"There is difference and there is power. And who holds the power decides the meaning of the difference." --June Jordan

Friday, May 23, 2008

One more thought on gay marriage:

In somewhat related news, a wonderful man I used to work with lost a long battle with cancer this week, and his obituary was printed today. It said that he was survived by his "long-time friend", when what it really should have said was that he was survived by his partner of nearly forty years. A man with whom he lived and shared his life. A man he possibly would have been married to, if they had had the legal right.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's fucking horrible. Some people have no decency. Who wrote the obit? Family?

Tracey said...

I'm really not sure who wrote it, but I also wondered if it might be a family member. His dog got a mention in the obit as well, which was cute since he absolutely adored his dog. The "friend" thing just felt like a slap in the face, though. I can't imagine that it's what he would have wanted that to say.

Anonymous said...

I can only assume that it was family . . . I imagine that a newspaper would take a pretty large amount of heat for specifically changing it to "friend" when they were told "partner." I suppose that there are some fairly unethical papers out there, but family strikes me as more likely. I think that family usually writes the obituary.

Queers United said...

much of the older generation still uses that lingo
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com

Tracey said...

QU: That could be the reason it was written that way, then. This man was in his mid to late sixties...

Thanks for commenting. I hadn't heard of your blog before, but I'll check it out!