My husband and I are preparing to celebrate seven years of marriage. We were married on a beautiful October evening on St. Pete Beach, surrounded by family and friends.
The excitement was palpable because it was the first gay wedding most of our attendees had experienced. It was just five months after the Obergefell v Hodges decision, making marriage equality the law of the land.
I read all the books during the wedding planning stage, browsed Pinterest boards and watched countless YouTube videos. We sent out about 120 invitations thinking we would get a 50% RSVP rate, but to our surprise, almost everyone invited decided to join us.
I’ve been in a very reflective mood lately because I am watching us develop and live out our wildest hopes and dreams. Our lives are elevated in meaningful ways. We survived the pandemic intact, healthy and on the climb. My husband and I have reached personal and professional milestones in the last year and have jumped into new opportunities and ventures.
We are settling into a rhythm of marriage that remains special. In the previous seven years, we have experienced all seven stages of marriage: passion, realization, rebellion, cooperation, reunion, explosion and completion. We are bound to experience the stages many more times in the future. However, I keep returning to the idea of hope and dreams.
We have all watched in horror at the string of gun violence around the country. Deranged shooters are crushing the hopes and dreams of the innocent daily in the United States. Mass gun violence in the U.S. occurs at a rate our brains cannot conceptualize.
We enter what I call the American ritual of thoughts and prayers. I am naturally an optimistic person, I always believe that better days are ahead, but if I am being honest, a part of my soul was crushed after the Sandy Hook massacre. I didn’t think it could get worse. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Gun violence in the U.S. is a sickness that can be cured if we decide to move beyond thoughts and prayers and focus on the idea of hopes and dreams.
A white supremacist drove over 200 miles to Buffalo, New York to target a grocery store in a predominantly African American community. The gunman murdered 10 people with hopes and dreams for the future. Several days later, a disturbed teenager murdered school children in Uvalde, Texas, two days away from breaking for summer vacation. Those kids had hopes and dreams. Their families had hopes and dreams for their futures.
The carnage of American gun violence does not need more thoughts and prayers. We need common-sense solutions, policy reforms and collective action to end the madness and cure our sickness.
We recently gathered to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub massacre, where 49 LGBTQ people and our allies were murdered. I remember Pulse so clearly because I received frantic phone calls from friends around the world checking in with my husband and me.
After all, it was a club in our general area where we had gone before. A part of my soul was crushed after Pulse because it felt very close to home. I think about the hopes and dreams of all victims of gun violence. I ask myself what their futures could have been.
I wonder if one of the elementary students killed in Uvalde could have grown up to help us combat climate change. I wonder about the grandma killed in Buffalo and never got to teach her grandson how to bake her famous cookies. I wonder about the hopes and dreams of Pulse victims who could not experience the joys of marriage. So much hope is lost, and so many dreams are denied because we continue to believe that all we need are thoughts and prayers.
We are waiting with bated breath as the U.S. Supreme Court issue rulings on a host of cases, including abortion rights, environmental protection, due process, immigration and, yes, a Second Amendment case that can undermine gun safety laws across the country. The decision will undoubtedly impact our ability to live our best hopes and dreams and, in some cases, will curtail our ability to plan for the future.
I don’t care to entertain any more thoughts and prayers that don’t come with action and solutions. In 2017, I wrote, “We need to restore regulations and think about what the framers intended when they gave us a right to bear arms. Let us stop sanitizing this experience. We need to start showing the carnage of gun violence in the United States.
“We need to bear witness to the bullet-riddled bodies of six-year-olds, the blood-soaked dance floor of a nightclub, or now the bloodstained concert venue hall,” I continued. “Until we bear witness to the senselessness of America’s gun violence problem, we will continue to repeat the ritual as it exists today.”
I was angry when I wrote those words. I am anxious now. I want to experience the seven stages of marriage for years to come; I want to relieve the beauty and love I experienced on my wedding day. I want to continue living out and proud with my partner fulfilling our wildest hope and dreams.
Johnny Boykins is a Democratic strategist and organizer in Pinellas County, a husband, bow tie aficionado, amateur chef and U.S. Coast Guard veteran. He also serves as Director of Outreach with the Pinellas Democratic Party. Learn more at PinellasDemocrats.org.
