’s not the last one for our timelines.
There’s an age range when young men are blessed with a particular stupidity. It’s the age they become soldiers or rock musicians. The latest shooter is in that range. When I was, I followed my friends into a very mild form of the same insanity.
We all grew up in the racially-diverse East Bay in view of San Francisco and had known hippies all our lives and made little distinction between the races. But then the conservative swing coincident with Reagan’s first term hit and two of my friends, with me following slack-jawed, became tolerant of white intolerance and fascinated with Nazi regalia. We took a rebel stance against the prevailing liberalism; and we had guns, powerful ones. The guns were used against paper targets and standing trees but represented (in my imagination at least) traditional enemies (WWII Germans and Japanese). We played at forming our own militia against the coming apocalypse but I never envisioned zombies or the ZOG or the “mud races” as being at the other end of my sights. As I say, it was a very mild form of the insanity, and it passed easily (and completely) when I finally went back to school.
There have been a lot of lives destroyed lately by less mild and more psychopathic versions of the same insanity in young men who got a hold of the same guns. I always supported the 2nd Amdmt and wanted better mental health support and intervention rather than greater restriction. But by wondering where this latest shooter might end up if he hadn’t got one, which dovetails with my strong belief in personal redemption, you highlight the immense danger these people represent when in the grip of a condition that’s often temporary, just a stage in their development.
My brother seemed unenthused, and when I asked if he would follow up on this decision, only said “probably.” He lives in Louisiana, where as in certain other states sanity finds a sandy soil to take root in. My cousin’s daughter, on the other hand, got married as soon as the state of Washington allowed it. I’m happy about it, of course, and am already composing explanations in favor of polygamy. Well? Marriage is a contract between people who fully and in the spousal sense support one another. We know gender doesn’t affect that and the truth is, sometimes there are more than two.
One of the perplexes of this change is that people will now be able to marry in states that can still legally fire them for being gay. Which kind of cramps things, say if you want to insure your spouse through your workplace policy.
As for polygamy, I’m too much of an introvert — even one boyfriend on site is a little stressful to my need for isolation some days, though I’ve worked that out before and can again. But a contracted bond between three or more people who are competent and equal adults makes more sense than the old fashioned marriage which was pretty much one person owning another, at least in my book. Just think of the wedding planners and the fun they’d have.
Were you meant to have a video? Was it the two elderly gents in Dallas? Because that made me cry, too. With happiness for them. I’m over the moon with this decision – same as our one here done by popular vote on May 22nd. It seems the only ray of hope lately that the hellish handbasket might not have the whole world in it.
I loved those old fellas when I read their story. But if you click on the still pic it gets you to a page at the Kansas City Star where the best video of the cheering crowds available at the time of writing is embedded — I couldn’t immediately figure out how to include it directly in the post. I think it has that wonderful moment when the interns run out of the base of the Court building with copies of the decision.
Got it! I hadn’t seen the running people before, gave me goosebumps.
And here’s those old gents, and a few more couples in the mix who look sweetly old together.
Sweet story and yes, it’s fantastic about the Supreme Court decision in spite of fact that there are still kinks to work out. They will but everything takes time.
My life has also been a meandering path. At one point my then-husband took on a second wife and I, driven by pride and resentment, decided to stay with it. Of course the whole thing ended in disaster. My takeaway from it is that polygamy can work for us westerners but, like any marriage, it takes work and a lot of clarity going into it. Also, everyone involved better have kick ass communications skills because that arrangement in particular has a very strong undertow.
Genuine heterosexual polygamy between equal partners is probably pretty hard; a relationship in which everyone is sexually comfortable with everyone else (think Noel Coward’s “Design for Living”) seems like it would be more stable. There are enough bisexual people in the world that someone has probably made that one work, at least as long as the average modern marriage does.
Today (July 3) is the 10th anniversary of same-sex marriage being legally recognised in Spain. Nice to see you guys catching up… 😉
It’s been damned embarrassing all these years really. I mean we were poised to be the last holdout First World nation except for maybe Russia. Now if we could just get the railroads and highways repaired.