Politics

Now that we’re in California, we really don’t do much by way of the political, but here I can tell about our past activities, and incidentally give a bit of publicity to some of the organizations we worked with in Rhode Island.

Even in Rhode Island, where it’s extremely easy to get
politically involved, I was pretty much totally unpolitical
till the winter of 1983-84, only a few months after Mark
and I met. At that time, because of what seemed to be a
serious threat to the gay community in the state, I got
active in the Gay Helpline of Rhode Island, an information
and referral service run entirely by volunteers. It’s had
a number of name changes since then, and probably plays
less of a role now than it did 23 years ago, because of the
wonderful monthly newspaper Options and the ready
availability of the Web.

The other organization I joined at that time was the
Rhode Island Alliance for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights,
a group that now is pretty much defunct, but which for a
long time was the only statewide organization working
for the passage of antidiscrimination statutes that would
protect queer folk from loss of job, loss of housing, and
other acts of prejudice. Both Mark and I eventually
became officers in the organization, and worked very hard
for its aims. The Alliance got the antidiscrimination bill
passed in 1995, and just around the time we were pulling
up stakes to move to California, in Spring of 1998, the
organization got the extremely punitive Abominable and
Detestable Crimes Against Nature act repealed. Needless
to say, we couldn’t have done this without the dedicated
and courageous help of many of our elected friends in both
houses of the Legislature, and our friends from the Christian
and Jewish clergy.

One can understand the disappearance of the Alliance,
since its main purpose has been achieved, but we do regret
its passing. But in its place, Marriage Equality Rhode Island
has been born, and immediately got working on the new
issue. In the upper picture, the farthest face is that of one
of our old friends from the Alliance, who was attending a
legislative hearing on Marriage in March of 2003.

Within a few years, I also got active in the Rhode Island
Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was on
the Board for six years, two of those as Chair of the Board.
In this picture, Steve Brown, the Executive Director of the
RI ACLU is talking with Carolyn Mannis (on the left),
who has been active in the organization for quite some
time , and someone I don’t know. This was in the State
House, same day as the picture above.

(picture to go here)

Here in California, I regularly lament that I can no
longer walk to the State House, and that I no longer
run into my State Senator walking her dog. Truth to
tell, now that I have passed those magical mile-stones
of 65 and 70, I find that I have little energy for fighting
any kind of Good Fight. I feel particularly bad that I
haven’t been able to raise my voice at all against the
barbarity of the Death Penalty. And in California
we’re still doing it, unlike Rhode Island, where the last
Ceremonial Killing was committed over 160 years ago.
In any event, both Mark’s and my political activity
seems now to be confined to what we do via our church,
which as a whole seems to have a lot of that energy that
I now find myself to be lacking in.