Video: Ed Watson and Derence Kernek explain why the Prop 8 ruling shouldn't have to wait
These people are the reason we're doing this work.
Ed and Derence, of Palm Springs, CA, are a couple who submitted their story to Courage Campaign's call for stories in the wake of the California Supreme Court's decision to accept the question regarding the issue of standing in the Proposition 8 case -- just to decide whether or not they're going to rule on the issue! -- and then announce that they're going to drag this decision out for six months-plus. Our field staff drove for several hours out to the desert last week to get their story on video because these are the human faces of what happens while the California Supreme Court insists on taking six months just to hear oral arguments, and more to issue a decision.
If you'll permit me, a personal story that I keep thinking about when I watch their video.
My grandma, may she rest in peace, had Alzheimer's like Ed does. She started to forget a lot of things, like Ed will. But she was blessed to have already married my grandpa and experienced the wonderful day that is her wedding day. I even remember talking with her once and because of her condition, she could not remember what my response was when she asked me what my summer plans were 10 minutes prior, but when I asked her where she held her wedding and who came, she could tell me every single detail like it was yesterday. Maybe it's just the nature of the condition, but I think it was a little bit because it was one of the happiest days in her life. I always remember that.
Because of the Court's refusal this week to shorten time in the case, and because Ed is gay, he might not get to experience that ever in his life. He might not even recognize Derence if Derence goes down on one knee. And that's not fair.
Ed and Derence joined with Courage to pen an open letter to the 9th Circuit asking them to lift the stay. If the California Supreme Court is going to take this long, they should have the chance to wed. You can read it here.
Please sign their open letter. Then share with friends and family. Let's make sure the nation knows about Ed and Derence. Let's put their faces on TV, on Facebook, everywhere. These people are invisible until we shine a light on them.
Disclosure: I am proud to work for the Courage Campaign as Director of Online Programs.
. . . these two men have stuck by one another, cherished and respected one another
how pathetic must one be to interfere with their shared pursuit of comfort and peace?
with all the nuttiness and hate that we cover, but this one got me in the gut and made me teary.
at my youth and the dysfunctional behavior that was driven into my memories, I say I'm proud to have signed on.
"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master." - Hunter S. Thompson
I know what you mean - I just wanted to hug both of them - one of the sweetest things I've ever seen.
I lost my mom to Alzheimer's January 3rd of this year. She was very young when she was diagnosed and it progressed very rapidly. A horrible horrible disease. I can relate to these two gentlemen. She had plans after her retirement. Part of the plan was not to go into a nursing home just three years after her retirement. But yet she was very lucky. She was able to marry her high school sweetheart and stayed married to him (dad died at 60 from diabetes 13 years before). Marriage is a sacred vow, Everyone deserves to be happy. I don't care if you are man and woman, white and black (that was once illegal too), Christian and Jew.
This has nothing to do with what Jesus said, it's pure hate towards homosexuals on the religious and and economics on the political end(companies will have to pay a gay spouse health insurance).
Final point. They've been together for forty years, great for them. How many hetero couples can say that.
I hope this law is changed before Ed no longer remembers Derence.
Still missing you Joe and Bea.
is intended to be a factual statement
My mother also had Alzheimer's disease. If it wasn't for lung cancer it would have ravaged her
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Put this story on as many TV screens as possible.
That said, they may want to go somewhere else and get married while there's still time.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Meanwhile, the Newt Gingrich-David Vitter- John Ensign crowd is pronouncing themselves the 'protectors of marriage'. It's unreal.
I wished them all the besr on UTube, where they can read it themselves.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
I have spoken ad nauseam about how it would behoove my fellow LGBTQ Americans to start supporting disability rights issues. There are many potential allies in PWD communities, because we are often just as excluded from marriage as many LGBTQ people are and many of us are also LGBTQ. I've been with my partner for 10 years, but we can't marry because of the combination of laws and policies pertaining to health care and marriage.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
Disclosure: I am proud to work for the Courage Campaign as Director of Online Programs.
And I am proud of you for doing so. Thank you.
We're not going to get very far if you keep injecting logic into the conversation!
I don't know if it's okay to discuss this, but in case Derence and Ed see this:
Aside from whatever therapy the doctor has him on for his Alzheimer's - two very benign strategies have nearly reversed my mother-in-law's moderately advanced Alzheimer's - rather dramatically. There is virtually no evidence of her alzheimer's at this point. Her husband is a physician BTW - he was Assistant Dean and Acting Dean at the Loyola Medical University Hospital in Maywood, Illinois.
She started supplementing with vitamin D3 and Vitamin K. VD3 is now known to be a powerful steroid hormone and VK is also known to act more as a hormone than a vitamin. In Japan you can get VK as a prescription. On Vitamin D3, "The Real Story on VD":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeg-5NDyJ84
Nearly every cell in the body has VD3 receptors and a little research on the brain and VD3 will quickly show how critical it is to brain function. It must be VD3 (not VD2) and since VD stores in the fat layers - people who weigh more need more for it to be effective. No pills - gel tabs as VD3 is fat soluble. My 300 lb brother was taking 20,000 IU a day and his blood serum numbers were still too low. But it's easy to check with a blood test and water is more toxic than VD3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oc2Od7Yytk
The Vitamin K is of equal or greater importance. Vitamin K regulates calcium. It takes it from where it does NOT belong (brain and arteries) and puts it where it does (bones and teeth.) There is great promise for VK to treat Alzheimer's. The recommended dose my doctor has me on for my heart is 1,000 mcg. (much lower than suggested in the following article - they now know a little bit does almost as much as more) On VK:
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2000/feb00-rep...
It is hard to track down the right VK supplement and VK is complicated - but this is the one we buy:
http://www.vitacost.com/NSI-Vitamin-K-Complex...
Two non-profit VD3 resource agencies:
www.vitamindcouncil.org ...and
www.grassrootshealth.net
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Age is also a factor in dosage for VD3. The elderly are the age group at greatest risk for VD3 deficiency because as we age we start to lose our ability to synthesize it - they often need more than younger people.
Also - it is very important to pay attention the the VD3 co-factors - especially Magnesium. These are listed on the main page over at the Vitamin D Council (link above). When people begin to optimize their VD3 blood serum levels it often exposes an underlying magnesium deficiency which manifests as muscle cramps. Let me emphasize that a GOOD magnesium (chelated) is essential as most forms in supplements have little to no bio-availability.
Cardiologist Dr. William Davis writes an award-winning Heart scan blog. He has a post that discusses good magnesium supplementation:
http://www.heartscanblog.org/2010/08/homegrow...
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Best of luck to them both - I wish them well. And I wish them MARRIED.
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