Prop 8 Portrait: My reader Jeff.

One of the best things about doing this blog is the interaction with my readers.  All your comments and emails are so meaning, helpful, appreciated, and taken into consideration.  So many of you leave the most astoundingly funny and insightful comments and for that, I'm forever grateful.  One such reader is Jeff in NY.  He has left comments which have had me doubled over from laughing so hard.  We've exchanged emails and those are just as entertaining and wonderful.  I asked if he'd be interested in participating in my Prop 8 series and he was gracious enough to say yes.

Hello handsome!  This is Jeff and you can read his thoughts on gay marriage and Prop 8 passing in the second part of this posting.

I am a native Angeleno now living in New York . I have a boyfriend of 4 years. I was so hurt as well as embarrassed about the Prop 8 issue. My boyfriend and I both come from strict fundamentalist Christian backgrounds and have had quite enough of being marginalized by a religion that not only tolerates, but promotes hates unlike the God who's name they use in vain. My boyfriend went as far as to leave the church he grew up and came out to his parents many years ago and told them that the “God” they serve certainly was not the same “God” he knew. In the final analysis more people have been murdered in the name of God over the ages than for any other reason and the hate continues. The true debauchery that the fundamentalist are so scared of actually resides just beneath the surface of their own personal identity being wrapped up in the “cultist” beliefs of exclusion.  It is a “faith,” a term I use loosely, that is based on fear and hated shrouded in the cloak of “family values”.  If there ever was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the fundamentalist fit the bill.  Their proclaimed  “family values” have been the actual culprit that is at the heart of the disintegration of families and Prop 8’s failure is a prime example. One of the biggest fundamentalist movements that pressed for the codification of hatred and bigotry within the law was the Mormon Church.  Many of the men have multiple wives and when it is all said and done, all I want is the right to have “one” husband.  After this fight is won, or even concurrently, how about we stop treating HIV patients like they are pariahs with societal imposed shame and secrecy on their condition and start treating them with the same compassion that we do breast cancer patients.

Thanks Jeff for participating in this series!

Portrait of Jeff done with ink on 9" x 12" Hot pressed watercolor paper in one hour.

Comments

[Vern]

Heard on the news last night that we have a local politician trying to pass a bill to legalize same sex marriage to improve the civil union bill that Dean tried to get through years ago. Poor guy received a death threat and the cops are "looking in to it". One step forward, one step back. The good news is that they say Vermont will likely pass the bill. Yeah!!

PS-ALL of your friends are so pretty! I bet your Pool parties are amazing!

[Cynthia]

All your friends are very handsome, but they are also very eloquent. I love this series you're doing. Almost as much as your Real Housewives drawings... okay, I love this series more because your friends are so smart and thoughtful and eloquent and real human beings.
Unlike the housewives.
:-)

[Jeff]

Thank you Gilmore for making me look so young!!

[Terry]

Hey there, this is Jeff's partner. Don't pay in attention to him, he is even more handsome in person! Thanks so much for your website and this series. TL

[Wyo_girl]

I love this series. It is so important to put (fabulous) human faces on Prop 8. I am separating from my husband, who has grown ever more conservative in the Baptist church. My best friend of 10 years just came out a year ago and she has never been happier. My soon to be ex says, "Hate the sin, love the sinner." Since when is granting a whole group of people civil rights a sin? It's interesting that ever since he went back to this church, he now uses the word "gay" as a synonym for stupid or as an insult. If this is what is preached in his church, no thanks. I am not divorcing him for intolerance, but it is a strong motivation. I am bisexual, which he equated as a phase. Not a phase, I assure you.

That's enough ranting. But this series is so moving. I've sent it all over the Google to so many of my friends. I'm so angry that this kind of intolerance exists today. My grandmother is 89 years old. She remembers segregation. She said, "Why don't we let them get married? It's not like gay people haven't just lived together." She suggested Wyoming legalize gay marriage and give Brokeback themed romantic cowboy weddings. "Just like Elvis in Las Vegas!" she said.

[Minnie]

I love this series, but I'd love it even more if some women were included as part of it. How has the lesbian community been affected by Prop 8?