Two down, forty-eight to go

Yesterday, the California State Supreme Court recognized the right to form a family relationship for all its citizens, homosexual and heterosexual alike. It joins Massachusetts as only the second state in the Union to recognize this right.

Some people will call this a “special right” or “judicial activism”; they argue that the law, in its majestic equality, forbid straights as well as gays to marry others of the same sex, that asking for that right is asking for something unnecessary and somehow fundamentally wrong. I’ve never really agreed with this line of thinking; the law, in its majestic equality, has in past years, forbid white as well as black to marry outside their races, to attend each others’ schools, or to ride in the same train cars.

We have a long way to go. Most of the other states have decided explicitly to deny full faith and credit to homosexual marriages legal in other states. It’s still acceptable, in most circles, to make an insult out of someone’s sexuality; people like Sally Kern can attract standing ovations and thousands of public supporters. That said, I think it’s easy to criticize too much; progress to freedom and equality is a very slow thing. It’s only been fifty-four years since Brown took the Topeka Board of Education to the Supreme Court, forty-four since Mississippi Burning. By comparison Stonewall (thirty-nine years ago next month) is a fresh memory.

People who believe in the freedom to love have two states down and forty-eight to go. It’s a very long road.

That’s OK.

I believe we’ll get there.

Memories of my Grandfather

On Monday I visited my mother’s father, my Gung Gung, to pay my respects.

I don’t actually remember very much about him; I was five when I saw him last and he was buried thirteen years ago. He was a giant for a Chinese man, six feet tall even in his old age, and from stories I believe he was a kind and dignified man, if distant and bound by tradition. My mother tells me that he never held any of his grandchildren that came before me, only rarely held those after, and that I must have been his favorite from the way he indulged me when I came to visit.

I don’t remember this, though, because all adults are giants to five-year-olds and by the earliest I remember my cousins were already (I think) getting too big to hold. More than anything I remember that he smoked quite a lot, what brand I never knew, and that he kept a can of peanuts at his desk. It was always the blue Planters can, honey-roasted to give them that crunchy, candy-like shell. In Hong Kong this is not a small thing; they are not very easy to find. I remember never having them before, but I liked them when he shared, and I buy a can once in a while even today.

That’s all. He was distant to my cousins and my sister doesn’t remember him at all. In fifty years, the best first-hand memories of my Gung Gung will be the blue Planters can of honey-roasted peanuts. In a hundred there will be none at all.

I didn’t have very much to say to him, so I brought a can to leave beside the incense and oranges. That seemed like the only thing to do.