No marriages for you!

The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. 

~ Belize

Angels in America

I thought of this play when I read, and not to my surprise, that marriages for gay and lesbian couples would not take place tomorrow in California because an appeal was filed as expected. It is my sense that gay and lesbian couples will continue living their lives together, working, and raising children just as they always have without it playing out on the public stage, while others jerk them around, vote on, and argue about their civil rights.

In this scene, Belize's lines in their entirety might be hard for some people to read/hear. Truth, reality, whatever you want to call it usually is hard.  He is speaking to Louis, a gay male friend, about Louis's ex, Prior. The "terminal, crazy, and mean" is Roy Cohn. These words, written by Tony Kushner, are worth reading and reflecting on as we make our way forward in the world.

Belize (nurse, male, gay, black, in NYC):  You know what your problem is, Louis? Your problem is that you are so full of piping hot crap that the mention of your name draws flies. Just to set the record straight: I love Prior but was never in love with him. I have a man, uptown, and have since long before I first laid my eyes on the sorry-ass sight of you. But you didn't know cause you never bothered to ask. Up in the air, just like that angel, too far off the earth to pick out the details. Louis and his big ideas. Big ideas are all you love. America is what Louis loves. Well I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It's just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis, that's hard enough, I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody's got to love something.