If you want the word so badly... then just take it. Leave me the rest.

After a long and well-deserved vacation to Yellowstone this week with my father, I come back to write to you all after too long away from the computer. I know you missed me. PJ did, since he asked me to write another blog entry tonight and catch up. So, I pick up where I left off.

So much happened while I was gone. The 9/11 anniversary, fires near home and afar, awful soundbites from 2010 electoral candidates, the list goes on. While driving through the mountains of Yellowstone, I was struck by the awe and beauty of the majestic mountains and endless forests, and actually had an epiphany.

Are you ready for my big and amazing epiphany? Here it is. I DON'T CARE about being granted the word marriage. I keep watching these shows and news segments about the other side saying that "we need to protect the sanctity of marriage" and that "the definition of marriage is defined as that between a man and a woman." So, I have figured out the solution to this. Give them 'the word'. That's what they want.

The divorce rate in this country is ironically the same percentage as Obama's disapproval rating. And everyday people get divorced, re-married, and divorced again. It's ironic: I am openly gay and could marry any girl on the street in an instant, JUST FOR FUN. No joke, I could do it. Then divorce her the next day and have a big laugh about once being a married straight man.

But for me to look at the one I love and just try to get basic rights, well, tough SHIT. That complete stranger I married? I could divorce her the next day and no one would bat an eye. In fact, it happens every day in Vegas. People marry, then divorce the next day cause they sober up and realize they already have a wife or husband back home. Wasn't that a Friends episode?

The opposing side wants to protect the WORD 'marriage' from being redefined. So keep it. Keep your word. Give me a civil union or domestic partnership or 'roommates for life' or whatever the hell title you want. Just let me have some basic rights you take for granted. BIG time.

Let me and my 'roommate' file for taxes together. Let us be able to raise a couple of heterosexual (or homosexual, cause who am I to judge) kids to make this world a better place. Let us live in the same country and in the same house and in no way whatsoever affect your marriage down the block from our house. And if God forbid something should happen, let us visit each other in the hospital.

And on that note, I dedicate this blog to Clay Greene of Guerneville, California. Just this year, Mr. Greene, 78, was denied admittance into the emergency room to give his last respects to his dying partner. Not only did he not get to say goodbye in person to his lifelong love, he was afterwards forced into a nursing home by social workers, who sold off most of his personal property without his consent. Despite medical declarations, powers of attorney and signed wills that named each other as spouses, Clay Greene lost everything he had, just for taking his partner to the hospital.

Welcome to America. Where I can marry and divorce a girl in the same day just for shits and giggles, but can't say goodbye to a lifetime partner because "I didn't fill out the right form." I guess it still pays to be straight. Or at least pretend to be.