40 Ways in 40 Days: Remembering the Survivors of Katrina (Day 25)

[Plaid Adder]

Day 25, Way 25

Today is the We Are Family edition. Whilst visiting The Advocate's website in search of a piece I had found about gays and lesbians doing Katrina relief, I learned that Massachusetts' state supreme court has ruled that same-sex couples from states that have laws banning same-sex marriage cannot be married in Massachusetts. This does not surprise me, since we had looked into this long ago and discovered the existence of a statute which would seem to forbid it, but it's still depressing. So to anyone who was thinking about ever asking me, "So are you guys going to get married in Massachusetts?" here's the answer:

No.

However, the mere fact that we are excluded from connubial felicity doesn't mean that we can't sympathize with the plight of American Families(TM) displaced by hurricane Katrina. A gay couple in California started up UrbanDwellRelief in September 2005, with the objective of helping relocating Katrina survivors find new permanent housing. Unless they're only posting about a fraction of what they've done so far, they appear to be working on a fairly small scale, but again, the payoff with that is that you know you're making a difference. They have a lot of other families waiting for help, so you can join up and sponsor a family for a month or, if you don't have that kind of money, you can donate goods and services as well.

If you want to take this "adopt-a-family" thing farther, you might want to check out Family-To-Family, an organization based, apparently, in Westchester County, NY. F-T-F appears to be primarily made up of American Families(TM)--you know, with the one man and the one woman and the children made like God meant them to be, and such. Still, there's nothing on the site that indicates that they would turn up their noses at a differently-configured one. So I'm profiling them too cause, you know, it's not like I'm bitter or anything.

The basic idea is for an affluent family to adopt a struggling family and help out with day-to-day necessities, groceries, and such while hopefully forming a bond across the class divide. They have set up a special program for people who want to adopt Katrina survivors. I have some reservations about the whole "adopting the underprivileged" thing, since the one time my family tried this out it nearly ended in tragedy. When people who have always had plenty try to get involved in the lives of people who've never had enough, there are a great many opportunities for misunderstanding. It takes a lot of intelligence, humility, and sensitivity to do this kind of thing in a useful and mutually beneficial way, but if you think you've got the right stuff and this idea appeals to you, by all means sign yourself up.

OK, can I just say that The Advocate has the slowest goddamn website EVER? I've waited this whole entry just so I could get to the original version of this one article and the damn thing is STILL processing my request. You know what, to hell with it. Here it is on LookSmart. It profiles UrbanDwellRelief as well as a number of other GBLT individuals, couples, families, and groups who decided to get up and go help in the months after the storm. Props to my peeps.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder