Gay Marriage Fight: Proposition 8 Trial Pauses, But Not For Ruling

This is NOT the pause that refreshes.

We'll be in limbo for a while.

The judge in this case isn't particularly known as a friend of the GLBT cause. The following passage is taken directly from my one (and thus far, only) comment to the "Huffington Post" site regarding the yet-to-be determined trial against implementation of Proposition 8, California's restrictive law prohibiting same-sex marriage.

Sidelight: interesting that the most frequent daily coverage of the trial, appearing first on Yahoo, was reportage from the Baptist Press organization. If they're watching that closely, they've got to be nervous.




I'm surprised the plaintiffs' attorneys haven't raised the key issue, which I believe will be pivotal: under the California state constitution, two-thirds of the voters must approve any amendment, which Prop 8 was. However, Prop 8 "won" only 52 percent of the vote. Anyone can do the math: 52% is clearly, NOT the 66+% required for passage.

The present implementation of Proposition 8 is demonstrably unconstitutional on those grounds.

The plaintiffs' attorneys have presented eye-opening testimony about the oppression of gay and lesbian couples, the bias and ignorance of Proposition 8's creators, the damage done to gay/lesbian citizens (including the "conversion-therapy-by-genital-electrodes" torture of one young man).

I believe that, with their eyes opened by such evidence, the voters will be better informed when another ballot measure overturns Prop 8 - IF the compelling issue of its unconstitutionality isn't raised on appeal.

End note: ironically, "Marriage Equality," which would like Prop. 8 overturned, doesn't want to move toward another public ballot referendum until 2012. What are they waiting for? And what, I wonder, are they doing with the money they keep soliciting for support of the "crucial work?"

"Out of Control" - and Other Unpleasant Matters

This was posted to the Twinloss group this past December, four days before "Christmas Morning 12/25/2009 - 'Sacrament' and other late night thoughts."


Forgive the formality of this post. I know that when I'm really worried, I tend toward the formalistic.

It's going to be a long post, too.

I'll begin with the song I'm listening to: "Out of Control" by Oingo Boingo:

"Everyone says
Sooner or later you'll reach the end
Of the line
When things get rough
Some think it's easy to jump the ship . . .
You decide."

Now, the reason WHY I'm listening to it:

Yesterday I was chatting via YaHell Mess to a twin I met here.

We'd chatted previously, and the rapport is good.

I'd had a weird week, kicked off by a midnight phone call from the SCI (spinal cord injury) center where I'd interned before going to the UK for four years. (They knew I was back in town - I'd visited there the day before to catch up with old friends) Brian (the other half) woke me. (I can sleep very deeply)

A young man of 22 had lost his brother (not a twin) in a car wreck, and was now awake, hysterical with grief, and almost suicidal. Since his circumstances close paralleled mine, they'd called me.

I won't go into details, but the young man is doing better this week.

I chatted with the Twinloss twin about this: the feelings that I'd thought I'd thoroughly worked through are still there. They're muted, but still extant.

And then the Twinloss twin told me that he knew someone (I don't know if it was from this group) who was currently right on the edge of suicide.

With all of this background in mind, I'd like to share this URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DSIp7zyXO0&feature=PlayList&p=6DCC19ABCE\
39F0C6&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=9

I've also posted "Out of Control" in the Links here.

This is a dangerous time of year for some of us. I know that with the anniversary of Marcus's death coming a bit after Ancestor Night (Hallowe'en to most) and a month before the Solstice, with Yule five days later, the holidays can be really difficult.

So I'd like to say: If the thought of killing yourself is crossing your mind, don't invite it to pull up a chair and sit down and start talking in your head. Show it to the door and make sure it leaves.

I've been in that particular bad place, and it is not fun. It's dark, cold, bleak, confined, and despairing - like a grave.

I mean it when I say I love each and every one of you, even if we've never met, chatted, nor exchanged posts. We share something special, and we support each other through the rough patches, and celebrate good things when those happen.

So if anyone is thinking of suicide, please . . . I need you. Don't do anything so selfish. Suicide, a friend of mine advised me, is the ultimate tantrum. It's done out of anger, not depression.

So if you can't listen to the song, here are the lyrics:

Everyone says sooner or later you'll reach the end of the line
When things get rough some think it's easy to jump the ship . . .
You decide

I say--don't throw it away
There's about a million reasons why
Though you've heard them all before
And you're getting very tired
Lay your head on my lap and I'll sing you this lullaby

CHORUS

Don't you know
That everyone around you
Has felt the pain you feel today
You're out of control yeah--and you want someone to tell you
When you wake up in the morning it'll only be a dream
You're out of control . . .

There's a cloud--rollin' overhead and it seems to rain on no one else
There's a black sun--casting a black shadow,
and I know you feel so all alone
You're out of control--and you want the world to love you
Or maybe you just want a chance to let them know
That you live and breathe and suffer
And your back is in the corner and you've got nowhere to go

Nothin' for nothin'--everything's right at your fingertips--for a price
Who ever said that life on this planet would ever be paradise
I say--don't throw it away, you've got too many things to say
If you throw away your life, if you throw away your life . . .
The world will never be the same

CHORUS
You're out of control--and you move without direction
And people look right through your soul
You're out of control--and you want someone to tell you
When you wake up in the morning it'll only be a dream
And I wish that I could tell you, it'll only be a dream

So there it is.

In closing (he said, back to formal mode), without knowing it, every person here has gotten me through some really bad times -- usually without even knowing. And I'm greedy: I need ALL of you to be here.

So don't think about checking out early.

And if you do think about it, here's some good advice from my late Gran: go bake two loaves of bread (it keeps the hands occupied with something positive, smells fantastic while it's baking, and forces you to wait two hours for the loaves to rise twice).

Much love to all in the group,

Peace out.

Todd, twin to Marcus.

"Twinless Twin - " a letter to 'Digger'

The following is taken from a post I wrote on a "Twinloss" group. "Digger" had written an amazing post about his sense of loss, not only of his brother, but (for a time) of his identity and sense of self.

Digger:

G'day to you whenever you read this, mate. (like the attempt at 'Strine?')

This post is going to be a long one, I can tell. It's past midnight, which is my best time for meditation and writing.

I read your post last week, and it's been in my head ever since. What you wrote hit me deep, and certain phrases of yours (quoted herein) sum up my feelings so exactly that I'd swear you'd been wandering about in my head.

What you wrote hits home for me in many ways. I'd never appreciated the conundrum ("who am I? what am I?") for what it was. "Marcus and me" had been so much one entity that I felt for a long time as though I was only half of what had been an entire being.

Who am I? I was Todd, Marcus's twin brother. He was the older brother (by 12 minutes), a bit taller, quicker, braver than me (my champion when we were young). He was very much the extrovert, quick-tongued and articulate; I stammered. When I was teased, he defended me and helped me with speech therapy, coaching me, encouraging me, cheering me on. "He was my king and I was his army" (well-put)

We slept together in the same bed until about age 11, when we began growing too large for one bed. So the single bed became two twin beds (ain't that ironic?) - and for months, I had night terrors. I'd wake up from moaning, shaking and sweaty - and he'd heard me and gotten into my bed to hold me so I wouldn't be scared when I woke up. I woke up more than once that way, with him smoothing the hair off my brow, and murmuring, "It's okay, I'm here. Love ya, bro." He was "my ever-present rock."

"As he sailed into the unknown, my identity went right along with him." We rarely sailed (usually surfed), but I do have memories of the two of us stripped to our swim suits, sprawled across the bow of a friend's boat, coming into Newport Harbor at sunset one summer, with Handel blasting from the boat's speakers.

The circumstances of his death altered all of that. "When you lose your sun, our world goes black."

"Those twins" had become "just me" - and I'd always known that he would survive me, until the rug was pulled out from under our reality.

Coupled with that, the spinal cord injury, the rehabilitation; the altered life of the brave new world of wheelchair life. Dead from the waist down - again, only half of what I'd been. Part of my memory was impaired, and when I could finally speak after months of aphasia, I was stammering again. "Lost, with no real purpose or direction."

I didn't doubt my twinship, but now I'd become not only a singleton, but an only child (and an "only surviving son," which meant I was no longer elible for military service; that, the paraplegia, and being gay - a trifecta).

I was going to be alone for the rest of my life (I thought at the time), and withdrew from the changed world. I was severely agoraphobic for a year - virtually mute, and a virtual hermit.

I ventured into cyber-space cautiously. In chatrooms, while others were using microphones, I always typed. I'd think carefully before writing, and sometimes found an odd spin or two on what someone else had said. I discovered that some thought me witty -- quick-witted, if not quick-tongued. I began to form friendships with people I'd never met, people all around the world who accepted me exactly as I was -- just as myself, Todd.

Between this group and a poetry group, I discovered that the feelings of loss and sorrow were still with me, so I wrote it all down -- put down on paper all the hurt, the confusion, the feelings of abandonment and emptiness. I wrote poems to, and about, Marcus. Some of them, dated "11/16/97" were written on the anniversary of his death; others were written on his/our birthday or on Ancestor Night (Samhain/Hallowe'en), when we remember the dead.

As time went on, I began to expand my focus. I'd been so busily involved with my feelings, that I'd almost excluded others from the picture. How my Mum and the Da kept soldiering on, with one son dead and the other crippled (so I thought), is miraculous to me -- but then I've always known that I'd been blessed not only with the world's best bro, but with the world's best parentos, as well.

So I reached out and researched "twins," and "surviving twins," and one day came across the phrase "twinless twins" and "twinloss," which struck me to the heart. I wrote to someone on the "Twinless Twins International" site, and "Riv" pointed me here.

I found this group, and began reading postings from others. I mustered up my courage and introduced myself to the group.

And the group embraced me. Everyone here supported me and lifted me up and out of "myself." They lifted me up out of the cold, black, silent place I'd found myself in.

They didn't "save my life" (although on more than one occasion, suicide had not only crossed my mind, it had pulled up a chair and begun talking). They helped me express here what I couldn't yet tell the parentos nor the therapists. They gave me focus. They gave me love. They told me that everything was going to be all right. At the time, I doubted that, but I now know it's the absolute truth.

Things are not only going to be all right, they're going to be amazing.

I've come through to the other side, and I know who I am and whereI fit in.

I'm Todd, twin to Marcus, surfer, poet, writer, son, other half of Brian, cat-Mom to Miranda, student, scholar, wit, gentleman, clown, wheelchair wiz, gay activist, Wiccan, wounded healer, and member of the Tribe.

It's been twelve years and a bit since Marcus was killed, and I've even managed to forgive the drunk driver who took him from me. In the Jewish tradition, at 13, one is a man (or woman). I think I'm on my way to becoming an adult (at 32), with Marcus's voice still ringing in my ears: "We insist on being happy . . . it's work, but it's sooooooooooo worth it!"

May all here and yours be happy, and Blessed Be.

(or, as I usually sign out in chatrooms)

Peace out.

Todd, twin to Marcus