Willie, Keeping it Simple On Marriage Equality...

March 29, 2013

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Always liked Willie Nelson, even his country western music. Thinking back to Willie and Waylon. I always thought of Willie as a kind of maverick. Just a bit ahead of his times and not too worried about all that judgmental stuff. You know, the kind that doesn't really impact anybody but those involved? Maybe Willie has always been thinking outside the box of religious driven judgmental-ism. Sometimes I think the personal religious stuff somehow finds a way to influence the government. I hear Willie isn't real big on state tyranny either. I guess Willie is consistent. Something to be admired I'm thinking.

TexasMonthly - Willie Nelson loves love. "Love is what I live on. Love is what keeps me going," he wrote in his 2006 book The Tao Of Willie. And Wednesday night, in an interview in Austin on his tour bus, Willie said he believes love doesn't discriminate, "and it shouldn't be discriminated against."

Nelson has been watching the Supreme Court arguments over same-sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. "[Gay people] should be just as miserable as the rest of us," quipped Nelson, before giving a more nuanced explanation of what he says has been a life-long, unwavering belief that all people deserve equal protection under the law.

After the interview, and just before heading into Austin's ACL Live at the Moody Theater to play a fundraiser for the Darrell K Royal Research Fund for Alzheimer’s Disease, Nelson posed for a Texas Monthly photographer with a series of signs created by the Austin-based design agency Helms Workshop and printed by Austin's East End Ink. The first is a straightforward reproduction of the pink equal sign—the logo of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign—that has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter over the past few days. Helms also designed two Willie-specific variations on the image, one with his trademark braids and another with a pair of marijuana cigarettes. Both images are available for download below for use as avatars on your Facebook or Twitter account. Or whatever else you want to do with them. It’s a free country, you know.

Texas Monthly: You're closely following the Supreme Court's consideration of gay rights and same-sex marriage.

Willie Nelson: I am. And it's ridiculous to me that this is something we're having a conversation about this in this day and age. I thought it was something that was settled a long time ago.

TM: Clearly not.

WN: Clearly not. And obviously, even the Supreme Court doesn't know what to do about it. They say, 'Don't ask me. Ask somebody else.' They don't want to get in the middle of the states on it. And what are they going to do, come in and override states that have said it's okay? It's a mess.

TM: With same-sex marriage legal in some states and not in others, equality means different things different places.

WN: For same-sex couples, taxes are different, benefits are different, survivor benefits are different. It's crazy.

TM: You've been a supporter of LBGT issues over the years. Outspoken even.

WN: I never had a problem with any of it. I've known straight and gay people all my life. I can't tell the difference. People are people where I came from. (Emphasis mine.) {The Rest of the Interview}