Matthew Davis Fox

An Open Letter on Same-Sex Marriage
As anyone who has read these pages for a while knows well, marriage equality is an issue of deep importance to me. With all the other potential good news about the upcoming election, I’ve been saddened to read that Proposition 8, in California, which would amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage, seems likely to pass. I wanted to fly out to California and be part of the campaign to oppose the amendment, but I just couldn’t make it work. So I’ve been doing what I can from a distance. Part of which, has involved making a personal appeal to my family and family friends in that state.

For the most part, I try to keep politics out of my relationships with friends and family. I know there are people I love who I disagree with, and while debating is fun, I mostly try and not make political appeals to family or close friends. But this upcoming vote on Proposition 8 in California- it just feels like something I have to reach out on. Partially as someone who just got married myself, partially because I know so many dear friends who are personally effected by this- and just because it just seems so wrong to set barriers on who can love each other based on gender, and whose love the state will recognize as valid.

Last night, I sent an open letter by email to a number of my California resident family and friends, people who I wasn’t already sure how they would vote, people who had been invited to my wedding and either attended or sent their blessings and best wishes. I asked them, in that spirit of support for my own marriage, to support access to marriage for all.

It’s not my best piece of advocacy. Far from it- somehow the personal nature of writing this made it all the harder to find the right words, and I’m still far from satisfied. But I wanted to send it, and to post it here.

( My open letter to my California family and friends )

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