Justice Alito Quotes, from the audio released by the Supreme Court in the Prop. 8 case yesterday:

“The newness. . . same sex marriage is very new.”

You are asking this court to rule on “the effects of this institution that is newer than cell phones or the internet.”

Really, Justice Alito? I’ve been with my man for 30 years this coming November, married to him since 2008 during that brief window when it was legal in California.

How long you been married, Justice Alito?

I’ve had a cell phone since the early 90s. (Sounds like you were a late bloomer in that regard.) I’ve been on the internet almost that long.

What I don’t get is how my relationship, committed and then married, is in any way kin to a cell phone. Or the internet.

You must live in a bubble. A Catholic bubble. That’s too bad for you. I’m just sorry you made it to the Supreme Court. Your whiny, sanctimonious voice is a voice I could do without.

Hang on to your chin hairs for the next 2 days.  The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the Prop. 8 case in California and in the DOMA case.  Luke and I are one of the 18,000+ couples who married in California during the brief window when it was legal.  These cases mean everything to us and to our fellow gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who are either already married or want to get married.  As our accountant told us on Saturday - if DOMA is ruled unconstitutional then Luke and I will acquire the “marriage penalty” when we file our taxes but we will also be eligible for over 1100 other federal benefits that are now only offered to opposite sex married couples, foremost among them the right to inherit when a spouse passes away without paying an estate tax and the right to social security and other benefits.  But most importantly we will be granted the right to live as equal citizens in this country which is our birthright. 

Commerce is destroying the creativity of the world wide web, one website at a time.

Today is my sister Susan’s birthday. She is becoming a scuba diving diva! And don’t forget she was also a guest Blogger on this site - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - where she wrote about volunteering for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns in northwestern North Carolina.

Your book of poems arrived today and I sat down immediately and read them, then
read them again. I sobbed - from joy, from our connection, remembering how long
I’ve loved you - that would be the first time I sat in your class at TJC and you
guided me through a guided meditation and I became a deer running along a stream
in the thick woods - where I felt so safe after such a long time of traumatic
bio family drama and changing colleges in my attempt to please everyone but
myself. TJC was for me, at last.

I can still put myself directly into that guided meditation, your soothing voice
allowing me to drift from my ego and become that deer who eventually quit
running, paused and stretched out in the soft grass beside the stream and I, as
the deer, moved even deeper into meditation - far, far away from myself, the
room we were in, eventually even the vibration of your voice. I will never
forget that, Barbara, and I go there still before I write to calm down and let
the truth and rhythm of my feelings flood into me like the sounds of that stream
into the ears of me, the deer.

Luke and I recently moved and we are just a few blocks from a
Unitarian Church and on odd and even numbers, I can’t figure out the schedule,
the chimes ring the hour and yesterday, Sunday, for the first time the organ
chimes played “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling” and again I sobbed,
thinking of my own dead mother and of the movie “A Trip to Bountiful” with
Geraldine Page. For some reason I have to tell you that, Barbara. And tell you also that

You are loved.