Real Life and Whatnot – Page 5

I Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Lives With Another Selfless Request For Support:

In less than three weeks the people of Maryland are going to vote on my civil rights. For anyone reading from another country, yes this happens all the time in the United States – seems like every year some religious group manages to put on the ballot a referendum question asking the citizens of one state or another to vote to limit the civil rights of gays and lesbians. For a country that touts the separation of church and state, it is astounding how much of our civil rights are control by religion.

But in 2012, the Maryland legislators voted to pass civil equality on the issue of marriage. Contrary to the scare tactics of the religious right and the republican party, Maryland’s marriage equality does not adversely affect any religious community. Yet their ads on TV continue to try to scare folks into believing their religious freedom is at stake. Continue reading I Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Lives With Another Selfless Request For Support:

Marriage Equality Maryland – Part II

Sunday I said this would be a two part post, but didn’t quite get to it last night. What started this was an article in the Washington Post Editorial section I read on Sunday.

Why I Oppose Gay Marriage.

The author claims to be a gay man, but is also a co-founder of the local Tea Party chapter. Among other things, he says he was for gay marriage before, but after reading up on the topic he found he could not defend his position and is opposed to it now. He concludes by saying he is all for equal rights for same sex couples, but wants them to be called something different. Continue reading Marriage Equality Maryland – Part II

Gay Marriage In Maryland – Part One

This is going to be a two part post. Today, in Part One, a more positive post. Tomorrow’s will deal with an editorial in the Washington Post by someone who made – in my opinion – some ridiculous arguments. But today will be non-confrontational.

Today there was a fund raiser for Equality Maryland – the lobbying group trying to get the referendum on the gay marriage bill to pass. Originally it was supposed to be a screening of a movie with some comments by the State Attorney General, Doug Gansler. Attorney General Gansler was one the first high profile elected official to support same sex marriage in Maryland. His office took the position that Maryland HAD to recognize same sex marriages from other states under the state constitution. That position was recently upheld by the courts in Maryland. By the time we arrived, the Governor, the Lt. Governor and the Congressman from that district all agreed to speak. The event raised a fair bit of money, though probably not enough given how much money is being spent by opponents. Continue reading Gay Marriage In Maryland – Part One

One Person Can Make A Difference For Gay Rights.

What prompted this post is a story about Chick-fil-A possibly ending it’s support of anti-gay marriage groups. According to this story, Chick-fil-A has agreed to stop funding anti-gay—which means anti-gay marriage as well since those are mostly one and the same—at least that is what Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno, who has been fighting the construction of a Chick-fil-A in Chicago, said today.

I hope he’s correct, the company didn’t formally agree with the Alderman’s announcement, but I’d say that after 10 months of fighting Chick-fil-A and all the success he’s had, he must feel pretty confident he won for him to now support the construction of the store.

Not that it matters, but I don’t think Alderman Moreno is gay. That he has taken this stand is all the more remarkable given he’s a newly elected official. Stands like his, that welcome the adversity that come with them, deserve to be acknowledged. For what little it’s worth – Thank you Joe Moreno!

In a similar story, what about Brendon Ayanbadejo? He’s a straight pro-football player for the Baltimore Ravens who public spoke out in favor of gay marriage in Maryland. This article in the NY Times talks about where his life views came from. For this man to do this to help people like my partner and I who don’t have the ‘bully pulpit’ that comes with celebrity status is astounding. If you read the articles you’ll see where he took a lot of crap, had people call him gay, ask him in the locker room when he’d be coming out as a gay, it would have been so easy for him to cave in and shut up, but he kept at it, even chiding President Obama for not supporting gay marriage. Thank you Brendon Ayanbadejo!

One person can make a difference.

Things I Learned . . . .

When little kids get sick, they produce an infinite amount snot.

I should not drive when I have my daughter in the car because I still have a potty mouth.

A potty mouth is very hard to stop cold-turkey.

Most people who drive are stupid – but I’m not ‘most people.’ 😉

What looks like a little bit of pink medicine for a baby can leave a huge stain when spit out.

It is never a good idea to take the first half of the day off on Friday.

Migraines ruin even the most beautiful of days.

Political reality is some bizarre dimension where only the candidates and their ‘surrogates’ live, but they seem to be allowed unlimited free passage to our world.

Sports teams are never the same in real life as they are ‘on paper.’

Being nice to people DOES pay you back over time.

And when a baby/child smiles at you, things never seem quite so bad as they did a moment ago.

What A Difference A Year Makes

In fifteen days my daughter turns 1 year old. A year ago, I couldn’t wait to meet her and hold her. Now I wonder where that year went. She’s all but walking, she’s animated and vocal, she’s happy and playful, in daycare and about to turn one.

Some milestones this past year – some good, some sad:

My parents celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

My niece(s) graduated college.

My first book was purchased by a publisher and is now out.

My second book was purchased by the publisher for a release date in early 2013

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, had surgery, chemo, radiation and is now cancer free.

We lost our dog, the first dog we got when Mike and I bought our first house.

We learned we don’t like derechos – not that we knew what they were until we lived through one.

We’ve watched her lay there, sleep through the night, sit up, roll around, stand up, get teeth, and start to show her personality. [We’re probably in trouble if what we see is a sign of things to come.]

We’ve been stay at home dads for a time, had a nanny and are now beginning the daycare/pre-school experience.

On her birthday, both sets of grandparents will be here to celebrate. The surrogate is coming with her aunt and cousin. It’s the first time the grandparents will meet the surrogate.

It’s hard to imagine another year with this much happening. Like I said, what a difference a year makes.

Marriage Equality In Maryland – Vote Yes In November to Question 6!

Yesterday I suggested that authors, like businesses, need to take a more measured approach when offering their opinions. A wise person who has been generous with his insight in the past, asked me, what good is the first amendment if we fail to exercise it by self censoring ourselves. He further said that if something was near and dear to my heart before I began published a book, I ought to continue to speak out for it after the book came out. – Thank you Podga.

That said I don’t know that I totally agree in that my online persona is not me in real life. In real life, using my true name, I can and do voice my opinions on things important to me – like the Gay Marriage fight in Maryland, where my partner and I are raising our 11 month old daughter. But one thing that I came to realize, while taking a side on the gay marriage debate might not be the best thing to do for Dan Caty and Chik-fil-A, it will have zero effect if I do it.

For those that don’t know, Maryland passed a bill in the spring to allow gay and lesbian couples to legally marry. In an odd quirk, the state recognizes gay marriages from other states, but won’t allow its citizens to marry in their own state. This came about when the Maryland Supreme Court refused to expand the definition of marriage to gay and lesbian couple, stating that ought to be something the legislator should do, but they found that state law required them to give full faith and credit to ALL out of state marriages. So in effect, every gay couple in Maryland could go to DC, get married and Maryland would recognize it the same as if the ceremony had been done in Maryland. Practically, Maryland already allows gay marriage, you just can’t have the ceremony performed in Maryland. How such tortured logic can come from the ‘highest’ court in the state is baffling.

The law that passed in the spring is, however, up for a referendum in Nov. The wording is somewhat different than in past referendums in other states on the gay marriage issue. In other referendums, the vote was to redefine marriage as only a man and a woman. Maryland’s referendum is much simpler. Do you want the gay marriage bill to remain a law – yes or no. A straight up referendum on the law enacted.

Some say this will help the law remain in effect because past battles a yes vote meant you were in favor of restricting marriage. I think that’s wishful thinking. If you’re counting on people not reading the question or being too stupid to understand it to win, that doesn’t say much about the strength of your position. Rather I think people are able to figure out – yes, means keep the law – no, means overturn it. Simple right?

Having cleared up all lingering confusion, if you’re reading this and you live in Maryland – VOTE YES ON QUESTION 6.

If you have family or friends in Maryland and you can exert any influence over said friend or relative, urge, cajole, shame, whatever it takes, to get them to VOTE YES ON QUESTION 6.

The vote is close, but current polls suggest the referendum will pass and the law will remain. I would dearly love for Maryland to become the first state to uphold the gay marriage law in a statewide referendum. Let’s make it happen!

Something New

A wise someone suggested I do a bit more posting to let readers get to know me a bit better. The same wise person also pointed out why my new story wasn’t going to get very far as I started it. Given that he was totally right about the story, I suspect I ought to give him credit for being wise and try my hand at doing more posting. So I’ll strive to it more often.

Our daughter started daycare today – I’m not sure who that was more traumatic for, her or us. If I say so myself, she looked adorable in her school outfit. From the comments we got from the staff, I think we might want to reconsider using cute outfits and go with boring basic clothes she can get all messy. We’re learning, slowly.

Writing wise, I’m sort of in a quandary; too many ideas/projects to work on and not enough time. Some, the urge to get out is greater than others, but all have their own issues.

Chosen of Honorus: is Due out early next year, though I may want to change the name. It might be too ‘weird’ to attract readers. The sequel – and this is going to a series of at least 4 books, maybe as many as 7 – is written in a very very rough form. I find rewriting to be almost as hard as writing from scratch. The problem is, sometimes it is better to blow it up than try to clean it up. The concept/idea is still good, but the writing isn’t nearly good enough. I find it hard because I’m constantly fighting the battle of clean up vs blow up. Often that makes things long and tedious.

Archangel: About a year ago, I wrote a short story for Gay Authors called Archangel. I said at the time I wanted to work on it and suddenly I have a muse – you know who you are – who has inspired me to work on this. Since the short story is out there, I won’t be giving away too much of the basic plot. The more detailed plot isn’t available so I won’t give that up. After four chapters, I need to go back and redo most of them. The plot is good—at least I think so—but the opening chapters need a bit more umph. So I’m working on Chapter 1 again.

AGG: This is the code name for a new book Anyta and I are working on. We are about 5 chapters into it, but I think there is something missing from the plot/story so we put this on the back burner for the time to see if we can’t figure out how to make it better.

Second Shot Sequel: I started this, but haven’t really gotten very far. I have the basic story out lined, but I trying to get to more projects before getting back to this. It might actually be the easiest to write if I got to it, I don’t know. But I’m up and down on this. I love the universe of characters, but I also want to create new ones.

Dlgen: I’ve done almost nothing with this, but I see this as 5 book story based on the characters of A Cold Rain something else I wrote for the GA Anthologies. That one would be a major project too. Not sure I can do that, Archangel and Chosen without going crazy.

Okay that’s it for now.