Posted on 09/12/2009 5:12:29 AM PDT by IbJensen
've decided to move out of the Sunshine State. It's a bit more chilly here than I had expected. Some may say good riddance, but I'm no longer willing to live in a place where I can't get married, can't adopt children and where there are no state laws to protect me from being fired because I'm gay.
And so my partner Keith and I have decided to sell the house, load up the dogs and head north, toward a decidedly warmer climate.
To those who visit here, Florida must seem somewhat schizophrenic. We sell ourselves as a great place to come and play, a multicultural paradise where you can be who you are, as long as you respect the rights and privileges or everyone else. Not so if you're gay and you decide to stay. You'll be greeted by a regressive system of laws more emblematic of a backwater state than one that now, because of its population, draws comparisons to California and New York.
Last year, as gay rights took front and center on the Florida ballot, through the Florida Marriage Amendment, or Proposition 2, religious groups, like the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, were able to collect more than 600,000 signatures and raise millions of dollars to defeat not only gay marriage, but its equivalent. In essence they pulled the rug out from under civil unions as well, whether they be homosexual or heterosexual.
Many of these voters took to the polls hoping to save kids and marriage. Yet states such as Connecticut that have gay marriage, allow gay adoption and have laws protecting gay men and women, seem to be doing just fine. In fact, according to the most recent figures for the National Center for Health Statistics, Connecticut has a divorce rate approximately 36 percent lower than does Florida. Connecticut also was able to place more than double the percentage of kids available for adoption into permanent homes.
Maybe that gay-tolerant state is, actually, more pro-marriage and pro-family than we are.
Christian beliefs
I grew up as a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I went to a Catholic high school in Fort Lauderdale. I still consider myself a Christian, at least in philosophy: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is an ethic shared in Judeo-Christianity that has at its core a call for tolerance and love. However, I am also cognizant that for most of the history of Christianity, the church and its many offspring often sided against the forces of compassion and used fear, threats and ignorance as their most powerful tools.
Cannot change orientation
Organized religion can be uplifting, community building, powerful and spiritual.
But, as with government, if left unchecked by its adherents, can also become misguided.
As long as my homosexuality is confined to the ``immoral'' by some, questions about my right to marry, adopt kids and be protected in the workplace will persist. I also have green eyes, by the way. They are as much a part of me as is my sexual orientation. My green eyes have as much to do with my morality as does my sexual orientation. I can cover them with contacts, but I cannot change them. They are inseparable from who I am, as homosexuality is inseparable from human history.
Keith and I are tired of visiting attorneys who tell us, right off the bat, ``There is no privileged communication between the two of you.'' In other words, if we were married, we could not be forced to testify against each other in a court of law. What we'd say in the privacy of our relationship would stay in the privacy of our relationship. We don't have that right in the state of Florida. In Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont we would. We could also be raising the family we want, all respected by the laws of our state, giving our children nothing less than the dignity that comes with having a seat at the table.
We have a right to sit at that table, along with everyone else, and we should have that right in Florida. To fight for that right is certainly the good fight. However, as the clock ticks, and my partner and I push through our 40s, we're no longer willing to wait to have the family we want.
And so, though I hate the cold, to warmer pastures we will go, certain to receive a warmer welcome, convinced that too much love and too much commitment are never a bad thing.
A little bit of good news for Florida!! PLEASE go to Connecticut. :-)
I feel sorry for those who attracted to this sickness. I don't hate them; I would rather see them become enlightened and and turn their backs on it.
add my 2cents- please , I beg, you, DO NOT come to VERMONT-
This gay stuff has damaged the reputations of the hardworking,salt of the earth people who desire nothing more than their own home fire and do NOT endorse gay this or gay that here in Vermont.
You won’t see them protesting against gays ‘cause people are too busy working and living good clean lives even thru the economic struggles that we have up here with high taxes.
Go to Belize or Honduras or Nicaragua
Pack a little fudge to take with you.
Florida has strict plant qurantine laws to insure the viability of agriculture.
Florida has anti Queer restrictions to limit the scourge of AIDS and to insure the health and well being of the people
Vermonters need to build a sort of ‘Berlin Wall’ around the state to keep the liberals out. While they’re at it they need to get rid of that Cheshire Cat and the Communists who represent them in the Senate.
I totally agree with you . Too many “flatlanders” up here running the show and too mucy flatlander opinion floating around.
Well, of course you have to know a lot of it comes directly from UVM
Even the docile gays must come out of the woodwork to populate the ‘gay pride’ parades. Otherwise, where do all these perverts come from?
30+ years ago they limited themselves to gathering in enclaves like Key West, Coconut Grove and other artsy-fartsy districts in the state.
*Yes* I read your homepage.
Cheers!
LOTS of eligible single young men there.
Cheers!
on 2nd thought it might be interesting if Vermont seceeded entirely.
Isle Royale Hotel, Devil's Island.
(I recommend the US buy this island and move the entire homosexual community and their agenda here for a life of free-swinging sexcapades.)
If you are gay, and you aren’t happy in Miami, you probably aren’t going to be happy anywhere, even with fashion accessory children posing as your “family”.
“And so my partner Keith and I have decided to sell the house, load up the dogs and head north, toward a decidedly warmer climate” What these people are trying to frame is that they have one partner, i.e. they are monogamous. The average gay has multiple partners in a given year.
Sorry Miss Dairy but thanks to continually voting in Socialist Sanders and Leaky Leahy, you good guys in VT are SCREWED!!!!!!!!
It has also been my experience, with the fewer than 10 homosexuals that I know well, that their sexual preferences are just that, preferences. They have made a choice to have sex with members of the same gender after having sex with members of the opposite sex. All of them were sexually active around 13 or 14 years of age, with members of the opposite sex.
Of course no one and no law is prohibiting you two from living together as man and wife in your own eyes. You just want the government to put a public moral imprimatur on your private lifestyle choice. Plus you are intolerant, since you seem to suggest that it is illegitimate for traditional religious believers to believe that homosexual activity is morally wrong. In a free society, people have every right to believe that, so get used to it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.