You don’t know what they’ll do

A little over 10 years ago I got married to my husband. We’d been a couple for 3 years at that point and were domestic partners for insurance reasons. We went to the Box Store to get our documents notarized. It felt a little anti-climactic so we decided, hey – let’s get married. At that time marriage wasn’t yet legal for us in California so it was going to be just the ceremony. I have a friend with a cool house in Malibu — and she’d said we could hold our ceremony there. By the time we got the ball rolling marriage was legal for us in California. So, oh shit! We were married for real. Married for real in California and the handful of states that recognized our marriage. When I’d go home to Florida we weren’t married. If I’d been injured or hospitalized, my husband wasn’t my husband, he wasn’t family, he would have no legal rights to make decisions or even see me in the hospital.

Then in 2014 marriage became legal in the whole of the US for us. It was kind of amazing to watch my husband remove his “2nd Class Citizen” sticker from his car’s bumper. Like, when do you get to check something off your list of causes worth fighting for? Imagine if you could tick the box next to “Climate Change,” solved.

Supposedly, the conservatives, the Republicans say that my marriage won’t be invalidated. Supposedly access to abortion won’t be made illegal. Supposedly. But you don’t know what they’ll do. No one knows what they’ll do. My husband will come home tonight and we’ll still be married. For now. For now my right to be married — and all the legal protections that affords — are safe. But until the court changes, until the Republicans drop their immoral and irrational war against women, gays, minorities, the elderly, Muslims, people with chronic illnesses, immigrants, fill in the blank “others” — until that happens, I will live in a state of uncertainty and fear. And so will everyone else on this list. And so will you, most likely.

Every day you will wake up knowing you don’t know what they’ll do — next.

I don’t resent anyone for voting for a republican. I really don’t. It’s fine — you have your right to vote however you wish to. I resent those who can vote but don’t. Those who can register to vote but don’t because they don’t want jury duty or because they aren’t interested in politics. I resent those who don’t take 15 minutes to register, fifteen minutes to research the candidates and ballot issues in their state or district, 15 minutes to get a mail-in ballot if you know you can’t get to the polls. Yeah, sure, voting should be easy. It should be mandatory frankly — but it isn’t and excuses about why you didn’t vote won’t do me any good when I go back to being married in some states and not in others. They won’t do the young woman who isn’t ready to be a parent any good. They won’t do you any good when your rights are stripped away, either.