Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
An excellent point re: Prop 8
Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California?and she won't be paying the state a dime.
Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a
second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate?
Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here
because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not
allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other
citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my
state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be
wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights,
sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the
history books.
Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I
can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping
instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am
sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that
she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few
of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this
year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box
on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you
are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and
hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have
to pay their taxes either.
Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.
Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the
revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to
find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.
?Really?
When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision
someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then
clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening
commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we
learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful
worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is
gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you
do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their
children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will
never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working
side by side with all the citizens of California?
I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask
you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never
legislate that away.
I know when I grew up gay was a bad word. Homo, lezzie, faggot, ***.
Ignorance and fear ruled the day. There were so many "thems" back then.
The blacks, the poor ... you know, "them". Then there was the
immigrants. "Them.? Now the them is me.
I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one, one of the thems
made it to the top. Obama has been elected president. This crazy
fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country
of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no "them".
We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to
yourself. That "judge not, lest ye yourself be judged" are truthful
words and not Christian rhetoric.
Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust
themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get
back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not
going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn,
Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our
home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will
not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that
simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.
Come to think of it, I should get a federal tax break too...
Re: An excellent point re: Prop 8