I don't have much in this section yet, but....

Table of Contents:
my Name Change and some of what it means to me

my Name Change and some of what it means to me
    At some points in this message to this particular university, I use some of the terminology and make allusions to certain ideas, concepts and Persons in the Stories in the Bible. Now remember, even though I am no longer a believer, I do still retain my knowledge, understanding and my own personal interpretation of those Stories and I am still capable of confronting the darkness in the theology, traditions and lifestyle of believers and their institutions with whatever light we can get from their own Story Just a warning to make sure you don't think I've gone off the deep end just because I talk about God as if I know God in this message. The truth is, if this particular God does really turn out to exist (a fact we can neither prove nor disprove with our resources as homo sapiens), I probably do actually know Her fairly well from all of my years reading, studying and meditating on the Stories in the Bible. The point here though is that I simply wanted to give you a heads-up. 
    So.... Here is the body of a letter (and responses) I recently wrote to a religious university where my partner Karen used to go to school. They (and many other places) have sent things to us in the mail over the years with our name as "Mr. and Mrs. Steven Reinhold" and it has bothered me. It always bothers me, but I just haven't done anything about it other than complain inside my own head about how far I've come and about how far we still have to go and talk with Karen about it telling her how much I am sorry for what men have done to women over the years and how signs of it still linger in our society today. However, this time when they sent something recently, I decided to do something about it beyond the four walls of my own, immediate living space. 

Here is the conversation...

My first message
Their response
My response
Their next response

Hello, my name is Steven Reinhold.
I am very frustrated and extremely offended about what I have to talk with you about right now, but I will attempt to make this as short and as polite as possible.
I am not "Mr. Reinhold". That is my father-in-law. My name is Steven Reinhold. My wife's name is still Karen Reinhold. If you want to address us jointly, you will do it as, "Karen and Steven Reinhold" (in that order since K comes before S) or else, please do not not address us ever again. 

Karen Reinhold attended your college. When we (Karen and I) got married 6 years ago from this coming Saturday (July 5th), we decided to use her last name instead of mine. It was my idea from the start and it had nothing to do with not wanting or not liking my original last name (Siegrist, another fine German name). It had to do with the fact that I wanted to make a statement somewhere in history, by a male homo sapien, that says, "I do not think that men are more important than women".

So, the whole reason that my last name is even Reinhold in the first place is the fact that I took Karen's last name when we got married so that it would signal to the world that I care about equality among people...all people, not just among men. I don't hate men (obviously I hope), but I do hate what we've done to women over the centuries. There is no way around it. We (men) have oppressed women and subjected them to all kinds of not only inhumane, but un-human treatment, just because we think that we're somehow more important than they are. Don't try to get out of it either. It wasn't until women finally spoke out and gave their very lives in the fight that we finally gave them the right to vote early last century even right here in the good ol USA. I love my country too, but even while I love men and I love my country, I can still acknowledge the horrible things we've done and try to work for healing for everyone involved. Also, who are we (men) to say when the healing is complete? We've treated women like crap for so long that it may very well take the next few centuries of enlightened men like my self to wake up the rest and invite them into not only giving women certain legal and social rights and standing, but to actually enter into an attitude of equality and of respect and of love and compassion....not only for women either though, but for all persons. This is why I write to you today.

It is very annoying to see our names portrayed in the old, patriarchal format on mailings and lists or any other place. What do you think it means to a women to see her name completely obliterated from the statement, "Mr. and Mrs. Steven Reinhold"? Where is your sense of personhood people? Is Karen simply a piece of property? Don't give me the "head of the household" routine either. That has nothing to do with the heart of the Message in the Bible and is a man-centered load of crap I gave up a long time ago. Certainly God didn't have this in mind when They said that They had created humans in Their image, male and female (Let US make the human in OUR image. In the image of God He created them both male and female). According to the Story, we both express the image of God. I'm not the head and she the butt or something like that. She has a brain too. She has the capability of thinking and making good, healthy, important, wise decisions too. How dare we be so arrogant to think that God is male either? Did we not just read the part where it says that male and female express the image of God?

Just in case you missed it, I repeat...
I am not "Mr. Reinhold". That is my father-in-law. My name is Steven Reinhold. My wife's name is still Karen Reinhold. Those are the names you should use to address us individually. If you want to address us jointly, you will do it as, "Karen and Steven Reinhold" (in that order since K comes before S) or else, please do not not address us ever again. Please also make sure to change our name in your records at the college. It is just disgusting to me that Karen is the one that actually attended your college, and yet her name doesn't even show up on this post card we just received from you. Nasty! Darkness. I invite you out of the darkness of misogyny and an uncritical mind, into the light of equality, compassion and critical thinking about the image of the one and true androgynous (though named by humans with male terminology in their writings) Community of the Living God, Father, Son and Spirit.


Their response
Steven,
Thank you for contacting us! Your email was forwarded to me from several departments.
My office handles the majority of the mailings for the university and our goal is to please our constituents. I appreciate and admire your strong convictions in this matter.

Unfortunately, I suspected our software would not be able to comply with your request of putting Karen's name first when addressing you as a couple. After checking with out IT expert, I confirmed this suspicion.
However, I have two alternatives I would like you to consider: 1) We can address all mailings to Karen Reinhold alone 2) We can list both names - one line for Steven Reinhold and the second line for Karen Reinhold

Since Karen is the one with ties to %school name%, I would suggest the first choice. The second choice still puts your name first and hers underneath. Please let me know if either of these will suffice. Don't hesitate to email me at someone@%school name%.edu or call me if necessary.


My response
Thank you %person's name%.
I too like option 1 better. That would be fine. 

So, just to make sure I understand...
a. The name Karen will be re-entered into Karen Reinhold's entry in the %school name% information systems to make it appear as though she still exists as a separate, individual person named Karen. 
b. All information systems and records etc at %school name% will list Karen Reinhold only (or at least as the primary person in the entry) from now on. 
c. We will never again (or at least that this is your intention) be addressed in the patriarchal "Mr. and Mrs. Male-first-name Male-last-name" format. 

Is this correct? 

FYI: I've seen this problem before with other information systems in religious settings. It is very telling and very upsetting to me that, as far as we've come, we still create software programs that purposely prefer the male of the two persons in a marriage relationship and put his name first on the list and completely remove the female's name, even though she is the one that actually has the educational connection with the particular institution. It's not just %school name%, or Christian organizations, or religious organizations. This is a deeply embedded problem in the mindset of the human species. 
    Now is the time to take a stand. I encourage you to send these messages from me to whomever you can to try to get the message out there in your particular realm of this world. Is the church really in the world and not of it? It looks like on this point that it is very much "of it" to me. On this issue, there is no difference between the church and the rest of the world. I invite you to show the world something different by altering the code for the software that your institution uses or to invest in some other software package altogether. 
    A religious man from another pseudo-biblical world view once said to me that he could never do what I've done by giving up my original last name. He said, "That would be like giving up my identity". Hopefully the point is obvious, but in response I said to him, "So, what does that say about women?" He just shrugged his shoulders, said, "I don't care about them. My name is more important than theirs. If someone wants to marry me, they'll take my name" and went on with more of his sexist, racist, mindless, beliefs. 
    For me, the last name isn't even about "identity" at all (my identity isn't in combinations of alphabetic characters or the objects they represent), other than perhaps identifying where I came from in a geographical sense if one knows where people with that particular name usually live or something like that. So, it really doesn't matter which name is chosen. I don't prefer that we all start taking the female last name instead of the male last name. That misses the whole point. When I first brought up the issue before we got married, Karen suggested that we just make up our own last name. However, I didn't actually have any desire to change my name really. So, that idea missed my point completely too. My original last name was just fine to me. 
    The point, as I already stated, was not about even wanting to change it at all in the first place, but about who's name I was changing it to and why. You find me another male homo sapien that ever took his new wife's last name for the same reasons as I have done (prior to me doing so in July of 1997) and I'll fly to see him and throw a big party. 

Thanks again %person's name%. I appreciate your help on this. 

Their next response
I like how you wrote "or at least this is your intention".

We have had an ongoing battle trying to convince the entire university to use our database. There are a couple of departments who do not understand my office's painstaking accuracy in order to avoid offending anyone (such as you and Karen), and refuse to use our services. I am emailing 2 that I know of with your request.

Another suggestion: Keep my email address and phone handy. With multiple mailings, there may be an overlap between my fixing your accounts and a mailing already having gone out. Also, if you continue to receive offensive mail, it may be one of the rogue departments that I need to contact personally.