summer_jackel

I am just back from Furcon and had a great time...I'm still completely con-crashed, of course, especially since I stopped for my weekly dance lessons on the way home from the con, just to make sure that I was absolutely exhausted, not just a little exhausted.

It was a really fantastic convention, though. Speaking of dancing:

corpsefairy and I had a lot of fun foxtrotting in the fursuit dance competition, although we'd have been better if we had more opportunity to practice our routine. (I'm the lead in the gold leopard mask; she's the follow in the silver leopard. The heads will be better next year, too; I ran out of time and had to rush them). I giggle at the commentary to the video that claims we were "choreographed perfectly," though of course I'm happy that we were appreciated. What I led on stage was only roughly approximate to the routine we'd planned, partly because we had more stage than we were expecting and partly due to leader error. I was literally weak-kneed with stage fright, but I'm pleased to see on the vid that I don't look nearly as bad as I was afraid I looked. I'm fully aware of every glaring flaw in my performance there of course, but hey, it's a recognizable foxtrot.

I just began silver level lessons (omg omg how did that happen??), so next year's performance may be a silver foxtrot. If it isn't a Quickstep.

I have to say that it was extremely amusing to be the only slow ballroom dance in a show full of techno acts---some of which were jaw-droppingly amazing and all of which were quite good, but variety is nice. I'm making it a bit of a personal goal to encourage more partner dancing in the fandom, and to that end

corpsefairy and I taught a waltz lesson on Saturday. I have never taught dance before, so let's just say that I now have a greater appreciation for my own teachers. Still, the class was really fun, we had good attendance and people were totally waltzing at the end! We will be doing all of this again next year, only hopefully with more preparation, more space and a better floor.

I did quite well in the art show and adequately at the dealer table, especially given that I had no real table decoration, prints to sell etc. and have not been a terribly active artist, other than my comic, for a couple of years. It has been a very hard couple of years, but I am pleased to say, quietly, that I am doing better now and really want to make a point of creating more art in 2011.

It was great seeing everyone I saw; it is a wonderful pleasure to spend time with all of you furry folks. FC is definitely a highlight of my year.

I also want to specially thank everyone who came to me offering support regarding

eclipsegryph's cockatiel situation. It was gratifying and touching to have so many people care about this. If you don't already know, we won the case and all three birds are now safely home. I haven't written about this since I took the case; as a lawyer, I owe a duty of confidentiality that does not permit discussing such matters in public fora. However, my client and

kynekh_amagire have made the story public here and in their journals, which I find personally gratifying since this is a case deserving of public interest and concern. So here's my own closure to the matter (including no confidential information and nothing that isn't discussed in much greater detail elsewhere), as a pet owner who once supported Mickaboo and never will again.

This situation should be of great concern to anyone with an interest in pets and pet rescue. Mickaboo's behavior was deplorable and appalling throughout the whole ordeal, and though justice did in fact prevail in the end, a pet owner shouldn't have to fight a corrupt rescue in order to reclaim animals fraudulently surrendered to it by an angry spouse. Some of Mickaboo's volunteers are trying to do good things, but its administration is corrupt and the organization deserves no tolerance or support. Behavior like this harms the birds in Mickaboo's care and the credibility and value of private animal rescue in general.

I have decided to adopt another green cheeked conure some time this spring (more detail about that later) and, wherever I end up getting him, I absolutely will not be adopting from Mickaboo. I urge everyone to continue to boycott the organization and its supporters---but be happy; we won. It's a brand new year, and hopefully this one will be even better than the last.

Current Mood: accomplished

This bit comes via

eclipsegryph. Our governor is apparently coming out against Prop 8. Perhaps not in the most articulate of ways, but...in this moment, I'm really proud.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/09/Calif_gov_We_will_maybe_undo_Prop_8/UPI-22871226279859/

Alright, so I am tired, sick and cranky right now, so this is probably not the moment to go into heavily charged political waters. But. Vis. the Prop 8/gay marriage issue, a couple of points become clearer. Firstly, there apparently exist some issues regarding whether Prop 8 can legally amend our state's constitution. I certainly hope this is true, since legally it seems counter-intuitive and sloppy as hell (what? You mean, we can amend the *constitution* based on such a narrow margin of the popular vote? Somehow this seems far too easy). Mind you, I am not and never want to be a Constitutional lawyer, and I have no expertise here. I plan to research it some because boy am I ever interested in this.

The second point, again as an attorney, is that in my opinion the gay marriage ban violates our Federal Constitution, and significantly. I could do this in a far more detailed way, but here are the bullet points:

We have this thing called the Fourteenth Amendment in our Constitution. It grants equal protection under the law to all U.S citizens, and abolished slavery. Text here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The right to make contracts is protected by the law, one of those things the fourteenth says we all get to do. Contracts are one of the major areas of law, in fact. Marriage is a contract, and a common one. (I ranted on that piece a few posts down). The fourteenth amendment applies. It was applied specifically to marriage contracts in Loving v. Virginia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_vs_virginia, which overturned Virgina's statute banning interracial marriages. And if you want to see how far we've come, and how quickly, go read that one, guys.

The Fourteenth Amendment has been applied to gays in the past, specifically in the large area of employment discrimination law, in which gender is a protected class. Gender in this context is very broad, and includes pregnancy (you can't fire her because she got pregnant, or him because his wife did and he needs leave) and sexual orientation (can't fire you 'cos you're gay). There's a lot of case law on this. Much of it came from California. Much of it was both chilling and exhilarating to read, as was Loving.

Put all of this together, and gay marriages should be protected under the Fourteenth. We batted this around a lot in my Con Law classes (which are not missed, but in some cases fondly remembered. I had a fabulous Con Law prof). My professors were very much of the opinion that the question of whether gay marriage was protected under the fourteenth had to eventually go to the Supreme Court, and that they would have a heck of a time denying equal protection and equal marriage. There is no legal grounds to deny gay marriage that I've ever been shown (legal folk in the audience, feel free to play devil's advocate here and come up with a sound constitutional argument against).

Gays are a protected class, marriage is a legal contract, the line's easy to draw. It seems so damned obvious, but it's going to be a big, emotional thing and an enormous uphill battle, for no other reason than that homosexuality scares a lot of people, and is not the traditional mating structure in our country. People tend to hate that which they think they aren't, or don't know: human tribalism at its worst, and the root of bigotry. That and we've conflated spiritual and legal marriage, which muddies the issue so much in the mind of the average person that half the time neither side even knows what it's talking about.

In my con law classes, there was a lot of speculation and talk about when this issue was going up to the Supreme Court. The Supremes need a conflict at the state level to bring an issue up, and, well, we have one right here in CA right now. If Prop 8 doesn't get overturned as being somehow contrary to the proper way to amend CA's constitution (and I certainly hope so) and decided on those grounds, I suggest that we are about to see this thing go up for decision.

It's not a certain outcome, even though it certainly looks like it should be, and we can't be complacent. But I have hope...I mean, if Arnold, of all people, is expressing regret over the constitutionalized bigotry that is 8, anything can change, right? To look back at the facts of Loving is to understand how incredibly fast social change can happen, and the place of the law in that cultural process. We've just seen some of the fruits of our country's long move away from bigotry in this election. I will be watching the coming process with fear, and excitement, and hope.

Current Mood: sad

This election will be over soon, and I will be so very happy. I really want to go back to comfortably ignoring politics, oh please yes. But as we all know, there's some major stuff on the plate right now, so I don't get to yet.

My subject of bitchy rant at the moment is CA's Prop 8, which if passed would repeal existing and prevent future same-sex marriage in our state. I am of course livid about this, not just for the obvious reason of being gay, or even because the other side is dirty enough to sink to blackmail and extortion in an attempt to push their discriminatory agenda, or all of the many other good reasons I am sure exist to want to see this thing crash and burn.

The whole thing has me pissed off as a lawyer, too.

So Ok, people. There is a distinction between legal and sacred/religious/whathaveyou marriage. I am not at all thrilled that the term is used as a catchall for both, and conflating the two leads to lots of confusion, and, well, juicy little pockets of evil like Prop 8.

Legal marriage is the handy process of entering into a number of contracts all at once. They include imparting medical authority and rights with regards to the custody of minor children, but mostly these contracts are about property. Particularly real property (land).

California is a community property state, which in a nutshell means that (almost) all assets, earnings and property earned or obtained by either spouse during the marriage become equally and jointly owned by both. (There's more than that...a semester of law school and a day on the bar more...but that's all you really need for now). Personally I'm too much of a loner to enjoy the thought of entering into that particular contract, but hey, there are tax advantages, so if you're into it, go for it. The divorces get pretty unpleasant, but that's true in other states, too.

Legal marriage was originally a way for a husband and his bride's father to come into agreements vis. money and land (because of course the woman couldn't own it). The woman herself was part of the property being exchanged, because until the early 20th century her legal rights were abysmal. Yes, the law has changed since then, but ponder that history for a moment anyway.

Note that I haven't mentioned sex, other than that's the typical way a couple ends up with children. They are a part of the marriage contract, true, but California's complex family code will give custody to a surviving parent whether or not there was a marriage and has otherwise done everything it can to give equal rights to married and unmarried parents. This is a Good Thing For Everyone. So the bit in the marriage contract about children is pretty superfluous. Besides, we all know that there are other ways that straight couples come by kids as well, and plenty of gay folk have them too. (Hello, lesbian couples have been borrowing their male friends for stud service for ages, and that's just the easiest way).

Sex has nothing to do with legal marriage. Because it's an example of contract law. Denying legal rights, including the making of contracts, to a class of Americans based on gender is gender discrimination, pure and simple. That's illegal both in CA and Federally (I could look up the Act, but I'm being lazy), which is why this issue is eventually bound for the Supreme Court. This is a purely legal issue. No really. It is.

The Pro-8 folks are yowling about the sanctity of marriage and the desire to protect traditional unions, but trust me because I've studied it when I say contract law is anything but sacred, and if you want to look at traditional legal marriage, you end up with the woman-as-property bit. My long winded point here is that Prop 8 will in no way, shape or form change religious marriage. If you want to think gay sex is Teh Evil and marriage should only be between a man and woman of your own specific religion, well, fine, that hurts my feelings but I won't argue much. I'll support your right to think that, so long as you don't attempt to kill anyone. I firmly believe that the law should stay out of our churches as much as I believe that, well, the churches should stay out of our law...

Again, the fact that English uses the same word for legal and sacred "marriage" and that we are culturally conditioned to enter into both at the same time ANNOYS me. Annoys the HELL out of me. I don't like the traditions behind legal marriage, I don't like the bundle-of-contracts that no one talks about and most newlyweds don't understand because this institution is supposedly about relationships. I don't like the assumption in either type that making any kind of agreement will somehow keep a relationship alive forever, when the reality is that people grow and change, sometimes apart, whether or not they've agreed to co-own all their property.

Personally...I am fond of long-term commitments and serious rituals made out of love. Something like a handfasting where the couple (triad, quad, whathaveyou) renews their vows every now and again to keep things current emotionally is more my speed, but I digress. I seem emotionally predisposed to long-term attachments and come on, I'm a Pagan, of COURSE I like Deep Meaningful Rituals...but I've just given you many of the reasons marriage (legal and sacred) as practiced in America today rubs my fur a bit wrong.

I just wanted to point out that Prop 8 is not even about what its supporters are claiming it's about. This thing is an example of pure sex discrimination, and an attempt to write it into our very constitution at that. Sacred marriage won't change when 8 fails, and if you want to go do it in a way that excludes gays, or anyone who isn't your flavor of religion, have at. It's a free country.

...it still is, isn't it? Right?

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Music: Ghost on the Highway, Gun Club