At the end of "Angels In America," Prior Walter addresses the audience:
"We aren't going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."
This gets to me every time I hear it. Growing up, as the band played on, I learned to equate silence with death. For almost two decades, that formula has been clear to me.
But I never thought about the corollary before this week: noise = life.
And, while HIV is still with us, the issue today is not dying secret deaths, it's living secret lives. Don't ask, don't tell: a devil's bargain with intolerance. Shut up and we'll leave you alone.
Am I married? No, not today. "Civil unions," "domestic partners," "longtime companions." Maybe we'll let you be citizens, give you the same tax breaks, same survivor benefits, same inheritance rights, down the line, same same same.
But we'll keep the WORD for ourselves. Marriage. We have it, you don't.
In that case, I'm not married. I'm whatever Carol Migden is. I'm whatever the thousands of couples in SF, New Mexico and however many waiting in Chicago and Massachusettes and Vermont and anywhere else are. I'm with them.
I say I'm with Liz, and we are no more or less together than any of "them."
Posted by Jason at February 20, 2004 12:55 PM