NORTH BAY BOH EM I AN | JULY 3 – 9, 20 1 3 | BO H E M I AN.COM
6
BOHEMIAN
Rhapsodies Love at Last
Historical context of same-sex marriage ruling BY LEILANI CLARK
A
ll the images of people getting married at the Sonoma County Clerk’s Office on July 1—a few short days after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in favor of gay marriage—are a joy to behold. Ecstatic couples, many with decades of relationship behind them, smile through tears, kissing and holding up the rings that make it official. The excitement brings to mind my own wedding day in 2008, when my husband and I said “I do” on a bluff in Salt Point overlooking the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by our family and friends. It stands as one of the best days of my life. At the time, because ours is a heterosexual marriage, we had no trouble heading down to the clerk’s office to get our marriage certificate. I still remember the rush of excitement as we signed the official documents, making our marriage “legit.” A mere 50 years ago, my marriage would not have been recognized as legal in 17 states, solely because I loved someone of a different race; our five-month old daughter would have had parents that could not marry because certain people—I’m looking at you, Harry Truman—deemed marriage between races to be wrong. Seems ridiculous, right? But it wasn’t until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, making interracial marriage legal across the entire country. Now, people don’t even bat an eye, at least in the Bay Area, at mixed-race couples. But it wasn’t always that way. The argument against gay marriage goes along the lines of “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” but in the not-toodistant past it was “Marriage is between a white man and a white woman” or “Marriage is between a black man and black woman,” and on and on. Fortunately, last week, we saw a moment of sanity and grace in American history with the dismantling of DOMA. I look forward to a time, 50 years from now, when we look back and say, “Remember when same-sex marriage was illegal? How crazy was that?”
In Support of Libraries
I use the libraries in Sonoma County and contribute to Friends of the Library in Rohnert Park. I was very disappointed when the libraries closed on Mondays system-wide, affecting school children and people looking for work using the computers. I am in agreement that the libraries should return to the Monday availability—if not every Monday, then perhaps in some areas the first and third Mondays of the month, and in other areas the second and fourth Mondays of the month. Thank you for running the piece, and hopefully the community and the county supervisors will work with the joint powers to restore at least some of the availability of the libraries.
MARTA HAYDEN Santa Rosa
If library is a place where one maybe reads some magazines and gets to take home free books and recordings, then I agree with the county officials, we have more important things to worry about. If library is a people’s meeting place, a classroom for small children, a spot to have short afternoon nap or the most convenient public restroom in town, then perhaps we should rethink the hours.
GUNAR BECKMANS Via online Editor’s note: Six days after our cover story on library closures and mismanagement, Sonoma County Library director Sandra Cooper announced her retirement.
Leilani Clark is a staff writer at this paper. Open Mic is a weekly op/ed feature in the Bohemian. We welcome your contribution. To have your topical essay of 350 words considered for publication, write openmic@bohemian.com.
Wages and Tips In the letter titled “Tip Away” from a Ms. Scruggs in the June 19 issue, she refers to “wine stewards,” which is
a term normally associated with sommeliers in restaurants. Having worked in the industry in various Michelin-starred restaurants, I can assure you that any fine dining establishment that can have a sommelier does not pay him or her $12 an hour, as Ms. Scruggs claims. They are usually in management and in charge of wine purchasing, inventory, pricing, wine list production and updates, etc., and make a considerable salary—in addition to bonuses and in many cases being in the tip pool that gets divided between waiters, bussers, bartenders and food runners.
If she is referring to tasting room associates and “wine educators” (as they are sometimes called), that is completely different, and in most cases they earn between $15 and $20 as a base salary plus commissions on wine sales. To compare this salary range to that of a typical Denny’s worker (a company often cited for employing illegal workers at below minimum wage) is misleading and disingenuous, to say the least. If you want to leave an additional gratuity for a sommelier (wine steward) or a tasting room associate that is fine, but it is not the norm, nor is it required.
JOSEPH MARTIN Healdsburg
It Can’t Be That Much Work I deplore the social psychology of those who are fortunate enough to belong to the Hundred Thousand Dollar Club who feel that they have to automatically defend anyone else in that pay bracket. Is it because they are not sure of their own worthiness? More to the point: Why does the Marin IJ feel that the Marin supervisors deserve a wage hike? Is it the $35 million they lost on the computer fiasco? Their slavish bowing to ABAG and the MTC? Their tremendous giveaways to the consultant class? The error of basing one’s pay on the