Another Reason Why Today Is So Important To Me

One of my best friends in the world is TS, who was my roommate from my Seattle days. He left for Los Angeles around the same time I left to go back to Chicago in 2000. The hard part about leaving Seattle when I did was getting used to not seeing him everyday. I meet very few people in my life that really "get" me, and he was one of the main ones of my early adulthood.

He is also the reason, because he was the leader of a band in the Seattle scene, that I got let into clubs like the Colourbox for free. I also got a lot of my pints for free there and smoked-up in the back room.

During his years in Seattle, after coming there from Indiana in the mid-90s, he eventually came to terms with the fact that he is gay. Hitting L.A. as a completely out of the closet gay man has been great for him. Very freeing, I would imagine. Well, not just imagine, I saw how freeing it was for him.

I also had a friend in college before I moved to Seattle, BM. One of the best actors I ever shared a stage with and also directed. He is also a great artist and a big music geek like me. He got married to a girl we went to school with and they eventually moved to L.A.

BM, who had grown up in a very conservative Midwestern family, figured out something about himself after they moved out there.

He is gay. So he and the wife split up and he hit the gay club scene as a DJ.

Eventually, by sheer coincidence with neither person knowing that they both knew me, TS and BM met. And fell in love.

In February they will get married.

That is unless Proposition 8 passes tonight in California, prohibiting same-sex marriages in a state where it has already become legal.

I know that in the grand scheme of things a couple of guys being able to get married isn't the most important issue when compared to global warming, the economy and infrastructure.

But it is really important to two friends of mine.

And I would really love to see the agents of intolerance and hate get rejected by the people of the most populous state in the country. I will have more faith in the humanity of Americans if Proposition 8 loses.

I'll be up late tonight with my fingers crossed.