CUPSI 2012| Cam, Alok, Janani- Marriage

Cam Awkward-Rich, Janani B., and Alok Vaid-Menon from Stanford University performs at a prelim CUPSI 2012 at La Verne University.

There’s no place like homo
There’s no place like homo
There’s no place like homo

somewhere over the rainbow
way up high

there’s a land that I heard of
once in a lullaby

Wake up honi, it’s called san francisco

where white bourgie bitches getting gay married
but my ass ain’t got an invite sha hoo~

Somewhere over the rainbow
Blue birds fly,

Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why can't, oh why can’t I?

[ all ] BECAUSE YOU’RE BROWN HONEY GURL

I’m bout to sassy gay friend this ish ~
Not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you

Rainbows are nothing but refracted white light, gay marriage activism is nothing but a temper tantrum:

Mommy I’m going to buy an “I’m a second class citizen” American Apparel v-neck to go with my corporate internship and some ass

I didn’t always think this way

Cuz philadelphia taught me everything i still know about shame

that this queer body was something to “correct”.

that looking like “a faggot with a cunt” only meant I was looking for trouble.

So in high school I laced my shoes with rainbows
and preached the gospel of equal rights and pride

They teach us marriage will finally untangle
our love from our shame,

will legislate us wholly human.

But the day same sex marriage was legalized in New York, DC, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa,

**it didn’t get better** because “Somewhere over the rainbow” there’s a pot of Goldman Sachs

**DUN DUN DUN DUN** We are gathered here today

for richer, for poorer.

tell that to El’Jai who lost his job last year

He lives in one of only 12 states where you cannot legally be fired for having a body that doesn’t sit right with your heart

but his job “could only be done by a man” and his genitals did not conform to his employers expectations.

I do not know if he won the court case,

only that he has a son, and that being brown and trans means being 4 times less likely to find work.

**but who needs money for bread when you can eat wedding cake!**

in good times and in bad

tell that to Temmie Breslauer a trans woman from New York who was arrested for using her father’s discount subway card.

the NYPD chained her to a wall for 28 hours
and called her a he-she

**to have and to be held**

**this is what marriage means for queer people!**

as we send the government wedding invitations to incarcerate our love

till death do us part,

tell that to asher brown who at thirteen took a gun to his head as if it was an act of patriotism

because in texas
being gay is a death sentence.

it is nights spent whispering secrets to open skies

it is the sound of your mother crying as she wonders
how that thing came out of her

and i do, i do,

i do not believe that a marriage certificate
could have stopped the bullet

Remember,

Remember,

Remember,

There is something beautiful about being lied to:

Rainbows are just a trick of the light,

They make us forget the storm is still happening,

When walking towards the end of the rainbow, it will
**always move away**.