Dear Senator Kerry,
I am very grateful for your victories and am praying for your swift and graceful transformation from Senator to President of the United States. I heard you speak in San Francisco last year, when you were embarking on your campaign trail. I found you to be an eloquent and sincere man. We spoke briefly at the reception about your support and dedication to the HRC. You were received with much applause and relief. I especially appreciate the valiant efforts you made to assure blue collar workers and unions that under your administration, their rights would be upheld.
My grandfather was a labor union leader. He experienced great persecution during his life, much of which was spent in exile. Workers’ rights were not popular with the governing party at the time. Fortunately for South Koreans, the times changed dramatically, and my beloved grandfather went from the caves of the mountainous regions of my parent’s homeland to an office in the cabinet of the newly elected President of Korea, where he spent the rest of his life fighting to keep improving conditions for the working class in a country that was experiencing change too quickly. He struggled to stay alive in order to see my face when I was born. When he did, he was overjoyed, and died happily, somehow knowing that his message would be carried on, perhaps not in his country, but possibly throughout the world. My memories of him are blurry at best, but his legacy lives on, and I see him in you.
I could have sworn that you said that if elected, you were going to make same sex marriage a reality. Since then, there has been somewhat of a change in the direction of your attitude toward this incredibly important issue. Perhaps I heard you wrong. I was also trying to listen with an optimism that sometimes lends itself to a kind of selective understanding. Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart. I am aware of your support of civil unions, but you also know, this is a compromise. It doesn’t give equal rights, nor is it enough to placate the GLBT community any longer. Even in your home state, the courts are challenging the ban on same sex marriage, and they were the first to do so. Although Gavin Newsom beat everyone to the punch, Massachusetts had a huge impact on the issue. They started the fight. Bostonians are rebels by nature, as evidenced by that old tea party.
I support your candidacy. I want to see you in the Oval Office. I think that Teresa Heinz Kerry would be a fantastic First Lady. She is charismatic, eloquent and fiery. I believe you would get this country out of the spider hole we have been stuck in for the last four years. However, I plead you reconsider your stance on same-sex marriage. I know that for political reasons, you will continue to smoothly change the subject, one talent that you are particularly masterful at, as evidenced by watching the democratic debates these past several weeks. You don’t wish to alienate – or rather inflame the inherent bigotry and prejudice held by the other underdogs, the workers, the voters who don’t live in the big cities, the people who distrust the current administration, but whose personal values unfortunately include homophobic tendencies. My take on it is that they would rather see a president who will ensure their financial future and create jobs than escalate wars with money earmarked for social programs and affordable health care.
Your newly won constituency, former republicans and Bush supporters, are so desperate for change, that they just might step up their tolerance. Ignorance is the only thing that stands between us and them. If we abolish stupidity, we are left as simply, we. We the people. Even the Terminator has changed his mind, or at least softened his stance on same sex marriage, saying that if the courts and the lawmakers decide that the ban should be lifted, that it would be fine with him.
Senator Kerry, you were the lone voice against the Defense of Marriage Act, which was brave. Your courage is renown, not only as a decorated war hero, but also as a war protestor. Will you be our hero? You even got Coldplay name checking you!
Best of everything,
Margaret Cho