rm | hate in Rhode Island

Much of queer history has involved loving in secret. This has also meant mourning in secret. Much of the demand for a world that required neither of these tragedies came out of the AIDS crisis. Much of my coming out to myself, and others, was initially done with this as a backdrop; it is real to me, visceral and terrifying and not so far away as it should be.

In an act of bigotry, the governor of Rhode Island has vetoed a bill giving domestic partners the right to claim the bodies of — and make funeral arrangements for — their loved ones.

Aside from its obvious practical consequences, this act says that in the governor's view gay people are not fully human and either incapable of or not entitled to the full spectrum of human emotions, including grief and love, and that the family units we have been making for centuries as best we can in even the darkest of times are, apparently, merely, figments of our imagination.

Silence = Death remains one of, if not the, most important thing I have ever learned. I know this every time someone wishes I were quieter.