Cassandra Langer

All my friends say I should blog more. My question is always who has the time? Between living a life–and I do have one and writing and painting there are not enough hours in the day and into the night to get on top of everything much-less blog more.  So working on revisions for Romaine Brooks book, writing poetry, painting and doing my reviews and interviews. My Patti Cronin interview will be featured on the cover of HG&L review in the next issue. That’s exciting for me and for the artist as well as her subject the 19th century lesbian sculptor, Harriet Hosmer.  The reclaiming of GLBT history is very important to me as it off-sets all the lies that are told about our community by those who hate us and do not want us to have our full citizenship. I have never understood how gays having the same rights as other citizens in any way takes anything away from straight people. Instead the truth is that straight people exploit gay people. How you may ask? Under federal law we cannot marry the partners we love and even in states that may allow it on the federal level we do not have the same rights as other married couples. So in essence we pay the same taxes as our straight counterparts and they get all the benefits because their spouses get to collect social security if a partner dies, their children get taken care of as well and worse yet their widows don’t have to pay estate taxes where as gay people get none of these rights much less the acknowledgement that they were ever in a committed and loving relationship for a lifetime where as again straights do. What can I say–life is far from fair but people can do better when it comes to equal rights for all citizens of this country under the constitution. As it now stands we are a community set apart from the rest of society because of who we love and how we are. If we don’t acknowledge ourselves and our achievements and contributions to society very few among straight society will.  I guess in terms of good will–a Jackie Lawton card will have to do. Take your choices–I use them often to remind people they are loved, cared about and in my thoughts.

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