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Walking to work I saw paper after paper, national and local, touting the good news that gay marriage is now officially legal in California. The historic coupling of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin was San Francisco’s first to be married after being together for over 50 years… honestly it brought tears to my eyes. Not just because it’s gay marriage but because – well, it’s just ludicrous. What gives anybody the right to deny people who love each other the rights and privileges that everybody else has. Whether people should get all those rights and privileges for registering their love with the government is a discussion for another day. For today it’s just so sweet to see photos of couples who are finally getting to do what straight people have done and done again for years.
But, as with many political situations, this issue runs deeper than local… there are people all over the world engaged in this same struggle for rights and we have many battles to wage before we can call it a day.
Many links later I read this article and it reminded me how far we have to go. This story is upsetting in so many ways and representative of the varied fights we have to fight and the difficult struggles the LGBT community has ahead of us:
Photo by: Jorge Saenz * News source [Yahoo]
ASUNCION, Paraguay - A couple jailed on suspicion of having a same-sex wedding was freed Monday after a doctor determined that the groom is a hermaphrodite. Prosecutor Jose Planas ordered the couple jailed after their civil wedding Friday, when the priest scheduled to perform the religious ceremony the following day said he received a call saying the groom, Jesus Alejandro Martinez, was actually a woman.
Same-sex marriages are illegal in Paraguay, and news of the arrest became the talk of the nation.
Planas had threatened Martinez with five years in prison for falsification of documents, and said he could charge the bride, Blanca Estigarribia, with complicity.
But the couple was released Monday. A doctor who inspected Martinez in jail ruled that he is a hermaphrodite, with atrophied female genitals and well-developed male genitals, according to the couple’s lawyer, Jorge Cantero.
“Conclusion: He is a man,” Cantero said.
He also said the document in the name of Jesus Alejandro Martinez is legitimate, meaning the forgery charges wouldn’t have held up.
“So this case goes into the archives,” he said. “It will remain as an anecdote for the media and a bad experience for my clients.”
Martinez, who has some feminine traits, said he suspected an ex-girlfriend made the accusation to the priest.
“I always felt like a man, with no feminine inclination,” he said.
Martinez said the couple would continue to live along the border near the Argentine city of Clorinda — “where everybody knows us and loves us.”
And the beat goes on….
