Oklahomo?

evenflow · Jan 17, 2014

I'm pretty country and I like San Francisco, I think I would like Austin.

But lets not get too carried away responding to a fake persona supposedly from Arkansas.

shootER · Jan 17, 2014

Houston, we've got a marriage.

Mayor Parker Weds Long-time Partner

Mayor Annise Parker and her long-time partner, First Lady Kathy Hubbard, were joined in marriage today in a sunset ceremony held at a private home in Palm Springs, California. A small gathering of family and friends, including the mayor’s mother and Ms. Hubbard’s sister, were on hand for the exchange of vows, which were presided over by the Reverend Paul Fromberg, a family friend from San Francisco. Two other close friends from Houston, Judge Steve Kirkland and Mr. Mark Parthie, served as the attendants and formal witnesses. Mayor Parker and the First Lady selected January 16th for their wedding because it marks the 23rd anniversary of the start of their lives together.

“This is a very happy day for us,” said Mayor Parker. “We have had to wait a very long time to formalize our commitment to each other. Kathy has been by my side for more than two decades, helping to raise a family, nurture my political career and all of the other ups and down and life events that come with a committed relationship. She is the love of my life and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life married to her.”

Ms. Hubbard has other insurance options available to her and will, therefore, not participate in the new policy granting city health insurance benefits to the spouses of legally-married city employees.

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shootER · Jan 17, 2014

Oklahoma Comes to Grips With Gay Marriage
My high school coach's rallying cry is now unconstitutional
By Baxter Holmes on January 17, 2014

Marriage, Coach would say, is between a man and a woman. Anything else tarnishes the sanctity of that perfect and holy union.

He carried on like a victorious lawyer every time he delivered that line, which back in 2004, when Oklahoma passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, was quite often. I was a high school senior then, an average shooting guard on his team.

He had never said much on the subject before that point, but after, it became his go-to to fill gaps in conversations, or to steer them toward his liking. Sometimes, he’d tell players in groups, sometimes one-on-one. And sometimes, it seemed like he’d say it just to himself, a small-town basketball coach, potbellied with an Oklahoma accent, horseshoe mustache and a pinch of tobacco always tucked behind his cheek.

You knew he feared that one day, he’d see two men together, walking down the street, hand in hand, married, and it would be not just legal, but common – worse yet, normal.

It became an issue on our team, but no one spoke out against Coach, because doing so meant being different, probably gay, even if you were just being human. Some might have disagreed -- I know I did -- but anyone who did knew to keep their mouth shut.

Then one day after practice, when Coach started preaching again in the locker room, my younger brother, then a freshman guard, cut him off. ‘Why is it such a big deal? They have rights! They’re people too!” The room fell quiet as midnight.

Coach looked away, muttered something, then left. Several players glared at my brother, discarding him from us, casting him among the loathsome “them.”

I was proud and jealous of his courage, but, as the tense moment hung there, I feared a fight, players swinging on him if only to reinforce their own heterosexuality. No one did, thankfully.

Later, I told my brother that he was right, that what he did was right, but that it wasn’t worth it to tell the others that they were wrong. They’ll never change, I said. It's not in them to change.

This week, a federal judge in Tulsa struck down Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage, deeming it unconstitutional. The state's most stubborn will appeal until their dying breath.

Oklahoma is filled with small towns like the one where I was raised, and here’s the thing about small towns: their isolation insulates their beliefs. The way things are is the way they were and will probably always be, so long as the town hangs onto its boys so that they can one day run their father’s farms, to its girls so that they can one day marry and give birth to a houseful of the town's future. It’s the cycle that so many follow, because to leave is to be…different.

But in Oklahoma, the prevailing beliefs — the ones that extend from its small towns to its biggest cities — are driven by the church, as is expected in the Bible Belt. Generations have long believed that two men or two women cannot be joined in holy matrimony because there’s nothing holy about that. They believe it to be sin, even if that’s not exactly what the good book says. There’s a homophobic layer stitched into the fabric of that belief, one that led to an effeminate grade school classmate being bullied so much that I worried he’d one day kill himself.

In Oklahoma, people cling to what’s dearest, as there always seems to be a very real fear that anything they care about will be ripped from their arms. I respect that fear. Oklahoma is a place where the sky always threatens to unleash its most horrible monsters, like that EF5 tornado last May that churned at nearly 300 mph and was wider than Manhattan.

Despite a federal judge's ruling, those beliefs may live on. Oklahoma is, first and foremost, a place of survival. The United States government once considered it the most unlivable plot of land it had yet discovered, which is why they once banished the Native Americans there – mostly to die. It’s hard to live there, weather notwithstanding. Much has changed, of course. I spent three days in Oklahoma City recently and was shocked at how much it has grown in recent years, thanks in large part to its flourishing NBA team, the Thunder. (A recent documentary described the impact as the “Thunder Boom,” a fitting title.)

I moved away from Oklahoma one month after graduating from college there. I now live outside Boston, in the state that was the first in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. My younger brother, who left the state just as quickly, lives in Brooklyn, as progressive a neighborhood as there is in the country. To this day, we proudly call ourselves Oklahomans. It’s forever home, even if our hearts break at how unwilling it is to accept change. I bet Coach is struggling with that this week. I imagine him muttering to himself, clinging tight to what's dearest and afraid.
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Elwood · Jan 17, 2014

What was the humorous anecdote I saw the other day? "I'm sorry if my same-sex marriage defiles your fourth marriage..."

Aenea · Jan 17, 2014

shootER said: ↑

Aenea said: ↑

I've never heard in that way. I always hear about food and music.

Funny thing is Texas Univ. is in Austin, but I never associate football with the town like I do Stillwater or Norman.
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That's because there are things in town besides the university.

Seriously, the only place in Texas that seems to be defined by its university is Bryan-College Station (the school is literally older than the town where it's located). I've not been to a city in this state where the local university was so pervasive throughout the community.

Even Lubbock, which is in the middle of nowhere, doesn't seem to be as consumed by Texas Tech as B/CS is by the cult on the Brazos river.
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True.

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Oklahomo?

evenflow Lofty Administrator

shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

Elwood I know what I'm about, son.

Aenea .

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Oklahomo?

evenflow Lofty Administrator

shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

Elwood I know what I'm about, son.

Aenea .

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