I love my mother and I'm not ashamed to say it out loud. She raised my two sisters and me by herself for the majority of our young lives. It wasn't an easy job and at times we weren't certain there was enough food in the house to feed three growing kids. This growing boy had no problem devouring a full chicken if given the chance and that made things especially difficult on my mother on a fixed income. I was nicknamed the "bottomless pit" and it appeared I could never satisfy my hunger. The most affordable meal my mother could make was a dish called bone soup. It was never the same soup twice, but it always contained bits of ham, vegetables and a ham bone. This soup was guaranteed to keep even me satiated for a while. Back in those days we ate a lot of bone soup. Now as middle-aged adults, anytime my mother mentions the words "bone soup," it evokes a series of rolled eyes, snarls and groans by my siblings and myself.
As with any good parent, my mother had to make tough decisions based on short-term necessities and long-term outcomes. Honestly, bone soup wasn't the most delicious meal ever created in my mother's kitchen but it was a meal of convenience. In our little minds it seemed like culinary torture. We saw ourselves being strapped to our chairs and this having this vegetable and ham concoction being lovingly poured the down our throats. This was naturally an exaggeration but as a kid, everything appeared to be worse than it actually was. We kids didn't really understand the reasons why we ate so much soup, or how dire things actually were for our family at that moment in our lives. It may have not been the food we wanted, but to my mother, it was nourishment for our bodies and we never went to bed hungry.
Like my mother, our nation's nine parental units made a series of tough decisions based on long-term outcomes for (We the People) all. The justices serve up a healthy portion of civil equality for everyone to digest. Some people will complain about having been forcibly fed this meal, while others will swallow and move on with their lives knowing that their well being matters. One Texas pastor even threatened personal harm to himself in defiance of the ruling by setting himself on fire if it passed. To date, the pastor has yet to cook his own goose. At least now all loving and committed same-sex couples can rejoice in tandem of this "meal" of basic civil rights that was previously only served to those of heterosexism.
We hunger for justice and this high court decision about gay marriage wasn't just spontaneously cooked up overnight. The justices carefully and purposely assembled the ingredients letting them stew and simmer allowing a waft of potential hope to escape. In 2013, with the striking down of portions of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), this cleared the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California and created a sense of optimism for the future in other states with similar cases pending.
In Portland, Oregon a city known for its' food carts and local cuisine, this foodie city is also privileged to a community full of amazing equity chefs leading some wonderful organizations (Basic Rights Oregon, Equality Federation, Equity Foundation and Human Rights Campaign) that helped shape and pave the way for marriage equality to take place throughout the state of Oregon. Overall, the struggle for tolerance and acceptance continues to grow and with marriage equality now law, its time for those with opposing views to move forward and move on.
We all deserve to be happy in life. How we arrive at that point solely depends on what we can learn from the journey.
Bon appétit!