Now I let it pass back
into darkness.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
Marriage : Netherlands, Belgium, British Columbia (CA), Ontario (CA)
Civil unions : France (including overseas territories), Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Rio Negro (AR), Ciudad de Buenos Aires (AR), California (US), New York (US), Hawaii (US), Vermont (US), Canary Islands (ES), Aragon (ES), Catalonia (ES), Andalusia (ES), Extremadura (ES), Castilla-La Mancha (ES), Castilla-Leon (ES), Madrid (ES), Valencia (ES), Asturias (ES), Basque Country (ES), Navarre (ES), Balearics (ES), Quebec (CA), Alberta (CA), Manitoba (CA), Nova Scotia (CA), Geneva (CH), Zurich (CH), Portugal.
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2013:
Marriage : Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, France (including overseas territories), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, New Zealand, Washington (US), California (US), New Mexico (US), Minnesota (US), Iowa (US), Maryland (US), DC (US), New Jersey (US), Delaware (US), New York (US), Connecticut (US), Rhode Island (US), Vermont (US), Massachusetts (US), New Hampshire (US), Maine (US), Hawaii (US), Mexico City (MX), Quintana Roo (MX).
Recognizes marriages performed abroad : Namibia, Israel, Nepal, American Samoa
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Future :
Same-sex marriage is under consideration by the legislature or the courts in Aruba, Curaçao, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, India, Japan, Liechtenstein, Namibia, the Navajo Nation, Nepal, Thailand, and Venezuela, and all countries bound by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which includes Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Suriname.
Civil unions are being considered in a number of countries, including Lithuania, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, Ukraine, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Latvia, Panama, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Thailand, and Venezuela.
Nearly twenty years ago, I was volunteering as a hotline staffer at GLAD -- the LGBTQ law firm that brought about same-sex unions and marriages in New England. Every week I would take a lot of heartbreaking phone calls from queer folks who were in states that didn't yet recognize same-sex partnerships. I heard from so many people being separated from their partner and/or their kids, because their families or their workplaces or hospitals or the immigration system didn't recognize the partnership. So many who couldn't provide sick partners with health benefits. So many people who were fired for being queer. So many breakups that ended with the biological parent automatically getting sole custody of the children.
We've come SO far. Like many of you, I worry about a lot that's happening right now politically, and I know there are lots of fights left to fight. But I also try to step back often and appreciate how far we've come. Thirty years ago, I was a scared & closeted school kid, and legally-recognized same-sex unions felt like an impossible dream. The big picture shown above is amazing.
Happy Pride, all. May we look back in another decade and see many more wins for queer folks around the globe. <3
Did you ever just feel so lucky for knowing someone you met online? Like.. I was one click away from not following you. I was one second away from never even knowing of your existence.I would never have been this happy!!!…
I like my protagonists sad, tired, bitter, fully convinced they will never get the recognition they deserve, but they still gotta get up in the morning and be a good person
one thing you won't know until you experience it for yourself when you create art out of love is how it feels when people receive it with love. when you post a doodle and someone keeps it as their lockscreen, or when you write a story and someone tells you they were thinking about it all day, or when you post a poem and someone shares it with a touching caption. doesn't matter if it was objectively good or not. matters that someone spent time with it, that someone really, really liked it, and you made it. this kind of interaction, i think, it can really sustain you for weeks. it can sustain you through a lot of terrible things. its confirmation that you exist, and that (however briefly) your existence was appreciated by someone else through your art.