And this from Allison Cobb:



kari: thank you so much for this powerful call to action. i agree with everything you say. even if the bush call for a constitutional amendment is a cynical bid to pander to his far-right constituency that he doesn't believe will actually pass (something i have read), the move is sickening. one positive is the spreading of the potential backlash beyond san francisco. i am now in my home state of new mexico, helping care for my mother, who has the industrial society disease of breast cancer. anyway, just as i arrived, two dozen queer couples were receiving marriage licenses in a place outside albuquerque called sandoval county. the state has since stopped the practice and invalidated the licenses, but the fight is now on. new mexico's laws don't place any gender specifications on marriage licenses, so, unlike 38 other states, they don't specifically prohibit "same sex" marriages. new york is the same. when i gt back, jen and i are going to go apply for a marriage license. maybe, as with new mexico, some clerk will be moved to sympathy by bushie's intolerance and open up the issue there as well by granting us a license. this is no kristallnacht, but, like the activists who opposed the separate but equal doctrine, we will need to fight this one with our bodies, by just placing ourselves in front of the law and demanding recognition. these kinds of fights are why i find it difficult to contemplate leaving the u.s. so much is bad here, it seems there's a lot of work to be done. anyway, thanks for your passion and intellect on this. lv allison