New York Loves Love

Marriage Equality legislation passed the New York legislature last night - and Governor Cuomo signed the bill with a flourish shortly before midnight. Bam. We have a new law.

There's no question for me that this is cause for celebration. There was an entire group of people who were not allowed to make the same legal commitment to each other that other New Yorkers can because of their sexual orientation. That's discrimination. And it's so ironic that while the gay population is desperately fighting for the right to make those vows, the straight population is divorcing in record numbers.

I predict good things for the economy (weddings are BIG business!), a lot of VERY happy people and, naturally, a lot of challenges to the new law.

But what struck me most was the contrast between two Republicans. One grandstanded, speechified and insisted on changes to the bill that ensured religious protections. He went so far as to ask Twitter readers which way he should vote. The answer was an overwhelming "yes!" After getting the changes he wanted, his vote was "No."

It was a second, quiet, more contemplative Republican who has always been a supporter of civil unions, but couldn't support gay marriage who found himself in the pivotal role. At the eleventh hour, he said that with the changes in place, he couldn't in good conscience vote against equal marriage rights. And his vote, no doubt one that will anger some voters, made the difference.

Hats off to that rarest of animals - a legislator who votes his conscience, not what will get him re-elected. May he serve for as long as he wishes and may his colleagues learn something from him.

Stephan and Patrick Are Getting Married

Stephan Hengst and Patrick Decker are in love and they're committed to each other, but they're not allowed to get married in New York. Lots of gay couples are in the same boat. Some of them go to other states to get married because New York, ironically, recognizes same sex marriages from other states but still doesn't allow it within its borders.

They promised each other they wouldn't get married until it was legal in New York and it looked like it might happen this year. Then the steering wheel fell off the Senate and legislators spent the month of June staring at each other from opposite sides of the road. Marriage equality became a political hot potato: "I'll give you this if you'll give me that." So despite the fact that the governor says he's in favor of legalizing gay marriage, despite the fact that the Assembly has twice voted for marriage equality, it's still illegal. Which should give Senators pause, as the gay voting block is a very active and well funded one and trust me, Senators, they're angry.

Stephan and Patrick went to dinner at a local restaurant and the conversation somehow came around to I Do I Amsterdam. It's a contest sponsored by the city of Amsterdam - yes, THAT Amsterdam - to show support for equal marriage rights in New York. Why are they getting involved? Henry Hudson, a fine Dutch boy, sailed up the Hudson River for the first time 400 years ago and New York's making a big hullabaloo about it this year. So Amsterdam thought it might be appropriate to nudge the grandkids and remind them that being tolerant doesn't bring on the end of civilization. Amsterdam's still there.

So the contest is this: five couples who meet the incredibly strict criteria will be invited to be married on a wedding barge on a canal in Amstersdam on August first. Four of those couples live in Holland. The fifth couple is Stephan and Patrick.

The rules were that one partner had to be Dutch and the other had to be a New Yorker. And, of course, they had to be gay. Stephan was born in Holland, though he's live in the US all of his life. Patrick was born in New York. Patrick said their friends laughed when they heard they'd won.

"Who else could win? Who?"

So they're pulling together everything necessary for a whirlwind, last minute European trip and they're getting married on August first. The ceremony will be streamed live on the Internet so their friends in the US can see it.

Why did they change their minds about waiting for it to be legal in New York? Stephan says he sees this as an opportunity to bring the issue back to the public's attention and show it for what it is; not an attempt to undermine marriage, but an effort to give an entire segment of the population the same rights as the rest. Marriage offers benefits that are far different from civil unions, including health benefits, the right to file taxes jointly, an unquestioned right to be involved in legal decisions regarding your spouse. Rules regarding gay marriage right now are a hodge podge...in one state you can do this, in another you can't. In one state your civil union is considered a marriage, in another it means nothing.

Stephan and Patrick are sweet guys. They love each other. They're going to make it a legal commitment. They'll be married when they come home from Europe. And if New York ever makes it legal, they say they'll renew their vows in a state that finally welcomes them.





Hear the story on Northeast Public Radio

Accepting What Is - Being Peace

I just finished a book I highly recommend: At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey From War to Peace. The author is American Buddhist monk and Vietnam vet Claude AnShin Thomas.

I met AnShin more than a year ago. He was speaking at a conference in NYC and I went down to interview him. He is a mendicant monk, meaning he travels, lives on offering's he's given, and accepts no payment for work he does.

He has walked across the United States. He has walked across the scenes of war and war crimes all over Europe and done services at cemeteries, at former prison camps, at former death camps.

We hit it off, this thoughtful man and I. Perhaps it was because I knew enough from a weekend Buddhist retreat to make him comfortable that I understood the basics of what he is doing and why. Or perhaps it was just a case of finding each other sympatico. After a long chat about his workshops with veterans and their families, I found myself telling him about my idea for the Everyday People Project. His enthusiasm for it was surprising and sincere.

AnShin has the look of a Buddhist monk, but there is a sense of coiled energy under careful control that doesn't fit the "still waters" stereotype Hollywood sells. His own story is one of learning to embrace life's suffering, of accepting that pain as a path to finding peace with it and letting it go.

After all this time, and even after speaking with him to help publicize scholarships available for his workshops at the Omega Institute this year, I still hadn't read his book. But I opened it this week and ended up reading for an hour or more as I drank my coffee in the morning.

I like AnShin even better now.

At Hell's Gate is a powerful story, simply told, of one man's attempts to transform his life while discovering who he is and learning to accept what he finds.

AnShin doesn't preach, he doesn't try to get anyone to embrace Buddhism, spirituality or even discuss the politics of war. What he does talk about are the roots of violence, and how each of us must accept the fact that war begins within us. Each of us, he points out, has our own personal Vietnam.

I've been confronted with the anger and fear that people I care about, smart people, display over issues that, to me, seem about nothing more than basic human rights. The right to marry. The right to have access to health care. The right to decent working conditions. And my reaction has been anger, too. Anger at what I consider a Darwinian view of humanity, anger at the conviction that everything on this planet was put here to serve a small, superior group of humans. Anger at the increasingly strident and nasty tone of the debates, both in my own life and on a national level.
I react to anger with hopelessness.

AnShin offers techniques to help deal with anger, with fear and with the emotional scars of violence. He doesn't suggest you chant it away or smoke it out with sandalwood incense. He urges you to breathe - to notice the anger, watch it gather strength, then, observed but unexpressed, watch it dissipate. Note where it comes from. Act on it only from a place of compassion and connection...not a place of superiority. It is a mighty workout - and one that could change the world if we each participated. AnShin writes that we cannot wait for the rest of the world to join in - all we can do is change ourselves.

At Hell's Gate ends with one of the most powerful paragraphs I've ever read - a paragraph urging each of us to find and accept the roots of suffering in our lives, understand them, and embrace life as it is, not as we wish it was or wish it might be.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIBrDWT8lkw