19 December 2010
No Special Rights
For years, opponents of legal recognition for the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and transgendered people have used the phrase "no special rights" as part of their arguments. In their framing, LGBTT people serving without fear in the military—or, recalling Anita Bryant, the classroom—is a special right. LGBTT people marrying the person they love (who, duh, very frequently happens to be of the same gender as they are), is a special right. LGBTT people not being able to be fired from their job is a special right. Etc.
It's never made sense, but with yesterday's approval by the Senate of the House bill that repeals Don't Ask, Don't Tell, empowering the executive and military to phase DADT out within the next few months, what becones clear is that "no special rights," like much of their anti-progressive agenda, is upside down.
The right is right that there should be no special rights. So much so, that maybe we ought to enshrine the no-special-rights idea into a near-fundamental principle: No Special Rights. The rules we operate under ought to be structured so that what's good for one ought to be good for all. If you, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. Straight Person, can join the military, then so can any LGBTT person with similar qualifications. If you can't be fired from your job for being male, female; red, yellow, brown, black, white; 20, 30, 40, 50 years old; born rich, born poor; born in the USA, permanent resident, naturalized citizen; etc., then neither can any LGBTT person with similar attributes.
Of course, there are times when the government, as the legitimate repository of the community's interests, should abridge a citizen's rights. We have multiple ages of empowerment in consent to sex, signing up for military service, buying booze, and voting. We recognize that certain professions and careers like firefighter, EMT, and cop require levels of physical mobility and strength at the upper end of the scale; once the performance criterion is established, though, we ostensibly don't distinguish on the basis of attributes like gender/sex or color/race any more than we would on the basis of eye color or hair color.
There are legal terms for the government's exclusion of certain classes of citizens—or empowering of other individuals and collectives to exclude others or include only certain folk— ranging from rational basis to strict scrutiny. I won't claim to understand the distinctions among those as well as I could or ought to. The arguments used to put DADT in place initially and then against its repeal claimed that the presence of openly gay and lesbian individuals in military service would destroy unit cohesion and decrease the effectiveness of the military, hence the government had a legitimate interest in prohibiting LGBTT individuals from serving in the military. The recently conducted study by the DoD of attitudes towards gay men and lesbians serving suggests that even if it were once true, it no longer is so. And, this has never been an "all other things being equal" situation. The military has a unique ability with its command structure to achieve unit cohesion through training, practice, and, most of all, orders.
With DADT repeal passed and waiting to be signed, and with the current administration expected to put policies in place within the service branches leading to its going away, let's move to apply the No Special Rights principle to the matters of employment, marriage recognition, marriage, and immigration of spouses/partners. That is, an employer has No Special Right to pay less, not give benefits to, not hire, or fire an LGBTT employee. Health care providers have No Special Right to exclude family of choice from a patient's visitors. The general government and the governments of the states have No Special Right not to recognize the marriages of LGBTT folk in states where same-sex marriages are performed, including the implications of that for taxes and survivorship. The governments of the states that don't perform same-sex marriages have No Special Right not to. And the general government has No Special Right to prevent the non-citizen spouses of LGBTT US citizens from entering the United States the same as would the spouse of any other US citizen.
With the repeal of DADT passed, the onus shifts from proponents of legal recognition of LGBTT rights to explain why change is necessary onto the opponents to explain why change is not necessary. Against equal rights for LGBTT individuals: It's up to you to demonstrate conclusively, if you can, why you should be exempt from the No Special Rights principle. What gives you the right to treat others like second-class citizens?
And, just in case you've forgotten, in a country where religious freedom is rightfully enshrined, your personal religious beliefs, which must and will be respected, do not empower you to discriminate against others in the civic arena.
It's never made sense, but with yesterday's approval by the Senate of the House bill that repeals Don't Ask, Don't Tell, empowering the executive and military to phase DADT out within the next few months, what becones clear is that "no special rights," like much of their anti-progressive agenda, is upside down.
The right is right that there should be no special rights. So much so, that maybe we ought to enshrine the no-special-rights idea into a near-fundamental principle: No Special Rights. The rules we operate under ought to be structured so that what's good for one ought to be good for all. If you, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. Straight Person, can join the military, then so can any LGBTT person with similar qualifications. If you can't be fired from your job for being male, female; red, yellow, brown, black, white; 20, 30, 40, 50 years old; born rich, born poor; born in the USA, permanent resident, naturalized citizen; etc., then neither can any LGBTT person with similar attributes.
Of course, there are times when the government, as the legitimate repository of the community's interests, should abridge a citizen's rights. We have multiple ages of empowerment in consent to sex, signing up for military service, buying booze, and voting. We recognize that certain professions and careers like firefighter, EMT, and cop require levels of physical mobility and strength at the upper end of the scale; once the performance criterion is established, though, we ostensibly don't distinguish on the basis of attributes like gender/sex or color/race any more than we would on the basis of eye color or hair color.
There are legal terms for the government's exclusion of certain classes of citizens—or empowering of other individuals and collectives to exclude others or include only certain folk— ranging from rational basis to strict scrutiny. I won't claim to understand the distinctions among those as well as I could or ought to. The arguments used to put DADT in place initially and then against its repeal claimed that the presence of openly gay and lesbian individuals in military service would destroy unit cohesion and decrease the effectiveness of the military, hence the government had a legitimate interest in prohibiting LGBTT individuals from serving in the military. The recently conducted study by the DoD of attitudes towards gay men and lesbians serving suggests that even if it were once true, it no longer is so. And, this has never been an "all other things being equal" situation. The military has a unique ability with its command structure to achieve unit cohesion through training, practice, and, most of all, orders.
With DADT repeal passed and waiting to be signed, and with the current administration expected to put policies in place within the service branches leading to its going away, let's move to apply the No Special Rights principle to the matters of employment, marriage recognition, marriage, and immigration of spouses/partners. That is, an employer has No Special Right to pay less, not give benefits to, not hire, or fire an LGBTT employee. Health care providers have No Special Right to exclude family of choice from a patient's visitors. The general government and the governments of the states have No Special Right not to recognize the marriages of LGBTT folk in states where same-sex marriages are performed, including the implications of that for taxes and survivorship. The governments of the states that don't perform same-sex marriages have No Special Right not to. And the general government has No Special Right to prevent the non-citizen spouses of LGBTT US citizens from entering the United States the same as would the spouse of any other US citizen.
With the repeal of DADT passed, the onus shifts from proponents of legal recognition of LGBTT rights to explain why change is necessary onto the opponents to explain why change is not necessary. Against equal rights for LGBTT individuals: It's up to you to demonstrate conclusively, if you can, why you should be exempt from the No Special Rights principle. What gives you the right to treat others like second-class citizens?
And, just in case you've forgotten, in a country where religious freedom is rightfully enshrined, your personal religious beliefs, which must and will be respected, do not empower you to discriminate against others in the civic arena.
Labels: DADT, don't ask don't tell, gay marriage, gay rights, lgbt, LGBTT, marriage, same-sex marriage
31 December 2009
What's Love Got to Do With It?
By cultivated nature, I am not one to put things in black and white terms. Perhaps by inclination initially, but also by years of pointed practice, I've developed the habit of looking for commonalities, for points to be shared, for the 99.99% overlap in all our lives rather than the 0.01% differences.
(I know my GOP and righter-wing friends may find that hard to believe, but I also believe in the political utility of demoralizing the opposition—a tactic some of you share—so I'm not beyond portraying your wrongheadedness in extreme terms every so often, even as I try very hard not to forget that we're all in this together, are the same in almost every sense, and ask, almost beg, you to come to your senses and get on the better side of things.)
But on this matter of same-sex relationships, I've about lost my patience with my less than understanding friends who persist in supporting having the state deny my love and me and those like us what are rights given to us by God—yes, by the Creator of this Universe—by the simple fact that we were born into this world, that we are breathing.
That is the right to be considered married by our communities, as represented legitimately and legally in our governments at all levels.
The November 2008 election results in Arizona, California, and Florida hit me like a ton of bricks. I have become so numb since that I could watch what happened in Maine this past November without getting depressed, which is, in its own way, sad.
To have my rights—and this is where I am as sure as I have ever been about anything: these are my rights—voted on by my fellow citizens is insulting and demeaning. It shows a degree of suspicion of gay people as citizens, as humans, that is simply not justified.
The concerns raised by those who oppose recognizing the full human rights of LGBT people are not real.
Please, give this some reflection and thought.
The love Mack and I have for each other is just as real as what you and the one you love have for each other. Just as real. Just as natural. Just as human. Just as blessed. Just as Divine.
Our expressing that love and having it recognized by our governments takes nothing away from you, does not threaten your children, has no impact on whether they are more or less likely to be gay (even as it changes the likelihood that should your child be gay, she or he may express that openly and be more likely to be happy).
As we move forward, please give our love not begrudged recognition as some kind of exception ("well, you two are okay since you're our friends, but the rest of those faggots better watch out"), but give us, all of us same-sex couples now and to come, your blessing with full and open hearts.
Open your heart and see what is real, not your imaginings, not your fears. See the love.
Love's got everything to do with it: Our love as individuals for each other, and our love for other people, regardless of who they love.
Please help us secure the recognition of our rights. If you can't do that, at least please stop helping those who oppose our securing what is rightfully ours. Those rights are ours: I am sure about that. Are you so sure that they're not?
(I know my GOP and righter-wing friends may find that hard to believe, but I also believe in the political utility of demoralizing the opposition—a tactic some of you share—so I'm not beyond portraying your wrongheadedness in extreme terms every so often, even as I try very hard not to forget that we're all in this together, are the same in almost every sense, and ask, almost beg, you to come to your senses and get on the better side of things.)
But on this matter of same-sex relationships, I've about lost my patience with my less than understanding friends who persist in supporting having the state deny my love and me and those like us what are rights given to us by God—yes, by the Creator of this Universe—by the simple fact that we were born into this world, that we are breathing.
That is the right to be considered married by our communities, as represented legitimately and legally in our governments at all levels.
The November 2008 election results in Arizona, California, and Florida hit me like a ton of bricks. I have become so numb since that I could watch what happened in Maine this past November without getting depressed, which is, in its own way, sad.
To have my rights—and this is where I am as sure as I have ever been about anything: these are my rights—voted on by my fellow citizens is insulting and demeaning. It shows a degree of suspicion of gay people as citizens, as humans, that is simply not justified.
The concerns raised by those who oppose recognizing the full human rights of LGBT people are not real.
- Recruiting: The idea that gay people are out there trying to convince children to be gay is a fantasy that opponents of recognizing gay rights whip out all the time, without one iota of evidence for its reality. Currently, there's no settled understanding about why some of us are gay. Clearly we're a small proportion of the populace.
My own thinking is that being gay is an expression of human nature with both genetic and developmental components that manifests itself once societies achieve a certain lack of survival stress (so that whatever genetic factors are involved become expressed). I figure it's likely that nothing anyone does except wiping out the modern world and sending us back to the caves will change some small number of LGBT people showing up in the world on a recurring basis. I'm skeptical that there's any one factor that can be identified to put the kibosh on that nature expressing itself, or that would lead someone who's not gay to become gay.
When it comes to conversion, the fraction of straight people who are actively trying to turn gay people straight is probably larger than the fraction of gay people who are actively trying to turn straight people gay. And it's those same ones who are active in trying to get gay people not to be gay who go around claiming that gay people are trying to recruit straight people. - The gay predator: Most child molesters are straight, with a family connection to the victim. The ones who are gay are almost always closet cases. Instead of worrying about out gay people preying on your children, you ought to be worried about the insecure ones who pretend to be straight: The preist. The Boy Scout leader. The Sunday School teacher. The Republican state representative, Governor, Congressman, Senator.
If the closet persists, that exploitative element will persist with it, because it's harder to grow emotionally into an adult relationship with another adult when the larger world treats same-sex adult relationships as something to be devalued relative to straight relationships. - Lack of monogamy: My own thinking is that this has more to do with whether one has an XY chromosome pair or an XX pair (part of that 0.01%), with plenty of statistical variation regardless. Look: Men, by and large, are horndogs, and straight marriage doesn't change that, only its expression. Those straight marriages are not uniform in how that expression is achieved: There are plenty of married men at titty bars whose wives could care less, and I'd be very suspect if you could show that that group is any less good husbands or good fathers in the long run than the group that never looks at another woman besides their wife. The supposed ideal family promoted by the opponents of recognizing gay rights may be achieved by a few, but it is neither as broadly nor deeply a part of the lives of married straight people as those opponents fantasize. It seems pretty obvious that if it were, there wouldn't be so many divorces.
And, yes, gay men, like straight men, are wired such that more and different seems better, and they might just be in a position to realize fantasies based on those ideas more often than straight men can find indulgent female partners to do so. That doesn't mean that the couple is any less committed to each other than it does for the straight couple, whether they are married or not. - Sleaziness: Again, the idea that all straight people, married or not, are only doing it in the missionary position is just a bunch of bunk. Merle sang that "we don't make a party out of loving," but just about any decent sized city (and lots of smaller ones, too) has commercial outlets to spice up the love life of straight couples, from Victoria's Secret at the mall to any number of coyly-named free-standing outlets like "Indulgences" or "Fantasies" or "The Love Shop."
But if gay people add a little kink to their sex lives, then it's supposedly sleazy. This is a face-value double standard that displays who's got the power in this world: it's okay for straight people, but sleazy when gay people do it. - It's not really love: This is the one that irritates me the most. To tell me that what I feel for the man I love is not really love is just disconnected from what is.
Do not tell me that it's not love when I lay in bed next to him at night, feel my foot touch his, and feel my entire body just unwind. Do not tell me it's not love when we fall asleep holding hands on the couch. Do not tell me that it's not love when we take care of each other when we are sick, when we do our best to take care of our own and each other's families. Do not tell me that it's not love when we do little things for each other that we never tell each other about. Do not tell me it's not love, when one of my few fears is something happening to take him out of my life.
Do not tell me it's not really love.
Do not tell me what I am feeling.
When I tell you that I love him, do not tell me that I don't feel that way. When your child tells you that she or he loves someone of the same sex, do not tell then that they don't, that it's a phase they'll grow out of, that no child of yours could ever feel that way. Believe this report as surely you believe the sun comes up in the morning, for it is just as real, just as natural, just as much a part of the way this Universe works as your or my breathing is. As your or my kissing the one we love is.
Do not tell me that this is not love.
Please, give this some reflection and thought.
The love Mack and I have for each other is just as real as what you and the one you love have for each other. Just as real. Just as natural. Just as human. Just as blessed. Just as Divine.
Our expressing that love and having it recognized by our governments takes nothing away from you, does not threaten your children, has no impact on whether they are more or less likely to be gay (even as it changes the likelihood that should your child be gay, she or he may express that openly and be more likely to be happy).
As we move forward, please give our love not begrudged recognition as some kind of exception ("well, you two are okay since you're our friends, but the rest of those faggots better watch out"), but give us, all of us same-sex couples now and to come, your blessing with full and open hearts.
Open your heart and see what is real, not your imaginings, not your fears. See the love.
Love's got everything to do with it: Our love as individuals for each other, and our love for other people, regardless of who they love.
Please help us secure the recognition of our rights. If you can't do that, at least please stop helping those who oppose our securing what is rightfully ours. Those rights are ours: I am sure about that. Are you so sure that they're not?
Labels: gay, gay marriage, gay rights, lgbt, marriage, rights, same-sex marriage
19 January 2009
A Small Rant (Number 492,696)
Yeah, I know, I've been quiet when I should be getting all excited about tomorrow's inauguration of President Obama.
I am excited, but my lingering disappointment in the LGBT movement—both in terms of moving forward after the November losses and in terms of not being able to move past focusing on distractions like Rick Warren—has just left me a little fried. I wish I could make more of a difference in moving LGBT rights forward, but I'm unclear how to do so. And I'm easily distracted by the day-to-day fulfilling of my family, personal, and professional obligations.
The only LGBT leaders who seem to me to have a clue are the actual politicians: the Barney Franks and Tammy Baldwins. The rest—activists, media/blogger types, and much of the community that I see online and in person—seem clueless. Anger seems to count for action, and the only action happening is anger.
We got our butts kicked here in Florida, and the local LGBT leadership goes on with their heads up their asses acting like nothing happened. Like November 4 doesn't deserve some kind of response beyond "we have really big plans for this year." The usual suspects—The Human Rights Campaign and Equality Florida, in particular—continue down their merry path in the delusion that they're going to be effective lobbying the reactionary Florida legislature (even more reactionary after November, since the local Democratic party gives the GOP a bye in just about ever district in which there's not already a Democratic legislator) for items like domestic partner benefits. The same people who led us to defeat in November are still running the show, but I see individual after individual on Facebook keep signing up as a supporter of the Human Rights Campaign. They may even think I'd want them to do so.
I certainly don't mean to declare "game over," but there is a time to actually take the safety, hunker down, and figure out what to do next. I don't see much of that happening. Instead, there's either Obama euphoria (Gene Robinson!), Obama disappointment (Rick Warren!), or floundering activity on an LGBT rights agenda that's going nowhere in the Florida legislature.
So, that's the report from Florida, 19 January 2009.
p.s. I am thrilled about President Obama, because I realize how far we've come as a nation in my lifetime regarding matters of race. But I remain dejected and irritated about my LGBT community, a community that seems not to have the slightest clue how to secure the rights that flow to its members as naturally as breathing air.
I am excited, but my lingering disappointment in the LGBT movement—both in terms of moving forward after the November losses and in terms of not being able to move past focusing on distractions like Rick Warren—has just left me a little fried. I wish I could make more of a difference in moving LGBT rights forward, but I'm unclear how to do so. And I'm easily distracted by the day-to-day fulfilling of my family, personal, and professional obligations.
The only LGBT leaders who seem to me to have a clue are the actual politicians: the Barney Franks and Tammy Baldwins. The rest—activists, media/blogger types, and much of the community that I see online and in person—seem clueless. Anger seems to count for action, and the only action happening is anger.
We got our butts kicked here in Florida, and the local LGBT leadership goes on with their heads up their asses acting like nothing happened. Like November 4 doesn't deserve some kind of response beyond "we have really big plans for this year." The usual suspects—The Human Rights Campaign and Equality Florida, in particular—continue down their merry path in the delusion that they're going to be effective lobbying the reactionary Florida legislature (even more reactionary after November, since the local Democratic party gives the GOP a bye in just about ever district in which there's not already a Democratic legislator) for items like domestic partner benefits. The same people who led us to defeat in November are still running the show, but I see individual after individual on Facebook keep signing up as a supporter of the Human Rights Campaign. They may even think I'd want them to do so.
I certainly don't mean to declare "game over," but there is a time to actually take the safety, hunker down, and figure out what to do next. I don't see much of that happening. Instead, there's either Obama euphoria (Gene Robinson!), Obama disappointment (Rick Warren!), or floundering activity on an LGBT rights agenda that's going nowhere in the Florida legislature.
So, that's the report from Florida, 19 January 2009.
p.s. I am thrilled about President Obama, because I realize how far we've come as a nation in my lifetime regarding matters of race. But I remain dejected and irritated about my LGBT community, a community that seems not to have the slightest clue how to secure the rights that flow to its members as naturally as breathing air.
Labels: gay rights, lgbt, obama, president, rights
17 December 2008
Rick Warren and the Inauguration
Lots of people are in high dudgeon about the Inaugural Committee's choice (with, one presumes, President-Elect Obama's consent) of Rick Warren to deliver the Invocation at the Inauguration.
Get. Over. It.
If you didn't understand what Obama was talking about when he discussed a politics of inclusion, you have no one to blame but yourself. You were told the us-against-them rules were going to change.
Treating people as persona-non-grata because you disagree with their opinion on a matter near and dear to your own heart is not an effective way to change their opinion. Impacting them in ways that leads them to change their point of view is desirable. There are ways to do that beyond holding them up to ridicule, scorn, invective, and dismissal. Engaging them as a human being that you care about, that you care to influence their opinion about, is an approach that yields substantive change both in the short and long terms.
It's better for Warren to be there on the platform and to hear Obama's inclusion of LGBT folk into the national fabric in his inaugural address than it is for him to hear it on a television somewhere. It draws him into the discussion. It makes him complicit in Obama's point of view.
We (LGBT folk) have to engage the church-going population, and not just the liberal church-going population. We have to hear their fears and concerns; we have to address them. Being right just isn't enough: we have to bring those who disagree with us along somehow if we are going to get to the point that they respect our rights from an understanding point of view.
Get. Over. It.
If you didn't understand what Obama was talking about when he discussed a politics of inclusion, you have no one to blame but yourself. You were told the us-against-them rules were going to change.
Treating people as persona-non-grata because you disagree with their opinion on a matter near and dear to your own heart is not an effective way to change their opinion. Impacting them in ways that leads them to change their point of view is desirable. There are ways to do that beyond holding them up to ridicule, scorn, invective, and dismissal. Engaging them as a human being that you care about, that you care to influence their opinion about, is an approach that yields substantive change both in the short and long terms.
It's better for Warren to be there on the platform and to hear Obama's inclusion of LGBT folk into the national fabric in his inaugural address than it is for him to hear it on a television somewhere. It draws him into the discussion. It makes him complicit in Obama's point of view.
We (LGBT folk) have to engage the church-going population, and not just the liberal church-going population. We have to hear their fears and concerns; we have to address them. Being right just isn't enough: we have to bring those who disagree with us along somehow if we are going to get to the point that they respect our rights from an understanding point of view.
Labels: gay rights, inauguration, obama, rick warren
16 November 2008
JoinTheImpact: Orlando, Saturday, 15 November 2008
We went to the JoinTheImpact demonstration in Orlando yesterday. The Orlando Sentinel said (here) that the crowd was over 1000 people. Some good speakers, particularly Patty Sheehan, out Orlando City Commissioner, and Michael Vance of the Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Community Center of Central Florida.
The full set of my pictures are on Flickr here, but below are a few of my favorites.
Please. Speak out against the hate. Engage your friends, regardless of where you are, of who you are. You don't have to be gay to speak out against hate, and you don't have to be out to speak up for equality.
The full set of my pictures are on Flickr here, but below are a few of my favorites.
Please. Speak out against the hate. Engage your friends, regardless of where you are, of who you are. You don't have to be gay to speak out against hate, and you don't have to be out to speak up for equality.
Labels: gay, gay marriage, gay rights, human rights, jointheimpact, marriage, orlando, rights
07 August 2007
On Family
I try to maintain a certain calmness in spite of the continued existence of hateful people who can't deal with gay people for whatever reason, but these statements by some that suggest that LGBT people don't care about family, are against family, just really piss me off. I don't have a particular quotation to link to: just years of negative comments I've heard here and there.
I think it's understandable that a gay or lesbian or transgendered person who was abandoned by or forced out of their family because of hatefulness, because of an inability to cope with repulsion, or because of misguided religious ideas would turn on their individual family, but I have found, by and large, that LGBT people care as much about their families—the ones we were brought into the world with, the ones we've been brought in to through intimate relationships, and the ones we've made from scratch—as anyone else.
We celebrate our families: our parents, brothers, and sisters; our grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews; our in-laws (of sorts, or "out-laws" as someone once called them). We appreciate their love, and we are happy to return that love. To suggest otherwise, to suggest that LGBT people or the politics of LGBT people, as an ensemble, are somehow anti-family is just facetious.
I know not all LGBT people are as fortunate to have the love and support of their families the way Mack and I have and have had. I'm grateful for our good situation. And I know it's likely that if you don't agree with me on this, little I say can convince you otherwise. I learned a long time ago that bigotry isn't based on rational considerations, and that people practicing bigotry rarely respond to logic. But if you are open minded, pay attention to the degree to which any LGBT person you know interacts with their family. You might be surprised at the extent.
I think it's understandable that a gay or lesbian or transgendered person who was abandoned by or forced out of their family because of hatefulness, because of an inability to cope with repulsion, or because of misguided religious ideas would turn on their individual family, but I have found, by and large, that LGBT people care as much about their families—the ones we were brought into the world with, the ones we've been brought in to through intimate relationships, and the ones we've made from scratch—as anyone else.
We celebrate our families: our parents, brothers, and sisters; our grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews; our in-laws (of sorts, or "out-laws" as someone once called them). We appreciate their love, and we are happy to return that love. To suggest otherwise, to suggest that LGBT people or the politics of LGBT people, as an ensemble, are somehow anti-family is just facetious.
I know not all LGBT people are as fortunate to have the love and support of their families the way Mack and I have and have had. I'm grateful for our good situation. And I know it's likely that if you don't agree with me on this, little I say can convince you otherwise. I learned a long time ago that bigotry isn't based on rational considerations, and that people practicing bigotry rarely respond to logic. But if you are open minded, pay attention to the degree to which any LGBT person you know interacts with their family. You might be surprised at the extent.
Labels: family, gay, gay rights
13 July 2007
More on Republican of the Day
I got so caught up in the schadenfreude of a publicly homophobic Republican getting busted for cruising the restroom at a public park the other day, that one might interpret me as supporting police entrapment of gay men cruising public spaces.
Sorry. I'm not for entrapment or police clampdowns on what is pretty much harmless behavior, personally and socially. It's been going on for years, and society hasn't fallen into the pits, regardless of what some on the right would like us to believe. I'm sorrier that Representative what's-his-name (I've already forgotten, and I like the phrasing better, anyway) would publicly condemn gay people while likely being a closet case than I am that he—or George Michael for that matter—was cruising a park.
The police report doesn't exactly bolster my confidence in the process. It's full of nearly-certain BS, like that the cop went into the bathroom to adjust his police radio instead of to bait someone into following him; and that there weren't any paper towels at the main sink so he had to go into the handicap stall to dry his hands; and that the cops were there doing surveillance regarding a burglary instead of because the spot's known for cruising. When the arrest report is full of likely obfuscations, a stronger benefit of the doubt goes to the alleged perp than usual, even when his gay-rights record is as lousy as whozit's.
Sorry. I'm not for entrapment or police clampdowns on what is pretty much harmless behavior, personally and socially. It's been going on for years, and society hasn't fallen into the pits, regardless of what some on the right would like us to believe. I'm sorrier that Representative what's-his-name (I've already forgotten, and I like the phrasing better, anyway) would publicly condemn gay people while likely being a closet case than I am that he—or George Michael for that matter—was cruising a park.
The police report doesn't exactly bolster my confidence in the process. It's full of nearly-certain BS, like that the cop went into the bathroom to adjust his police radio instead of to bait someone into following him; and that there weren't any paper towels at the main sink so he had to go into the handicap stall to dry his hands; and that the cops were there doing surveillance regarding a burglary instead of because the spot's known for cruising. When the arrest report is full of likely obfuscations, a stronger benefit of the doubt goes to the alleged perp than usual, even when his gay-rights record is as lousy as whozit's.
Labels: allen, case, closet, gay, gay rights, republican
25 March 2007
Kramer vs. You
No, I don't believe every last word of what Larry Kramer recently wrote, but I do think he's got many interesting ideas about the situation we gay people find ourselves in in this world, at this time. His brush is necessarily broad: If its description isn't particularly accurate to you as an individual in your locale, at this moment, should you be surprised? The larger question is whether he's captured somethings about the context in the USA as a whole, at this instant.
You have to ask yourself in your heart of hearts whether you believe that inequality for people who are gay can be justified in any way shape or form? You have to separate out what you've been told from what you know with your own eyes, with your own heart. You have to be honest about your fears, if that's what they are, but open to the idea that those fears are goundless.
I believe, in my own heart of hearts, that if you honestly partake in those thought experiments, if you ask yourself how you will respond out of love if you find out your co-worker, your friend, your child, your sibling, your parent, your spouse, is not heterosexual, you will know in that same heart of hearts that what Kramer accurately, in my opinion, diagnosed as just plain hatred is just plain wrong. At that point, when given the opportunities, maybe you can do something positive to respond to that hatred, starting with standing up to those who think they can speak hatefully about people who aren't heterosexual without being challenged, without expecting to have their opinions critically examined by those they believe should be tacit allies in oppressing people who are gay.
Is it consistent with a deep and mature sense of human rights that I should be able to be fired for being gay? Is it consistent with a deep and mature sense of human rights that I should have to pay taxes on jointly owned property if my partner of many years should die? That I should not be able to collect pensions or Social Security? Are you so cynical about human nature that you don't believe we can nuture a deep and mature sense of human rights applicable to all people?
Please.
We may be, certainly are, flawed creatures, but we have shown at numerous times and places in our history that we can become better in the whole by broadening our perspective about what equality, fairness, and justice entail.
Get with the program.
You have to ask yourself in your heart of hearts whether you believe that inequality for people who are gay can be justified in any way shape or form? You have to separate out what you've been told from what you know with your own eyes, with your own heart. You have to be honest about your fears, if that's what they are, but open to the idea that those fears are goundless.
I believe, in my own heart of hearts, that if you honestly partake in those thought experiments, if you ask yourself how you will respond out of love if you find out your co-worker, your friend, your child, your sibling, your parent, your spouse, is not heterosexual, you will know in that same heart of hearts that what Kramer accurately, in my opinion, diagnosed as just plain hatred is just plain wrong. At that point, when given the opportunities, maybe you can do something positive to respond to that hatred, starting with standing up to those who think they can speak hatefully about people who aren't heterosexual without being challenged, without expecting to have their opinions critically examined by those they believe should be tacit allies in oppressing people who are gay.
Is it consistent with a deep and mature sense of human rights that I should be able to be fired for being gay? Is it consistent with a deep and mature sense of human rights that I should have to pay taxes on jointly owned property if my partner of many years should die? That I should not be able to collect pensions or Social Security? Are you so cynical about human nature that you don't believe we can nuture a deep and mature sense of human rights applicable to all people?
Please.
We may be, certainly are, flawed creatures, but we have shown at numerous times and places in our history that we can become better in the whole by broadening our perspective about what equality, fairness, and justice entail.
Get with the program.
Labels: gay rights
21 March 2007
Larry Kramer's Letter
DEAR STRAIGHT PEOPLE,
Why do you hate gay people so much?
Gays are hated. Prove me wrong. Your top general just called us immoral. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is in charge of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian troops, some fighting for our country in Iraq. A right-wing political commentator, Ann Coulter, gets away with calling a straight presidential candidate a faggot. Even Garrison Keillor, of all people, is making really tacky jokes about gay parents in his column. This, I guess, does not qualify as hate except that it is so distasteful and dumb, often a first step on the way to hate. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tried to duck the questions that Pace's bigotry raised, confirming what gay people know: that there is not one candidate running for public office anywhere who dares to come right out, unequivocally, and say decent, supportive things about us.
Gays should not vote for any of them. There is not a candidate or major public figure who would not sell gays down the river. We have seen this time after time, even from supposedly progressive politicians such as President Clinton with his "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military and his support of the hideous Defense of Marriage Act. Of course, it's possible that being shunned by gays will make politicians more popular, but at least we will have our self-respect. To vote for them is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us.
Don't any of you wonder why heterosexuals treat gays so brutally year after year after year, as your people take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood? Why, even as we die you don't leave us alone. What we can leave our surviving lovers is taxed far more punitively than what you leave your (legal) surviving spouses. Why do you do this? My lover will be unable to afford to live in the house we have made for each other over our lifetime together. This does not happen to you. Taxation without representation is what led to the Revolutionary War. Gay people have paid all the taxes you have. But you have equality, and we don't.
And there's no sign that this situation will change anytime soon. President Bush will leave a legacy of hate for us that will take many decades to cleanse. He has packed virtually every court and every civil service position in the land with people who don't like us. So, even with the most tolerant of new presidents, gays will be unable to break free from this yoke of hate. Courts rule against gays with hateful regularity. And of course the Supreme Court is not going to give us our equality, and in the end, it is from the Supreme Court that such equality must come. If all of this is not hate, I do not know what hate is.
Our feeble gay movement confines most of its demands to marriage. But political candidates are not talking about—and we are not demanding that they talk about—equality. My lover and I don't want to get married just yet, but we sure want to be equal.
You must know that gays get beaten up all the time, all over the world. If someone beats you up because of who you are—your race or ethnic origin—that is considered a hate crime. But in most states, gays are not included in hate crime measures, and Congress has refused to include us in a federal act.
Homosexuality is a punishable crime in a zillion countries, as is any activism on behalf of it. Punishable means prison. Punishable means death. The U.S. government refused our requests that it protest after gay teenagers were hanged in Iran, but it protests many other foreign cruelties. Who cares if a faggot dies? Parts of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. are joining with the Nigerian archbishop, who believes gays should be put in prison. Episcopalians! Whoever thought we'd have to worry about Episcopalians?
Well, whoever thought we'd have to worry about Florida? A young gay man was just killed in Florida because of his sexual orientation. I get reports of gays slain in our country every week. Few of them make news. Fewer are prosecuted. Do you consider it acceptable that 20,000 Christian youths make an annual pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray for gay souls? This is not free speech. This is another version of hate. It is all one world of gay-hate. It always was.
Gays do not realize that the more we become visible, the more we come out of the closet, the more we are hated. Don't those of you straights who claim not to hate us have a responsibility to denounce the hate? Why is it socially acceptable to joke about "girlie men" or to discriminate against us legally with "constitutional" amendments banning gay marriage? Because we cannot marry, we can pass on only a fraction of our estates, we do not have equal parenting rights and we cannot live with a foreigner we love who does not have government permission to stay in this country. These are the equal protections that the Bill of Rights proclaims for all?
Why do you hate us so much that you will not permit us to legally love? I am almost 72, and I have been hated all my life, and I don't see much change coming.
I think your hate is evil.
What do we do to you that is so awful? Why do you feel compelled to come after us with such frightful energy? Does this somehow make you feel safer and legitimate? What possible harm comes to you if we marry, or are taxed just like you, or are protected from assault by laws that say it is morally wrong to assault people out of hatred? The reasons always offered are religious ones, but certainly they are not based on the love all religions proclaim.
And even if your objections to gays are religious, why do you have to legislate them so hatefully? Make no mistake: Forbidding gay people to love or marry is based on hate, pure and simple.
You may say you don't hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what's the difference? Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal. Which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you.
(Original here at the L. A. Times.)
Why do you hate gay people so much?
Gays are hated. Prove me wrong. Your top general just called us immoral. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is in charge of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian troops, some fighting for our country in Iraq. A right-wing political commentator, Ann Coulter, gets away with calling a straight presidential candidate a faggot. Even Garrison Keillor, of all people, is making really tacky jokes about gay parents in his column. This, I guess, does not qualify as hate except that it is so distasteful and dumb, often a first step on the way to hate. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tried to duck the questions that Pace's bigotry raised, confirming what gay people know: that there is not one candidate running for public office anywhere who dares to come right out, unequivocally, and say decent, supportive things about us.
Gays should not vote for any of them. There is not a candidate or major public figure who would not sell gays down the river. We have seen this time after time, even from supposedly progressive politicians such as President Clinton with his "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military and his support of the hideous Defense of Marriage Act. Of course, it's possible that being shunned by gays will make politicians more popular, but at least we will have our self-respect. To vote for them is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us.
Don't any of you wonder why heterosexuals treat gays so brutally year after year after year, as your people take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood? Why, even as we die you don't leave us alone. What we can leave our surviving lovers is taxed far more punitively than what you leave your (legal) surviving spouses. Why do you do this? My lover will be unable to afford to live in the house we have made for each other over our lifetime together. This does not happen to you. Taxation without representation is what led to the Revolutionary War. Gay people have paid all the taxes you have. But you have equality, and we don't.
And there's no sign that this situation will change anytime soon. President Bush will leave a legacy of hate for us that will take many decades to cleanse. He has packed virtually every court and every civil service position in the land with people who don't like us. So, even with the most tolerant of new presidents, gays will be unable to break free from this yoke of hate. Courts rule against gays with hateful regularity. And of course the Supreme Court is not going to give us our equality, and in the end, it is from the Supreme Court that such equality must come. If all of this is not hate, I do not know what hate is.
Our feeble gay movement confines most of its demands to marriage. But political candidates are not talking about—and we are not demanding that they talk about—equality. My lover and I don't want to get married just yet, but we sure want to be equal.
You must know that gays get beaten up all the time, all over the world. If someone beats you up because of who you are—your race or ethnic origin—that is considered a hate crime. But in most states, gays are not included in hate crime measures, and Congress has refused to include us in a federal act.
Homosexuality is a punishable crime in a zillion countries, as is any activism on behalf of it. Punishable means prison. Punishable means death. The U.S. government refused our requests that it protest after gay teenagers were hanged in Iran, but it protests many other foreign cruelties. Who cares if a faggot dies? Parts of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. are joining with the Nigerian archbishop, who believes gays should be put in prison. Episcopalians! Whoever thought we'd have to worry about Episcopalians?
Well, whoever thought we'd have to worry about Florida? A young gay man was just killed in Florida because of his sexual orientation. I get reports of gays slain in our country every week. Few of them make news. Fewer are prosecuted. Do you consider it acceptable that 20,000 Christian youths make an annual pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray for gay souls? This is not free speech. This is another version of hate. It is all one world of gay-hate. It always was.
Gays do not realize that the more we become visible, the more we come out of the closet, the more we are hated. Don't those of you straights who claim not to hate us have a responsibility to denounce the hate? Why is it socially acceptable to joke about "girlie men" or to discriminate against us legally with "constitutional" amendments banning gay marriage? Because we cannot marry, we can pass on only a fraction of our estates, we do not have equal parenting rights and we cannot live with a foreigner we love who does not have government permission to stay in this country. These are the equal protections that the Bill of Rights proclaims for all?
Why do you hate us so much that you will not permit us to legally love? I am almost 72, and I have been hated all my life, and I don't see much change coming.
I think your hate is evil.
What do we do to you that is so awful? Why do you feel compelled to come after us with such frightful energy? Does this somehow make you feel safer and legitimate? What possible harm comes to you if we marry, or are taxed just like you, or are protected from assault by laws that say it is morally wrong to assault people out of hatred? The reasons always offered are religious ones, but certainly they are not based on the love all religions proclaim.
And even if your objections to gays are religious, why do you have to legislate them so hatefully? Make no mistake: Forbidding gay people to love or marry is based on hate, pure and simple.
You may say you don't hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what's the difference? Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal. Which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you.
(Original here at the L. A. Times.)
Labels: gay rights
25 February 2007
Gay Senior, Patriot, Brutally Beaten, Dies
In case you were operating under the presumption that gay bashings didn't happen anymore, there's this from Andy Towle:
Ugh. I think almost every non-straight person has a story to tell about someone else's misuse of physical, family, or social power. Having that result in death is the extreme, but any such event causes a little bit of death to the soul. Knowledge that some of your fellow humans will willingly harm you for being who you are is tiresome at best when the who you are is 10 or 5 or 2 percent of the population. If 20 or 10 or 5 percent of the rest of the population share some kind of disposition toward hating you, towards expressing that hate, then you know the numbers are against you from the start. Since you don't know the score, even with a cheerful heart that's disposed towards liking people, one can be wary with good reason.
Each of us has her or his own way for dealing with this, but to deny the reality seems unproductive. It may be impossible to stop individuals from feeling squicked by sexuality other than their own, but there needs to be a clear understanding that expression of those feelings through physical violence will be dealt with harshly. It doesn't have to be more harshly than any other comparable attack, i.e., there doesn't have to be special "hate crimes," but it shouldn't be able to be argued away by "gay panic" or any other bogus defense that treats LGB people as less than human, as less than the rest of our brothers and sisters in humanity.
Andrew Anthos, 72, the gay senior citizen who waged a nearly-two-decade campaign to have the Michigan capitol dome lit in red, white, and blue, died yesterday from injuries sustained in a brutal hate attack.Here's a story he referenced from the Detroit News, and here's one from the Lansing State Journal.
Anthos, whom his niece says had a lifelong disability, was riding a bus home and a stranger, apparently offended that Anthos was singing, asked Anthos if he was gay, followed him off a bus, and beat him with a pipe. Anthos spent the last few days in a coma, paralyzed from the neck down, before dying yesterday.
Cold-blooded murder.
Police have not found the attackers. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has offered to pay for his funeral.
Ugh. I think almost every non-straight person has a story to tell about someone else's misuse of physical, family, or social power. Having that result in death is the extreme, but any such event causes a little bit of death to the soul. Knowledge that some of your fellow humans will willingly harm you for being who you are is tiresome at best when the who you are is 10 or 5 or 2 percent of the population. If 20 or 10 or 5 percent of the rest of the population share some kind of disposition toward hating you, towards expressing that hate, then you know the numbers are against you from the start. Since you don't know the score, even with a cheerful heart that's disposed towards liking people, one can be wary with good reason.
Each of us has her or his own way for dealing with this, but to deny the reality seems unproductive. It may be impossible to stop individuals from feeling squicked by sexuality other than their own, but there needs to be a clear understanding that expression of those feelings through physical violence will be dealt with harshly. It doesn't have to be more harshly than any other comparable attack, i.e., there doesn't have to be special "hate crimes," but it shouldn't be able to be argued away by "gay panic" or any other bogus defense that treats LGB people as less than human, as less than the rest of our brothers and sisters in humanity.
Labels: gay bashing, gay rights
