Saturday, November 14, 2009

Ugg...NaBloPoMo may drive me mad

I signed up for this thing and now I am not so sure. I might throw in the towel early I know there are others who haven't made it this long but still. I have had some pretty lame-assed posts just to say I posted something today.

Right now I got nothing, my head is foggy with lots of numbers and town names swimming around as Dawn has me compiling data from 6 elections between 1995 and a week and a half ago that dealt with our civil rights as lesbians. I have tried to forget the one in 2000 where my partner at the time and I were talking to our neighbor and our landlord on the eve of the election and how we hoped that since we lived there they would support us and vote Yes on Question 6, which read;
Do you favor ratifying the action of the 119th Legislature whereby it passed an act extending to all citizens regardless of their sexual orientation the same basic rights to protection against discrimination now guaranteed to citizens on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodation and credit and where the act expressly states that nothing in the act confers legislative approval of, or special rights to, any person or group of persons?
They said, but I thought it was already the law and we explained this was to ratify and put the law into effect. The nodded said okay and we all went our ways into our apartments. Well the next morning we got up, went and cast our ballots then went to work. While working we had been asking customers how things were going with results and knew we had lost before the end of the shift. We arrived home after closing the restaurant fairly late and found an eviction notice on our door. This was 2000 and we were legally thrown out of our home for being gay and for trying to educate our landlord. We had no place to go, we ended up breaking up. I moved in with some friends and she moved back to Kentucky.

The next election was not until 2005 when we again voted on basic civil protections. Question 1 read;
Do you want to reject the new law that would protect people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, public accommodations and credit based on their sexual orientation?
Miracle of miracles THIS was our year the No vote prevailed and we were a step closer to being, full class human beings. Just 10 days ago we were reminded again that 53% of the voters who cast ballots in this off year election don't quite think we are there yet.

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