V's Version

As a side story: I used to hitch hike at 5:30 AM (after parties the night before) in order to get to work on time in the kitchen of a quaint inn on an island in Maine. (I made blueberry muffins for the guests.) Not many people were on the country roads at that time in the morning. With the sound of each and every car coming up from over the hills, I would make the bartering promise to Fate: "If you pick me up, I promise (cross my heart and hope to die - stick a needle in my eye) to pick up every hitch hiker who doesn't look like an ax murderer when I get a car." Much to the chagrin of some friends and family, I have, to date, picked up countless hitch hikers - nearly every single one that I encounter.

A personal aside:

This is very personal to me. You don't get much more personal than taxes. The US government, behind closed doors, launched an outright attack on my family by a denial of our civil rights through the IRS tax codes. We are not considered a family any more. It's not just us - it is ALL gay and lesbian and non-traditional families. Our children and dependent partners are not dependents any longer. There is no head of household. Personally, our family, like many families, will be very hard-hit this year. And in CA it's even worse because Domestic Partners must file jointly but do not have any rights of the other people filing jointly. Today, in fact, is the day that the CA Supreme Court will hear the cases of same-sex couples who are trying to seek justice. It is so messed up.

But all of this is to say that the American people - by our complicity with this tax code, by handing down attitudes from the government, from the pulpit, from jokes and by turning a blind ear to "faggot" and "lezzie" and "sissy" calls in the schoolyard - the American people have all contributed to the demise of both of these children.)

"...I need to talk to you about something that’s really serious and really sad. And, if you know me it’s hard to talk about sad stuff without getting emotional but this is really important to talk about. On February 12th an openly gay 15 year-old boy named Larry, (King) who was an 8th grader in Oxnard, California was murdered by a fellow 8th grader, named Brandon. Larry was killed because he was gay. Days before he was murdered, Larry had asked his killer to be his Valentine.

I don’t want to be political. This is not political. I’m not a political person, but this is personal to me. A boy has been killed and a number of lives have been ruined. And, somewhere along the line the killer, Brandon got the message that it’s so threatening so awful and so horrific that Larry would want to be his Valentine, that killing Larry seemed to be the right thing to do. And when the message out there is so horrible that to be gay, you can get killed for it, we need to change the message.

Larry was not a second-class citizen. I am not a second-class citizen. It’s ok if you’re gay.

I don’t care what people say; I don’t care what people think. I know there are entire groups of people who face discrimination every single day and I know we are a long way from treating each other equally.

All of it is unacceptable. All of it. But I would like you to start paying attention to how often being gay is the punch line of a monologue or how often gay jokes are in a movie. And that kind of message, laughing at someone because they’re gay is just the beginning. It starts with laughing at someone, and then it’s verbal abuse, then it’s physical abuse, and it’s this kid Brandon killing a kid like Larry.

We must change our country, and we can do it. We can do it with our behavior; we can do it with the messages that we send our children. We can do it with our vote. This is an election year and there’s a lot of talk about change. I think one thing we should change is hate. Check on who you’re voting for. Does that person really truly believe that we are all equal under the law? If you’re not sure, I say change your vote. We deserve better.

My heart goes out to everybody involved on this horrible, horrible incident. All the families, even Brandon’s life has changed because he did this."