Uphill Battles: Background and Updates

I recently started walking home, which requires quite a bit of uphill walking. As I was huffing & puffing along, I realized that I am seriously out of shape. So, I’ve resolved to fight my way up some of San Francisco’s hills. But that’s not the only uphill battle I am involved in: I recently joined the board of directors at the Alternatives to Marriage Project, the only national nonprofit working to end discrimination due to marital and/or relationship status.

With the California Supreme court decision on Prop 8, the focus is back on same-sex marriage. Why marriage, though? Why not fight for equality for all and really mean all, you know, like everybody, not just people who are married?

Marriage, even same-sex marriage, creates a bright red dividing line between married and unmarried. This line comes with a lot of social and financial implications: Singles are viewed as immature and selfish; not quite adults yet. Married folks receive benefits and rights through more than 1,130 federal laws that unmarried folks don’t get. Same-sex marriage would still leave people who don’t want to (or can’t) get married out in the rain. People who have wonderful relationships with friends and relatives but are just not married, for whatever reason.

Making the case for equality for all is an uphill battle. Valuing all people independent of their relationship status requires a paradigm shift – instead of assuming that people in romantic relationships should get more rights and privileges, we have to ask what society should provide for all people. For example, instead of making a widow dependent on her husband’s Social Security benefits, a minimum pension for everybody would be more equitable to all. There are many, many more examples like that. If this piques your interest please let me know and I’d be happy to tell you more about it.

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This page will keep you updated on my uphill battles:

  • To get myself into shape, I’m pledging to walk home at least once a week for eight weeks this summer, taking the route with three major hills.
  • To build AtMP’s capacity for policy analysis and outreach, I’m pledging to raise $1,000.

You can help me with both by matching my ’24 hill pledge’ with a contribution to the Alternative to Marriage Project. For example, a one-time gift of $80 would match my pledge at a rate of $10 per walk; $120 would match me at $5 per hill; or come up with your own variation. If you’re as excited as I am to find the one national organization that fights for equality for all and really means “all,” I hope you’ll pledge ongoing support for AtMP at the rate of $10 or more per month no matter how many hills I climb.

You can find my weekly updates on my progress and some updates on the battles AtMP fights on this page.

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List of Updates (see intros below or follow the links to read the whole post):

This page utilizes Rutz’s CompositePost Plugin, which allows you to create a blog within a blog and enables usage of the more tag. And I am using this trick to exclude the categories on this page from my front page.