Reading – a letter to Huriyah Magazine the from a gay Arab-American

Proud to be a San Franciscan

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Today for the first time I walked into City Hall and actually believed that it was mine: that I was an equal citizen of a jurisdiction in which I live.

I walked into the City Hall rotunda and saw couples being married all around. Couples who had been together 3 years, 8 years, 23 years, and just two days shy of 51 years. Couples without children, with infants who were with them, and with children who were in school. Couples whose parents came with them carrying roses and couples who had their parents listening to their ceremonies on cell phones because there was no advance notice for them to fly to San Francisco from the east coast. Couples formally dressed and couples in sweatshirts and jeans. Couples with entourages of friends and couples who came on their own and drafted bystanders like myself as their official witnesses. Everywhere lesbian and gay couples who pledged to each other their lifelong love and commitment. And with each couple, San Francisco city officials, who were Black, Asian, and White, straight, lesbian, and gay, pronouncing them "spouses for life".

Eighteen years ago, when I was a student in Berlin, the supreme court of the united states decided that I and people like me had no right to express our love, that our love was not worthy of the court's protection. I sat at dinner that night with a group of American friends, gay and straight, and we all wondered what to do and whether we would ever come back. After that, I did not think I would ever belong in the country where I was born, nor that I would ever achieve full and equal rights of citizenship here.

Today I belong for the first time and for the first time I can enter a place of government in this country as an equal citizen.

If you, like me, rejoice in the events of today, I hope you will savor this joy and use it to build your strength for the struggle for equality in this country that is certain to continue.

If you are saddened by today's events, I hope you will take some time to think about the great promise nascent in this country's birth. Many of the European immigrants who came here centuries ago fled the oppression imposed on them through their government by the particular religious majority of their time. If you are religious and if your religion does not support marriage of same-sex couples or if it does but you wish it did not, I do not ask you today to change that, but simply to allow the government of the United States to be the government of all the people, to fulfill the promise of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence as well as the more calmly worded "equal protection of the laws" enshrined in the Constitutions of the United States and of the state of California.

Today I write to you proud to be a San Franciscan.

jim saliba

Journal Assignment

Read Jim Saliba’s letter to Huriyah Magazine and make sure you can answer all of the following questions before you do the journal assignment.

1. To whom is this letter written? How do you know?
2. What is the tone of his letter? Where are the clues that reveal his tone?
3. Do letters always have a thesis? Does this one have a thesis? What is it?
4. What advice does Saliba give to people who oppose gay marriage?
5. How does Saliba’s joy affect you as your read the letter?

Assignment:

Two of your journal entries for this week will be about diversity. Choose two of the following three topics:

1. Why is gay marriage a tolerance issue? Why do you think gay marriage is more accepted in San Francisco than in the rest of California and in the United States as a whole? What are your own feelings about this issue?

2. In view of everything we have read and discussed about diversity and tolerance, are you a proud San Franciscan? As a resident, citizen, immigrant, member of an ethnic group, religion, orientation, etc... what are you proud of ?

3. Write a personal letter in response to Jim Saliba’s letter. Tell him how you feel about his personal accomplishment and what it means for the society in which we live. Make sure you mention some things you’ve learned about diversity and tolerance.