A Wedding Tale

This is why I’m a writer.

Last week, at the Beverly Hills Courthouse, my partner and I were waiting for our turn in the wedding chapel. We had fifteen minutes, so I went upstairs to the bathroom to see if I might could do something about my hair. I’ve been aiming for a disheveled but sexy Brad Pitt look, but it’s turned out to be much more Dr. Emilio Lizardo. Anyhow, I was coming back down on the elevator, and the old guy next to me said, “What are you here for?”

“Marriage,” I said.

“Oh,” he replied. “Congratulations. You one of them same-sex couples?”

“Yes,” I said. “My partner’s waiting for me downstairs.”

I waited for the recoil, but there wasn’t one. This guy was at least 60, and he was pretty rough, but he said, “In ten or fifteen years, people will look back at this, and it’ll be like black and white TV. It’ll all be in the past, and everyone will wonder what the fuss was about.” Then he patted me on the arm and smiled.

I said, “So, what are you here for?”

“Grand larceny.”

Hillary Clinton Has Won The Most Important Battle

I admit it. I’m disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not get the Democratic nomination. I’m not disappointed that Barack Obama did. I like Obama, and I will certainly vote for him in the fall. I suppose what bothers me is the role sexism played in this campaign and in Clinton’s loss.

We can argue about her focus, some of her remarks, and Bill Clinton’s poisonous influence on the whole process, but there is no arguing that sexism is alive and well and thriving in the media. Have a look at this disgusting and heartbreaking montage. This is 2008, and it’s still okay to call a woman a castrating bitch, or to make cracks about her inability to govern because of PMS.

What Hillary accomplished by sticking it out all the way to the end was to prove that women do not need to step aside to make it convenient and easy for the male competition. Because she was by far the toughest candidate in this race, she’s made the idea of a woman president seem normal and viable. For that and for many other things, I am grateful to Hillary Clinton.

From her concession speech today:

“You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States. To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all of the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.”

I believe Hillary’s campaign did us a great service by bringing out the worst in so many men, men in positions of power and sway. Chris Matthews in particular needs to be fired. He’s a troglodyte. But if Hillary’s campaign exposed an offensive anti-woman bias in the media, it brought out the best in other men. One of Clinton’s core constituencies was working-class men. Steelworkers, farmers, mechanics, the men I grew up with, men I never thought would vote for a woman, gave Clinton their votes in several key battleground states. They had no qualms about her strength or her ability. They had no trouble seeing this amazing woman as the best steward for our economy, as the person with the best plan for universal health care, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

This more than anything gives me hope for the future, and for a better world for my daughter.