Those of us on the NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights) mailing list got a note from Executive Director Kate Kendall last night. Here’s the start of it, and I urge you to click over and read the rest of it at her blog.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
In the past five years, I’ve become more familiar than I would have liked with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief. In that time, both of my parents and my baby brother died, all too young—and in the case of my 40-year-old brother, completely unexpectedly. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever really made it to acceptance; rather, I seem to be in a permanent state of resignation.
On the evening of November 4, right around the time it was becoming November 5, I felt the wash of grief all over again. It felt much like when my family members died: many others around my world are going on with their lives—in this case many of them ecstatic over the election of Barack Obama—yet I, and in this case my No on Prop 8 family, are shell-shocked at the passage of this unprecedented assault on the California constitution and the rights of the LGBT community in California.
Over the past two weeks since the passage of Prop 8, and similar constitutional amendments in Florida and Arizona, and an anti-adoption and foster care amendment in Arkansas, our community has gone through a modified version of the five stages: Shock, Anger, Blame, Action, Resolve.
Read the rest of Kate’s post at her blog…