Déjà vu All Over Again

Leave it to a bunch of queens to bring scented candles to a rally.

There was a modest but sincere gathering on the steps of the state capitol earlier this evening in anticipation of tomorrow’s vote on the Marriage Equality bill in the ever-dysfunctional New York State Senate. After last week’s vote in Maine I am resigned to another defeat here in my home state, but that didn’t stop me from showing up to raise a flame of hope into the night sky, nor will it keep me from the senate gallery tomorrow to witness the vote. My ever-vigilant friend Beth showed up, too, and as she sniffed at her strawberry scented votive said, “Well, here we are again.” And I guess we’ll be here again and again until they pass this thing or until the hateful bigots just, well, die off and leave the world to the people who think there are a whole lot more important things to worry about.

At the rally I ran into another friend who is in the final stages of gender-reassignment therapy (M-to-F.) She told me passage of the bill was especially important to her now because she’s engaged to a “really nice girl” and they hope to get married. But, after saying that “it doesn’t really matter in her case,” she went on to explain that in spite of the fact that she will legally be re-classified as female after the surgery, since the Catholic church doesn’t recognize gender reassignment, she can still get married (under her boy name) in a church ceremony. So does that mean the state will have to recognize her marriage? Even though the state will consider her a girl? Who will then be married to another girl?

And if that doesn’t illustrate as clearly as anything possibly could how completely ridiculous this whole marriage brouhaha is, I don’t know what does.