Because We All Matter

I am sitting here seething suddenly, trying to keep the lid from exploding off of the top of the pot that has been simmering steadily inside of my mind for the past week or so.  There is a family that I have come to care deeply about who is facing something that no family should ever have to face and I have been trying to collect the words, the right words, to write about their situation.  This is a married couple who has been together for twenty-two years.  This couple met in 1990 and immediately knew that they were meant to be together.  As a bi-national couple(one from the US and one from France), they made things work by juggling what they could to keep themselves together.  They adopted four beautiful children, now ages 6 (twin boys whose eyes twinkle), 8 (a sparkly little angel girl)  and 11(a handsome, growing young man).  In so many ways, I have grown to admire this wonderful family.  They represent so much about what is right with this country.  They are cohesive, innovative, filled with love and mischief and joy.  They are a family so much like my own.(Although in their forties, they are crazy enough to still talk about adopting another child which might possibly put me over the edge!)  Yet herein lies the difference, instead of their names being Mark and Deb, their names are Mark and Fred, and although their marriage is legally recognized by the state that they were married in, it is NOT recognized as a legal marriage by the federal government, nor is it protected by something called The Defense of Marriage Act(DOMA, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996) which would allow Fred to stay in this country only if this were a heterosexual married couple.  So, as with too many laws in this country, one law has been negated by the other creating an uphill battle where there should be none.  Mark and Fred and their children are now waiting to find out what the result of their request to stay together as a family in this country will be.  We are talking about five American citizens and their husband/father.  This is insane.  The possibility that they could be torn apart as a family is insane.  But, as I ask myself whenever I am faced with a decision to act or to not act on something that might be extremely difficult to battle, here is the question that Mark and Fred must answer right now; Is this the hill you would be willing to die on?  And as they forge ahead into the battle to keep their family together, there is only one resounding answer...Keep fighting the good fight, my strong and brave friends.

*Borrowed from Mark's Blog, Our Simple Lives:)  Aren't they Gorgeous???

You can read more about this family's battle here on Mark's blog http://www.oursimplelives.com/ and on CNN.  And for some touching perspectives, read here, http://psychdocnyc.com/, and here, http://37paddington.blogspot.com/2012/01/stop-deportations.html and on the January 12th post here, http://www.ragdollinnewyork.com/.  If you feel at all compelled by this story and the many others that are just like Mark and Fred's story, feel free to express your outrage to these individuals:

Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.

393 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

P: 202-224-6324

Toll Free: 866-802-2833

Fax:  202-228-0604

Secretary Janet Napolitano

Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Washington, D.C. 20528

202-282-8000

This family deserves the same rights as any other family who celebrate anniversaries, are raising children(or cats or dogs or birds or llamas, etc.), who drive in carpools, pay taxes, do mounds and mounds of laundry, clean up after sick babies and honor one another through marriage in sickness and in health!

I have now contained my anger, but the lid will not be placed back on this pot.  Oh no, it won't...