One side of our family, mine, is almost entirely Catholic. The other side, Ami’s, is mostly Mormon. I’m not going to identify the relative who sent the note because much as this card hurt us both, it came from someone whom we both want to continue to have in our lives. And while it was one person who expressed the thought, it could have come from a number of our family members from both sides. We will call the writer Chris.

The front of the card said, “Thinking of You,” and the envelope was addressed to both of us. It was from one of the relatives we had visited on our trip. Inside there was an affirmation that we were always welcome in Chris’s house. Then it said, “I don’t think of your relationship as a marriage! nor do I like how you’re living it!” That first exclamation point was obviously inserted as an afterthought. It was signed “Love, Chris.”

To say that the card hurt us is an extraordinary understatement. Even days later, this card makes me cry.

When we visited, Chris had made no indication that our family was anything but a family, and seemed to very much welcome Frances. There were gifts for her, and at Chris’s request, we agreed to send a portrait of Frances to go with the other family photos Chris had on display. Everyone got hugs on the way out the door.

So what happened between the visit and our return home that made Chris write that card? I suspect guilt at having defied his or her church in some small way for having welcomed us. I suspect shame–maybe Sunday came around, and at church Chris worried that some other congregant might know and think poorly of Chris.

If I were to write a response, it would say something like this:

Dear Chris,

Thank you for welcoming us to your home. We very much enjoyed our visit and do plan to return.

However, we do have to say that we do not believe in the Catholic (Mormon) faith, nor do we like how the church is behaving. It has hurt us in both personal and practical ways, and has hurt many other people in our community as well.

Love,
Ruby

How have the queers hurt you, Chris? I can ennumerate the ways that the Catholic and Mormon churches have hurt us. 1. Proposition 8. 2. Question 1. We’re just trying to have our own private lives while your churches are pouring money into state ballot measures–money collected from congregations all over the world–in order to keep us in our closets, keep us ashamed.

That Chris wrote the note to both of us–her biological family member, with whom she might feel an entitlement to express her opinion, as well as to the in-law she doesn’t believe in–implies that s/he feels a moral latitude to correct gayness in the world at large.

The subtext of that note is this: you should feel ashamed of your relationship. God and I think so. You can come to my house, and we’ll all pretend to be a family, but you need to feel shame while you are in my home.

I will not be ashamed.

Chris, you are a member of my family. I will visit your home, and I will participate in your life to the extent you allow, as long as you never express or even imply your opinion on the subject to our daughter. I will keep quiet about your private correspondence to us, and I will not send my response, out of deference to your esteemed place in the family.

But I will never be ashamed or act ashamed of my family or whom I love. This is where the charade ends.

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Cheese Store of Silverlake

We left the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles in the afternoon, in the last hour of pink-sienna-magenta sky before twilight. I’d sampled amazing Italian olive oil at The Cheese Store of Silver Lake, taken a delightful turn through the ReForm School, and eaten the best gelato of my life (Market plum! Chocolate covered raisin! Salty chocolate!) at Pazzo Gelato.

We were sad to leave L.A., but I was even sadder that we were leaving for Fresno.

Fresno: n., The place that you struggled to leave physically many years ago, but still struggle to leave mentally. A place you don’t like to visit, because as soon as you’re back it seems like nothing ever got better at all.

You know what, though? I’m married in Fresno. And I have my family with me. So maybe there’s only one coffee shop (Thanks for the WiFi, guys!) downtown, only one or two gay bars (Glad to see you still bustling, Veni Vidi Vici.). Maybe it freezes at night and you can’t stand to be in the sun after 11 a.m. So what if the public transportation consists of your cousin’s tattered 10-speed and FART, the Fresno Area Rapid Transit?

Fresno has a PFLAG chapter, a Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in its 20th year, and a Gay Fresno website.

After a less-than-perfect morning with my mother, who is an active Mormon, Ruby reached out to the local PFLAG chapter. They were empathetic, and invited Mom to a meeting, even offering to meet with her beforehand to talk. But ultimately it would be up to her to contact them, and only then would she be able to access the literature she desperately needs to begin to understand us. The likelihood that she would do so seemed, well, slim. So the search continued.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but we found a group of Mormons for Marriage.  As in our marriage.

I cried. At first, when Ruby said, “There must be Mormons out there that support their gay family members,” I didn’t even respond. I thought, Ya, like there must be a Protestant Pope. I’m sure he has a website, too. But lo and behold: “Mormons for Marriage supports marriage equality for all, and stands in respectful opposition to California Proposition 8.” There’s even The Feminist Mormon Housewives, and the Family Fellowship–a volunteer service organization, “a diverse collection of Mormon families engaged in the cause of strengthening families with homosexual members.”

Ruby wrote an e-mail to Mormons for Marriage, and a woman named Laura immediately wrote back. She attached four documents written by Mormons who are LGBT or support LGBT people. She copied another woman who she thought may know some people in Fresno. They even mentioned a book: No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones.

Maybe Mom won’t read the book when we buy it for her. Maybe she will and even then still say things like, “I’m sad in my heart [about the fact that your aunts outed you to your grandmother], but your grandma and your aunts love you, no matter what choices you make.” Maybe my wife will still cry in the living room once Mom has left for work, feeling like she was that ill-advised “choice.”

But today, in sunny, oppressive Fresno where I once learned internalized homophobia, I found just a little hope for our family. Our whole family.

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You may notice that we’ve put a donate button on the sidebar to your right. If you choose to donate, you’ll be taken to a secure PayPal site. We wish we didn’t have to ask, but here we are–in Texas, far far from home. It was supposed to all work out–if barely–but things happen, sometimes all at once.

Every bit helps. For example:

• $50 will buy us a tank of gas.
• $30 buys us a night at an RV park.
• $20 buys us food for a day.

Or, to look at it another way, every dollar you donate will sponsor about 2 miles of travel. Every day we’ll post the names of the day’s sponsors. Sponsor us for five miles or a hundred–either way, we’re extremely grateful.

If our trip has given you hope, inspiration, or some other intangible benefit, and you want to donate, choose the gift or other amount you want to donate in the sidebar, click Donate, and you’ll be taken to the PayPal site.

If you are not able, or your donation dollars are spoken for, we still very much appreciate your participation in our journey, and hope that you will continue to join us.

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Now, I was a city kid, through and through. My idea of a good vacation included lots and lots of neon and zero mincemeat pie. We would visit covered bridges and Amish demonstration farms. Gift shops that sold butter churns and preserves. We would walk–yes walk–behind horse-and-buggy travelers in suspenders, straw hats, and button-down pastel shirts. I hated it. The one bright spot of the trip was going to Dutch Wonderland, an amusement park with the occasional nod to the surrounding culture.

Oh, and I liked hex signs. So much that the tattoo I got to memorialize my mother has the imagery of the double distelfink. Let’s hope in the afterlife or whatever, my mother has developed an appreciation for tattoos and a healthy sense of irony.

So it’s with this appreciation for the varied cultures of Pennsylvania that I report on their laws concerning LGBT people.

Pennsylvania

• There is no recognition of same-sex relationships in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania law states: “It is hereby declared to be the strong and longstanding public policy of this commonwealth that marriage shall be between one man and one woman. A marriage between person of the same sex which was entered into in another state or foreign jurisdiction, even if valid where entered into, shall be void in this commonwealth.”
• After five other people are consulted, a same-sex partner may make medical decisions on behalf of an incapacitated partner. The law recognizes a health care power of attorney–it must identify the person appointing the health care agent and declare that the agent has the power to make medical decisions on the person’s behalf.
• Single LGBT people in Pennsylvania may adopt. At least one case sets precedent for joint adoption, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has ruled that same-sex couples may adopt each other’s children.
• A person’s sex may be amended on his or her birth certificate.
• Hate crimes are enforced by federal law as of Wednesday, but only in the case that the state cannot or will not prosecute the crime as a hate crime. In the case of Pennsylvania, a 2002 amendment would have protected both sexual orientation and gender identity, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck those amendments down in 2007. So to the Feds it is, Penn.
• In Pennsylvania only state employees are protected against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
• Pennsylvania has no safe schools laws. [via HRC]

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