Separate church and state today!

In answer to my question, "What rights are currently being denied same-sex couples that heterosexual couples receive with marriage?", Christine Allen of Marriage Equality USA responded:
No same-sex couple in this country can access any of the 1,138 federal rights provided to married couples. The rights provided by each individual state vary – depending both on the state and on whether or not there is any legal recognition of same-sex couples in that state that may provide some of those rights. Please remember that the states that do provide some recognition only do so within the boundaries of that individual state. My Domestic Partner rights and benefits here in California disappear as soon as I cross the state line on a trip. The same is true of the right to marriage in other countries – If my wife and I travel to Canada or Spain and legally wed there, that marriage is not recognized by the government here in the United States.
Christine Allen
Marriage Equality USA
www.marriageequality.org

The denied right that most affects Erin and I and infuriates me is inheritance. When I die, Erin will have to pay tax on 100% of the current assessed value of our home, the home we own equally. If we could marry, the tax would not apply. The ownership simply passes to the surviving wedded spouse.

The people I have talked to that say we should be denied the right to marry, say it has something to do with the bible or their interpretation of it. My point is: Our United States national constitution states we should all be treated equally. And, there should be a separation of church and state. I think the legal rights that accompany marriage should be removed for every person. Then, marriage can be "sacred," and reserved for heterosexuals only, and all citizens of this country can receive equal legal status.

Anything less than equality, is less than equal. Until we are treated equally, I will not be satisfied.

yard

The Yard's really getting thrashed, but they are pouring our foundation today.

Demolition/Excavation

I don't feel that good about our neighbors, Babe and Larry, hovering over our project. It seems obvious to me that as I approached unexpected, the workers were leaning on the driveway talking with Larry. Not installing the wood to support the concrete for our foundation, which is what I think they were supposed to be doing. But maybe they didn't know what to do next?

In Babe's case, she's so scary, when she was sitting there, nobody was working around our house at all. I even walked down the other side to get into the back yard.

You can see right through our house now. The planks are redwood. The crawlspace is all dug out, ready for the new foundation to be poured next week.

Butch

Butch and femme are terms often used in the lesbian and gay subcultures to describe the queering of traditional masculine and feminine gender roles.

-- Wikipedia

I noticed lately I use the term butch loosely, as a way of actually complimenting a couple straight men I admire, and it dawns on me, they don't know what that means, "butch." Well, in both their cases, I use butch as a term that encompasses typically male behavior I admire - that is, competence, aggressiveness, physical ability, male behavior that I don't necessarily possess. Really, behaviors I don't necessarily want to possess as a woman, but enjoy watching in others, behavior I like to be around. So yes, "Oooo, butch!" is a compliment. Not to say butch wouldn't be a compliment for a straight woman, if used correctly, with respect/admiration.

Sometimes I forget these oft-used queer terms aren't in common use. It wasn't that long ago, butch wasn't even recognized by Microsoft Word. Now they reference butch haircut as a crew cut, from the Encarta World English Dictionary.