LGBT POV

(Editor’s Note: And so we end the Prop 8 anniversary series where we began – with love and marriage.  From her honeymoon with her wife Diane Olson in Hawaii, Robin Tyler shares what this long experience and struggle has meant to her.  After reading her comments, look at the photos of their re-committment ceremony – with Rabbi Denise Eger, Rev. Troy Perry, Matt, Sara and Chris from Equal Roots, attorney Gloria Allred and a number of other LGBT marriage activists who are in this movement for equality for the long haul. – Karen Ocamb)

Sustained

By Robin Tyler

As I sit here in Maui, looking at the ocean through palm trees which extend from our window to the water, I am totally relaxed.

I shouldn’t be.  Three states are going to vote on marriage equality Tuesday.  I have been a marriage equality activist since 1974, and a political activist since moving from Canada to the United States in the early 60’s.  So,  why am I going to romantic candlelight dinners with Diane, my spouse, making love, (after 16 years of being together) talking, laughing and holding hands while we walk on the  sun-drenched beaches?

The day we were married, June 16, 2008 at 5 PM at the Beverly Hills Courthouse, the press, which was there from all over the world, (as we were the first couple in California to file for the right to marry in the historic case that won marriage equality for  our community, if only for a  brief time) asked after the ceremony where we would be going for our Honeymoon.  I flippantly answered, ‘to sleep’ as we had been together for almost 15 years then.

So, why decide to take a Honeymoon now?  Because, with all of the struggle (both within and without of our movement), the fighting, the protesting, the speeches and signs and countless demonstrations that happened in Los Angeles, Diane and I needed to reconnect.

I had done something that I never thought would happen within my lifetime, but it took until my mid-60’s.   I was finally able to marry the woman I was in love with.  I didn’t think that a legal marriage would make our commitment to each other any different.  But it did.  It changed things.

It changed people’s perception of us.  They saw us as a married couple, and not just 2 women living together.

I know, this shouldn’t matter.  But to our neighbors (and we live in a conservative area in the valley), to the gas station attendant where we fill up, to the servers at In and Out burgers who recognized us from our wedding, it counted.  They were happy for us.  There was not one Yes on 8 sign on our long block in North Hills.  Our neighbors knew us, and because of it, refused to put up signs.  Our born-again Christian pool man sent us a congratulations card.  Everyone was happy for us.  And we were ecstatic.

The legal commitment strengthened the moral commitment we had over the years.  It just felt-deeper.  And the romance, which always dwindles down when people live together for years, came back.

We made 17 PSA’s against Prop 8.  The morning it passed, we filed a lawsuit to overturn Prop 8 and  took to the streets with tens of thousands of other activists in Los Angeles.  We flew to San Francisco, to the Supreme Court hearing, and organized Day of Decision so that when when the decision was handed down, and Prop 8 was upheld, there were protests in over 130 cities.  Fight and protest, fight and sue, fight and organize, fight–push back, fight-keep up the fight.

And at one point, I sat at the kitchen table and looked over at Diane, and realized that we had not had a personal conversation for months.  It was not about how we felt, it had become about what we thought.

It was time to reconnect.

So, here we are,  this one week in Hawaii, where it would not be about elections, about Obama, about a March, about anything – but for one week, about us.  Just us.  It’s ok to relax.  There are tens of thousands of others who have finally taken up the fight, and not just a handful of us.

Diane and I have reconnected.  We talk about us, and our our future, and our pugs, and we breathe and speak softly again.  We are married, and win or lose a battle, there is no going back.  Same-sex couples will have equal marriage rights.  It is not a matter of ‘if’ anymore, just a matter of ‘when.’

We have emerged as this century’s civil rights movement, and if we keep up the fight, we will win.  Within a decade or so, no one will understand what the great resistance was about.  People will be ashamed of those who hid behind their religious beliefs to mask their prejudice and homophobia.  Young people will look at their parents who voted to take away rights from us and ask ‘how could you have done that?”

And we will look at the films and documentaries that recorded this time in history when we finally drew a line in the sand that not only said, we want it all, but that we deserve it all, and we will not rest until we get it all.

Kate Millet, the author,  once said, “Never forget the nights of our love and the days of fighting for its freedom.”

So when I am in a rocking chair, remembering these historic moments, this historic time, I will also remember this one special week in Hawaii, after 16 years of being together, my honeymoon with Diane.  And the richness of these memories, will sustain me.