For Americans interested in Gay Rights, and marriage laws, Proposition 8 and developments around it are of ongoing importance. Attitudes to gay marriage vary around the world and many countries have a lot of catching up to do. At loveyoudivine we have a number of writers who are GLBT folk, (not just writing about it) making this an issue that we care about a great deal.

Below are a selection of thoughts offered by loveyoudivine authors, two of whom were involved in our To Love and To Cherish anthology.

A View from the North – by Jean Roberta, a contributor to To Love & To Cherish 

 The ridiculous Proposition 8, a bill that overturned a law that had already been passed in California to allow same-sex marriage in that state, has now been overturned on grounds that it is unconstitutional. (I’m sorry if this sentence is confusing, but the one-step-forward and two-steps-back progress of “gay rights” in the U.S. is hard to explain in simple terms!) Those of us who are watching from farther north would like “CA” (California) to join the other “CA” (Canada) in allowing all consenting adults (men, women, undecided or in-between) to have access to all the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage.

Why did Canada become the fourth nation in the world to allow same-sex marriage? The bill that proposed (pun intended) this option was passed into law in the Canadian Parliament on July 20, 2005. This bill was based on the Canadian Charter of Rights, part of a national constitution which became law in 1982, and which outlaws discrimination based on gender, among other things. Do you see where this leads? If men and women are defined as equals, then heterosexual marriage can’t be a master-and-slave arrangement – not legally, anyway.  And if it is a contract between equals, then no one could reasonably argue for a “notwithstanding” clause to prevent same-sex marriages. (The Conservative Party of Canada argued for this clause, but they were outshouted by smart lawyers. Ha.) 

So there is the key to progress: legal equality between women and men leads to legal equality for people of all sexual orientations. It’s as simple as that, at least under the law. 

My rant for the blog – David Sullivan (author of bisexual fiction)

As the author of a book on wisdom and common sense (Wisdom is the Answer, Common Sense is the Way, 2009 by RDR Publishers) I’d like to weigh in on the recent Federal Court ruling that struck down California’s marriage law being for only a man to a woman.

First: think back in history for other prejudicial laws. When one couldn’t marry outside of one’s race? When Asians couldn’t own property in California. It happened to friends of mine, one was American born but 100% Chinese.

Second: some people claim that they want to hold fast to the original idea of marriage: one man, one woman. Ok, but which “original” concept and in which country because they vary from culture to culture. And how far back to go, but let me recall some of the ‘old’ concepts. A man could buy a wife, or parents would pay for a man to marry a daughter. Wives were considered on a par with the livestock. A man could beat or force sex (rape) with his wife and was allowed to beat her with a stick as big as his thumb (the rule of thumb.) In some cultures a man could kill his wife for certain offenses.

Third: In my book I asked people to look deeply within their hearts. Do the beliefs they hold truly hold a valid truth or do readers believe certain things because they were taught that way and are afraid to speak against it. How would you feel if a rule or law was against something you believed in? Ask: Is it fair?

Finally, as a retired police officer I know the US Constitution calls for “equal protection under the law.” No exception for blacks, Italians, women, short people, gays, lesbians or bisexuals.

Those who fail to remember history….

Thoughts from To Love and To Cherish editor Lara Zielinsky

Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement;” ~ VAUGHN R WALKER, United States District Chief Judge, August 4, 2010

I was ecstatic that Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop 8 in California, particularly with his reasoning (stated above).

The writers of Sapphic Planet united to write our 14 stories in To Love and To Cherish because Prop 8 had taken away the rights given to LGBT couples in the 5 months from June to November 2008, and we needed to vent, to educate, and to share our inner passion about how beautiful, strong, and natural lesbian loving relationships are and how they deserve the rights of marriage.

Judge Walker saw the same reasoning in legal standards as we did in our hearts. Marriage — the desire to love and cherish and build a home and life with someone — is a civil right — and he required the immediate reinstatement of marriage to all California citizens, regardless of sexual identity or orientation.

Though the fight is not over — this thing still has a trip to the U.S. District 9 Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, I am very hopeful that the day is close at hand when marriage will be established as a civil right for ALL U.S. Citizens.

Sincerely,

Lara Zielinsky
co-editor, To Love and To Cherish
(2010; loveyoudivine)

At loveyoudivine we know that ‘equality’ means everyone. It doesn’t mean equal rights only for people you happen to like and feel comfortable about. It doesn’t mean accepting prejudices rooted in ancient religious laws. Diversity is a good thing, and we celebrate humanity in all its complexity. We hope for a brighter, more tolerant future.

Bryn: What brought you to loveyoudivine?

Lara: I am one half of the editing/conception team that developed the “To Love and To Cherish” project. Beth Wylde is my partner in this. We brainstormed that we wanted to do something to support the marriage equality fight after the devastating passage of Prop 8 in California. We wanted to raise money. We came up with the idea of writing stories that celebrated women loving women and putting it together in a collection to sell and raise the money. We needed a publisher.

Beth had just worked with Claudia at loveyoudivine on a story in the new FemErotica division and so approached her on lyd’s possible interest in publishing the eventual collection. Claudia loved the idea and so To Love and To Cherish was born, and that’s how I came to loveyoudivine. Previously I’ve been published by PD Publishing, Torquere Press, and Logical Lust Publications.

I’ve done a lot of the promo copy for To Love and To Cherish including the back cover blurb, and the cover art is my art. I also did all the final edit checks on all the stories before they went to Claudia for typsetting/formatting.

I am a writer first and foremost so I do have a story titled “Traditional Values” in the collection, which will be in the very first e-book mini-collection “Volume 1: On Bended Knee” being released Jan. 29, 2010. And, though it wasn’t planned this way, it will lead off the entire collection. It’s a “sweet romance” level featuring a long-term dating couple. One asks the other the marriage question on Valentine’s Day.

Bryn: Do you write contemporary settings, or do you like to wander into other places?

Lara: My published work is all contemporary settings. I have several historicals set in other times that I haven’t quite finished yet. I really enjoy historicals as a reader and writing them too, but the contemporary setting stories seem to finish up a bit quicker. LOL.

Bryn: There’s a distinct advantage to not needing to do so much research! Do you have any preferred approaches for that with the historical stuff? Do you read around and write what you find, or think of situations and then hunt down the details?

Lara: I don’t mind research. I enjoy much of it. What tends to happen that siderails a project is that I lose the character “voice”; they stop “talking” to me, or their voice begins to sound too “modern” and I know it’s wrong, but I can’t focus right then — something in real life is usually a distraction — and I am delayed getting back to it, so finding the voice again becomes increasingly harder.

One of my favorite methods of research though is newspapers, movies, and books published in the time period in question. There’s nothing better at getting accurate “voice” than that, also there’s the esoteric setting things that are different from today’s world.

Bryn: How do you feel about trying to capture accents (thinking of voices)? Does that work for you on paper or would you rather just hear it in your head?

Lara: I try to stay away from extended dialect in my dialogue. Yes, dialect is dropping h’s, and g’s and contracting words, but something I learned in language classes. People with different backgrounds linguistically (parentage; region) actually construct their sentences differently. That conveys dialect very effectively without the constant need for my apostrophe key. I wish more writers were aware of that actually. Most I read have a poor grasp of how people really speak, or they all sound the same — like lazy speech overexcited 17 year olds, something I hear quite a lot every day as a substitute teacher.

Bryn: I agree wholeheartedly with that! Dialect words and phrasing are for more important, and a lot more readable. There’s also the issue of what constitutes ‘normal’ as well – that can get very politically charged.

Lara: Politically charged yes, but also misinterpreted. When you want to have a character with a particular mien, it’s an important thing to think about readers’ natural inclinations of classifying people by speech, income, etc. They do the same to characters, and it is always shaded by the readers’ personal experiences, which can be unknown, but which can be utilized to aid in giving characters depth if you can trigger the right impressions/reactions.

Bryn: So, what are you working on at the moment? Anything in the pipeline?

Lara: I was just invited to submit another short story to a publication planned for late 2010. I have a couple other short stories roughly drafted in the bisexual/lesbian romance and erotica categories.

The launch of To Love and To Cherish and the release of Turn for Home are keeping the editor/promoter side of me really busy, as is keeping up with scheduling guests and topics for my radio show Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women’s Fiction.

But I have found time to work on another novel. This time it’s more of a mystery with romantic tension than a purer romance plot. And while there’s a sexuality bent to my characters, it’s not about sexuality or sexual attraction. Deputy Kennedy McMasters (my heroine) isn’t interested in falling in love. She’s interested in finding the killer of her father’s best friend.

She’s a Sheriff’s Deputy in a rural Florida community (like the place where I grew up) and the case is complicated by the entanglements of a community that close-knit… where some people think they can be a law unto themselves.

I’ve had Kennedy’s story percolating in my mind for the last couple of years. Within the last few months though I’ve been getting the scenes onto the page, and have about 30,000 words of what eventually should be a novel of 80-90K words.

Real Life being the interfering thing that it can be at times for a writer, I’m going through a sort of rough patch right now. I do keep aiming to finish my draft by the end of March 2010. Then the really good work begins: editing. A half a dozen passes later, probably somewhere in late 2010, I hope to be sending it to publishers.

Bryn: Where else can readers find you online?

Lara: hank you for letting me share my thoughts! My website is http://www.lzfiction.net

My blog is linked from there, or direct at http://lzstuff.blogspot.com

Friend/Follow me on Facebook or Twitter (search “larazielinsky” on all three)

Add me on MySpace (larazielinsky) And subscribe via RSS or iTunes to my bi-weekly radio show: “Readings in Lesbian & Bisexual Women’s Fiction” http://blogtalkradio.com/Lara-Zielinsky