Disappointment

There's a great line in the movie The American President that I absolutely love. It comes as Annette Bening's character is searching frantically for a sweater that is her sister's that she thought she's left at the White House. After searching and not finding it she utters:
"Oh, fuck the sweater! She'll have to learn to live with disappointment!"

I'm feeling a bit disappointed these days. New York is on the verge of voting on a bill that would give gay couples the right to marry. Marriage Equality is a big fight. I am on the side that says, we should all have the right to be married. I don't have a partner, I don't even have a boyfriend...I don't know that I would want to get married right now if I did, but I HATE being told I don't have the right to based purely on my sexual orientation. I pay taxes just like every other citizen of New York. I don't pay any less based on the rights I don't have. I pay the same amount as any other male NY'er that makes my salary and happens to be straight. I am denied over 1100 rights, that he gets just by signing a marriage license. A license that is state issued - not issued by the church. I am not asking for ANY church or religion to sanctify gay marriage. But churches and religions are not the ones issuing marriage licenses, the state does that. I AM asking the state to recognize me and treat me as an equal.

I have always lived my life so that I am not a disappointment to my parents...I tried very hard not to be. I don't believe, deep down that I am, but I do know that I disappointed them. I know that as the first born there was an expectation for grandchildren...that they got later thanks to my brother and now sister. I know that having a gay son is not what was on their list of expectations - but it's the hand they got dealt. I know that I am loved and that they are not fundamentally disappointed in me. I know that my father would rather change the liberal democrat in me than the gay...these are things that I should be really happy about. I'm disappointed though because I can't get my father to see me as an equal citizen. I can't get my father to understand that by not having marriage rights, I am, in fact sitting at the back of the bus. I don't know what else to do to help him understand that, and I'm at a loss to proceed. I am disappointed about that. I wonder, since I can't even get my father to understand this, how do I get politicians? I am disappointed that if this were my sister and she were fighting for the right to marry her husband and the law said they couldn't because they were not the same race, my father would be out there leading the charge on her behalf...I am disappointed that he doesn't see the parallel.

I am disappointed that a state as large as NY does not already have Marriage Equality. I am disappointed that the Republican Senate is holding the vote hostage. I am disappointed that when I called and asked why a vote had not be scheduled, I was told that if I were going to be argumentative the conversation would be ended, simply for asking why a vote on marriage equality had not been scheduled this session. No more, no less. A thoughtful and appropriate question, asked in a polite and dignified manner, yet considered argumentative by the office manager of NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Disappointed that said Office Manager let his bias and prejudice dictate his response to my legitimate question rather than treat me like a human being and not a second class citizen who's opinion didn't matter.

Fuck it...I guess I'll just have to learn to live with disappointment.