But I see your arguments as being either/or. Jim Wallis says it’s an important issue in his book, but because he spent more time devoted to other issues, you put words in his mouth, that he is choosing these other “not as important” things over the issue of gay rights. I’m just wondering what he would have had to do in order to please you.

I think it’s great that you’ve spent years working on AIDS in this continent. AIDS is still a problem in this country, despite that people prefer to forget about it. But it is also true that AIDS is a much bigger problem in Africa.

When I talked about Jim thinking of the children in Darfur, he wasn’t thinking about children who don’t have the benefit of parents who are legally married to each other. I was talking about children that are being thrown into fire pits and murdered. Children whose parents, married or unmarried are murdered. How can you possibly see both those scenarios as being equally unjust? When you put marriage legislation and genocide as being equally important, it is you who is making the either/or decision. You are basically saying that anyone who doesn’t seen American same-sex legislation as equal to all other global problems, they are wrong for doing so, or maybe even, you see them as hateful, or only “parttially progressive.” To be a real, true progressive, someone who really has it right, you must think that same-sex legislation is more important, or at least equally important to AIDS, hunger, starvation, genocide…

While I understand the importance of all that you are saying, it doesn’t seem very fair that everyone has to have the same priorities as you do- which is basically what you’re saying. Same-sex marriage legislation needs to be a number one priority for everyone or they’re wrong.

What I’m saying is that I don’t understand why it has to be an either/or situation; as in “either we work on issues of peace, poverty, ect., or we work on issues of gay & lesbian equality.” Is there some reason why it has to be either/or? The only reason I get from Wallis is that the conversation is just too emotional and divisive to have right now.

Maybe a few decades from now, it won’t be. But in the meantime that will mean a lot or our families will suffer the lack of benefits and protections that other families enjoy. It means that some of us will be shut out of hospital rooms when our partners are sick and/or dying. It means that some of us will lose everything if a partner dies unexpectedly, without a will, because we have no legal status and no rights to inherit. It means that some of us will lose our homes because of we don’t get the benefits that marries spouses get to keep their families afloat. It means that some of us will lose our children or have our legal rights as parents called into question, because our relationships have no legal status. It means that our children will endure all of the above along with us.

All this will happen while we’re waiting; while we’re making commitments to each other, building families, and contributing to our communities. And most of it will happen without remedy and out of public view, while we’re waiting and continuing to contribute to exactly the kind of cultural change Wallis says is needed, and effectively being penalized for doing so. We’d actually fare better in many ways if we didn’t commit ourselves to one another, our children, and our communities.

What I haven’t heard is what we’re supposed to do while we’re waiting, other than set all of the above aside and do something else. I haven’t heard how we’re supposed to protect our families as we’re working without the social support or safety net that other families have to fall back on in times of crisis; a safety net that our friends and neighbors can’t replace. The legal options we have give us a few protections, at best, but they may not be recognized when we need them to be. So, in the meantime, while we’re waiting, how do we protect our families? How do I not end up living any one of the stories I linked above?

Or am I not supposed to care about any of that, or want anyone else to care enough to do something about it?

When I think about the children you mentioned, I think of my own too, as Wallis does, and I see my child in them. But Wallis’ children have the benefit of having parents who can legally marry each other, and access the full array of benefits and protections society has put in place to encourage that level of commitment. My son does not. So, am I supposed to think less of my child than the rest? Am I supposed to think of my child as less important?

Or should I not have become a parent in the first place? Should I not have entered into a commitment to family and community and just “waited” until everything else is taken care of, since we would be making those commitments only to not have support when we need it?

Am I supposed to see how vulnerable my family is, and by extension my child, and not do everything I can to change that? Or am I just supposed to go it alone in the meantime.

I don’t understand what’s so wrong with him being more passionate about poverty and war than other issues. Should you be faulted for caring more about American gay rights than you do about people dying? Everyone has their passions…. if you understand his, let it go. Must everyone’s agenda look exactly like yours?