When forced to choose between her beloved church and her daughter, Linda Cooper chose to follow through with her commitment as parent- to unconditionally love and support her child. She was exiled from her lifelong congregation for supporting her detective daughter, Kat Cooper. She was given this ultimatum after Kat received media attention in her fight for equal partner rights for her wife.
Read an article about Linda Cooper here: LOVE over RELIGION
I woke up this morning with a feeling of anxiety in my stomach, it was a combination of cautious hopefulness and dread. I feel in a surreal state of being, this feeling spread to my chest and coated the underside of my ribs where it has stayed the entire day.
The political decision that the court will make tomorrow at 10am has put me in this state. I have sensation because of my having finally entered in to a political consciousness. As a young person I was so concerned with my own survival and then my own reprocessing and growth from that survival that it took me much effort to expand my true consciousness to politics.
It truly is surreal to realize that there are other humans, whom I and most others this ruling will affect will never meet, in a room I have never and likely never will see, that will decide the possibility of my fate. They will make a LEGAL RULING that will declare whether or not I am treated equally in my state. It is one of the most intense sensations I have felt in my life. It is more intense to me than the first passing of California marriage equality simply because I was too narcissistic and shameful about myself to feel it. Now I am out and proud and have participated in advocacy for marginalized people. I have seen how legislation changes culture and culture changes legislation. I have seen and touched the differences that laws make in the every day lives of people. Here is one that is affecting the path my life can take. Actually it is offering the possibility of a new path my life could take, a path that had been blocked to me. I had decided since a young age that I would live my life the way I wanted despite the laws that make strong suggestions in a certain direction. I reaffirmed this in myself when I finally came out as gay, that I would live my life to fit my inner being, not the outer expectations. But this is something that can affect the number of choices I have in that life. This will legally declare equality.
This will declare legal equality.
This will make legal equality LAW in my state.
This surreal sensation is multilayered. I am excited to be declared equal, so that no one in this state can tell me other wise, law is law. But there is challenge in being place side by side those that discriminated you. Being placed next to the ones that considered you, “less than,” and called you “different but equal.”
A great weight has been lifted and a great responsibility has been granted.
There is certain strength and power to being in the margins. In a significant way, that will be relinquished tomorrow at 10am. I know this ruling is not a magic fairy wand that will fix all wrongs, but it is a grand jete over the rainbow!
Peace, Love, And Equality to All!
CG
CARAS- Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities is dedicated to researching people who are considered participating in “alternative sex;” at this current time alternative sex refers to those in the BDSM communities, the LGBTQQI communities, polyamory, open relationships, and anyone who uses kink, fetish, and power dynamics, in their personal life and sexual life.
Because the genre of sex research is a young one and it was primarily focused on procreation trends, it therefore did not include the communities who were not having sex to bear children. This does not only include the communities I mentioned above, but also other minorities, the physically or mentally disabled, the elderly, and youth. These communities are just recently being researched. Why is researching these groups sex life so important? It is important because research that is published has a heavy effect on public opinions; historically research and medical opinions have shaped the mental health, medicine, and business fields, and shaped cultural opinions. These opinions, many time false or misquoted, continue pervasively to shape cultural perspectives that shape lives.
Here is a resource that is aiding in accurate information being published about some of us who have been neglected in research!
Go to C.A.R.A.S. here
The organization Exodus that has been performing therapy to reverse or undo homosexual attraction is closing its doors after almost 40 years!!
The president stated that he had homosexual feelings that have never left him and he realizes that it is not possible to change ones sexual orientation. This is a great example of the reasons a person should do thorough self examination when feeling so vehemently against one specific issue. Humans are very good at identifying the pieces of others that we dislike most in our selves and attempting to squelch it in others in order to avoid the pain of identifying it as a traits one holds in their self.
This organization has been abusing impressionable, self doubting people, causing irreparable damage to their sense of self and identity, possibly even taken lives because of their false teachings. Closing their door will never repair the damage they have done, but at the least it will not create more, and it will serve to show others, that being gay is not a choice, or a temporary state of mind or being, it is something that cannot and will not change not matter what type of shock or therapy is applied.
And if you feel so strongly that it can be reversed, maybe you should take a long hard look at yourself, you might find the source of your opposition within you.
The article from Human Rights Campaign here
Margins Of The Margins 