Earlier this week, via Twitter, I wrote,
Entities usually get created 1 of 2 ways: organically, when the time is right, or thru design and mechanics. The 1st is often better.
This is the first.
I’ve been writing this blog for almost a year and a half now. The time has come to grow, and so it gives me special pleasure to share with you that an amazing writer, Cody Daigle, is joining The New Civil Rights Movement. Cody is the staff writer covering arts and entertainment for Louisiana’s Times of Acadiana, and has written about the gay community for 365gay.com and ourbiggayborhood.com. He is also an excellent playwright whose work has been produced at theaters around the south and a few times in New York, including by the New York International Fringe Festival.
Cody was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, and is a dear friend.
I first got to know Cody through his work. It will speak to you, as it has spoken to me. Cody has a beautiful way of speaking from the heart and telling a story that resonates somewhere deep inside you. His work makes me say, “Oh. Yes, I forgot, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” And, often, Cody reminds me of how things really are.
One of the first pieces of Cody’s I read, “Little Anniversaries,” written almost exactly a year ago, has always stuck with me. I’ll share a portion of it with you, in which he talks about the end of Iowa’s same-sex marriage ban:
In their personal lives, much will change. They’ll have weddings, invite their friends and families, celebrate well into the evening with music and wine. They’ll wear rings (if they didn’t already). They’ll introduce their other half as “husband” or “wife” (another something they probably already do). They’ll feel different, and the people in their personal spheres of reference will see them differently and treat them differently and expect something different from them – all good, of course.
There’s one thing that won’t change — the lives of anyone not directly connected to those couples. If you were a stranger to those couples before, you’ll be a stranger to them now, and no change in their government status will make that truth different.
This is the reality that the public debate about gay marriage misses — gay marriage isn’t an idea or a movement, but a reality of the way a minority of Americans live their lives. The giant repercussions that opponents of gay marriage rave about seem preposterous when you consider that legalizing gay marriage doesn’t create something that wasn’t there before. Those couples are already here. They’re living together, sharing lives, buying homes, raising children, living exactly as they’d live if they were legally married.
The truth in that always spoke so deeply to me.
You may actually already be familiar with Cody’s work. He contributed to our Valentine’s readers’ stories weekend. In, “I had boyfriends, but I never felt like I had a husband. And then I met Marc,†Cody wrote,
I remember being a junior in high school, goofing around in my front yard, and suddenly being hit with a realization: “I’m gay.â€
It really did happen like that. I was just hanging out, minding my own business, when my brain decided to get with the program and listen to what my heart and my groin had been telling it, finally getting the chutzpah to tell me, “Hey you’re gay, you know. That’s what all this has been about. The lusting after boys, the not digging girls, the weird attraction you feel for Coach McCullough — Yeah, you’re gay. Just, you know,… so you know.â€
You’ll get to read more great pieces from Cody once a week.
In the mean time, take a look at a few other pieces of his work I think you’ll enjoy:
A Prayer for Prop. 8
In an Ending, Marriage
GWM Seeks GMR* For LTR (* Gay Media Revolution)
Another Fountain Story
A few final words about Cody. He is an accomplished playwright whose work I’ve had the honor of seeing and seeing grow. And like his work, Cody is funny, honest, honorable, has great perspective, and will always bring a smile to your face, and to your heart.
I hope you’ll welcome him, and come back regularly to read his work.