OK, Now I'm Really Angry.

I met my friend Mark through blogging. We discovered each other's blogs as we both wrote mostly about our gay parented families. We never met in real life, but we had some very nice e-mail exchanges and discussions. What I liked about Mark and his family was that, just like with my family, the "gayness" of the family was never an issue. If you read through Mark's blog (and you should) you will find many exciting anecdotes that cover all areas of life (as well as phenomenal photos). Some are hilarious, some are thrilling and some heartbreaking. You would be forgiven if you forget this is a gay parented family. It's just two people who happen to be in love with each other and with their beautiful children who happen to be two guys. The gay aspect practically never comes up.

Until now. Thanks to DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), Fred, Mark's partner of twenty one years is going to be deported in September despite the fact that they have adopted together four children. This DOMA act was signed by Bill Clinton whose ideas about defending marriage include sticking his Weiner in the mouth of an intern.

To make it worse, the main force behind marriage discrimination for gay people are religious people who are hurting real people by trying to protect morality laws taken from a fictional ancient book. Because if there is a God, I am sure what he wants is to see four children to lose either one of their loving parents or the country they were born in and call home.

This post isn't very organic to write because I am so angry writing it.

We were lucky. We lived in the UK so there was no problem for gay people there, at least not by the time I moved there.

So we got to stay together. We later got married "properly" in Canada just before our son was born and we are now living in Winnipeg, Canada where people care about your sexual orientation about as much as they care about the colour of your eyes.

Like I said, we were very lucky.

After the move to Winnipeg I was a bit disappointed in at least one aspect. I was under the impression that Canada is close in prices to the US, but in practice it's significantly more expensive in many areas to the point that people will drive south for several hours to the border with the US for shopping.

Now that I read about Mark and Fred's deportation threat it puts things in perspective. I would rather pay more for my cellphone plan and television, but have full equal rights as a married gay parent without any small letters, ifs or buts. There really is no price for freedom. I appreciate and support those who decide to dig their feet in the ground and fight for equality rather than just go elsewhere, as I am really not sure I could do that.

A while ago in an Interview Barack Obama has been asked about gay marriage to which he replied "I'm still working on it."

Well, Mr. Obama. Pull your finger out and do something about it after nearly an entire term. This is outrageous discrimination and if the first minority president is not going to do anything about it, who will?

To quote Mark from the CNN article: 

"I will no longer ride in the back of the bus. I am tired of waiting for people to give me rights."

You could say that again. In fact, I suspect you might have to.

Give them hell, Mark!

Mickey

I finally get an excuse to steal-post great photos of adorable children from Mark's blog.