Election eve

I have been casting about for something to blog about, but really all I can think about is the election tomorrow!  I have a lot of guilt about not being more involved in it.  However, having volunteered to make political calls and pound the pavement in elections past, it has become abundantly clear that (#1) I am not good at those things and (#2) I hate trying to convince strangers of anything.  What I am good at, though, is writing checks.  And, worrying!  Sacha and I have done our share of the former and I, personally, have done a lot of the latter. 

This election feels big in a lot of ways for our country, and, more personally, for my family.  Of course, there are many large and pressing issues at stake that I care about, but there's a personal one as well.  On the presidential level, there's a stark choice between a president who is openly for gay marriage and one who has said unpleasant things about gay people and especially those with children.  Obama might actually work for increased rights and safety and such on our behalf.  Romney would almost certainly work against those things. 

On the state level, we have a heated gay marriage battle going on just across the border in Washington, as well as in other states.  Washington is Sacha's home state and she would like us to be married there if this thing passes.  We've been married or domestic partnered a number of times by this point, but I am always up for doing it again!  We are both hoping to get the opportunity.  In any case, this election will directly affect us.

I didn't manage to blog about it, but we just had our ninth wedding anniversary, from our real but not legal wedding in October 2003.  And, we have been a couple for nearly 12 years.  Moreover, now that we have children, said children are getting old enough to ask questions about things.  Today, I found myself explaining to Natalia the difference between gay and straight, as she pedaled her tricycle around the garage. 

I don't know how it came up, but she was curious and it seemed as good a time as ever.  I kept it simple, but explained that gay people fall in love with and want to marry other people of their same sex, like Mommy and Mama.  Then, we have straight people, who fall in love with and want to marry people of the opposite sex, like Grammy and Grandpa, Bubbe and Poppa, and the vast majority of people we know.  She said something about how she would choose when she was bigger and I said, well, we don't get to choose.  It's just the way we are born. 

I have also found myself struggling with how to talk to them about marriage in general and our marriage specifically.  How to explain that Mommy and Mama are married but not married at the same time.  Of course, we are married and we have wedding photos in our house and we want the kids to feel secure in having happily married parents.  On the other hand, we aren't married and we want the kids to be prepared, in an age appropriate way, for what they might hear about our family out in the world. 

Too, there is a great deal of interest amongst Mateo's classmates about the election and who is "voting" for whom, and I want him to have some idea of what this election might mean for our family, but it's been hard for me to find a way to explain it in a way that feels right. 

Of course, as an article that I linked to on Facebook the other day so eloquently stated, no matter what happens, we will be fine.  We will keep on loving each other and doing our best to be good members of our community.  In addition to feeling safe and accepted and valued among our family and friends, we also have chosen to live in a place where we feel generally safe and accepted and valued as part of a larger community.  No matter who wins, we will keep on pursuing our radical gay agenda:  buying groceries, doing laundry, trying to find all those missing socks, frantically making lunches and buckling the kids into the minivan, and trying to remember to feed the cat. 

It would be great, though, to wake up in a week or a month or a year and be able to know that our president is working for our family, too.  And, to maybe even get to exchange vows again, knowing that this time, it will stick legally, and maybe even on the federal level at some point.  We know that we will stick.  I think it's about time that the leaders and the laws catch up.