Dear Honorable Justices,

Born in Louisiana, May 18, 1896, I will celebrate – unless God remembers where he left me – my one-hundred and seventeenth birthday come next May;
And I hope, you all, have the inclination to listen to what I now Say –
regarding my accumulated knowledge, suffice it to say, I Knows,
not from any wisdom gathered in my sails – but from my long view, the way the Wind Blows.

I query, please Note:
Are we sailing forward, backward, or about to scuttle this great Freedom Boat?

How do I awake thee from thy judicial Coma –
in time to muster the judicial testosterone necessary, to decide – yes or no – the legitimacy of Prop 8 and DOMA?
Interpreting our Constitution – I know – takes a long, long tedious Time.
Well, frankly, as none of you are in a hurry, I’ll tell you how I see the Defense Of Marriage Act, and I’ll do it in Rhyme.

I took my first breath the day Plessy v. Ferguson decided Louisiana could mandate  blacks and whites be accommodated by separate railway Car,
because the color of my newborn skin offended a majority of my white neighbors, both living near and Far.
That “experiment”, as Justice Alito might call it today, in segregation and “separate but equal“, ended, thanks to the courage of the Warren Court, in 1954,
when Brown v. the Board of Ed. held the States could hold me back no More.

See, while the black male part of me could vote since 1870, via the 15th Amendment,
my female part couldn’t vote until 1920 – via the 19th Amendment…
But I digress… for by ’54, though controversial, thanks to the 14th Amendment, I was finally, a full-fledged member of the human Community,
And no one could – any longer – deny me equal access or Opportunity.

Well, not quite. See, even with the female impediment and the black impediment clearly behind me, I was still destined, human being-wise, to Fail,
Cause my partner of fifty-two years, my mate, my wife – well, you guessed it, she is, like me, a Female.

So you can understand, your Honors, given my advanced age, how I hang on your every word trying to guess, whether my wife and Me,
Can finally marry wherever we choose, you know, Legally.
As I get it, Justice Alito, regarding same-sex marriage doesn’t want to be rushed in to extending this Equal Protection Thing,”
For, as he said, “It may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good Thing.”
Judiciously Logical?
No, no, just Alito’s keen grasp of the obvious, of the Tautological.

Oh, Let Freedom ring, let wedding bells ring; well, but not until, as Justice Scalia insists, we stop and tabulate whether most folks Concur,
as if it would take a decent man, a learned man, time to know, that denying equal opportunity could ever be right and fair for us, for me, for Her.

I’m Worried;
cause I’m afraid I’ll be long gone and Buried,
before someone slaps Chief Justice Roberts upside his chalky, white, uptight, heterosexual
Head,
for saying, [Other than the right to marry], “you same-sex couples have every other Right.” Don’t be coming to us for more; go to your lobbyists Instead.

No disrespect intended here, your Honors, but either go with the winds of Today,
Or get out of the Way.
You all may be destined to share a footnote in History, with all admiration and respect Denied,
and Remembered as the Roberts’ Court – the one that stood on the beach and Tried,
with a broom, to stop the incoming rushing Tide.

I refuse to accept the best you can do is defer, delay and honor Procrastination,
by finding, or implying, that one-hundred and seventeen years since my birth, since Plessy v. Ferguson,
I might, once again, be deemed to have less human rights than a Corporation.
Stay asleep, your Honors, with a safe “dismissal on jurisdictional grounds”, or awaken from your self-induced Coma,
But either way – know that I know, as will those who replace you, our equal protection clause unequivocally requires you to decide Now the legitimacy of Prop 8 and DOMA.