Son of Timatollah

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.

Labels: DADT, don't ask don't tell, gay marriage, gay rights, lgbt, LGBTT, marriage, same-sex marriage

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.

• 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.

To those of you who continue to want to prevent our governments from recognizing my rights: I understand that this involves some recalibration on your part. I understand this is not what you've always believed. I understand this way of thinking bumps up against what you believe your faiths require of you. I'd ask that you look at ways people thought about relationships between folks of different colors once, and how somehow their faiths survived the change of thinking about whether that was allowed or not. (Some may never have changed their attitude about mixed-race relationships, and to those I can only extend my deepest sadness.)

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

more music charts

Labels: equal rights, gay, gay marriage, marriage, same-sex marriage

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.

Labels: gay, gay marriage, gay rights, human rights, jointheimpact, marriage, orlando, rights

"The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which 'the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one’s skin or color or race' are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs."—Hannah Arendt, 1959 (via Sullivan).

p.s. Big congratulations to Mike and Dave (scroll down to the post titled "Front and center?" then work backwards), Mike and Aric, and other folk who now or soon are tying the knot legally!

Labels: california, gay, marriage

There is no persuasive basis for applying to statutes that classify persons on the basis of the suspect classification of sexual orientation a standard less rigorous than that applied to statutes that classify on the basis of the suspect classifications of gender, race, or religion. Because sexual orientation, like gender, race, or religion, is a characteristic that frequently has been the basis for biased and improperly stereotypical treatment and that generally bears no relation to an individual’s ability to perform or contribute to society, it is appropriate for courts to evaluate with great care and with considerable skepticism any statute that embodies such a classification. The strict scrutiny standard therefore is applicable to statutes that impose differential treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.

From yesterday's California Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage.

As the lawyers and legal analysts point out, this moves LGBT discrimination—well, LG discrimination, at least initially—into the realm of strict scrutiny and out of the domain of rational basis. The presumption, at least in California, is that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, is suspect.

Labels: california, gay, marriage

New Hampshire's civil union law, same-sex marriage pseudo-equivalence, kicked in with the start of the new year. Story here, from USA Today.

Of course, thanks to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (signed into law by Bill Clinton), even married same-sex partners are denied over a thousand benefits that different-sexed married partners receive under Federal laws and regulations. Add to that some state-dependent number of benefits, and what do you get: Ugly, face-value discrimination based on an arbitrary life characteristic that has nothing to do with the ability to form what's indistinguishable from many contemporary families except for the same gender of the pair at the family's nucleus. Then throw in these marriage amendments, like the one being proposed for Florida, that not only prohibit gay marriage, but also restrict the ability of states, communities, and businesses to recognize and support domestic partnerships and civil unions

It's time for GLBT folk to stop accepting second-class citizenship. It's time for us and our allies to label accurately what is un-American, anti-freedom behavior on the part of those who support such discrimination. Make a measure in your mind of the similarities between the social qualities our enemies, the terrorists, are trying to achieve and those our Christian fundamentalists strive for, and call it as you see it.

I'm not endorsing the culture war the other side seems to want: I'm for respectful engagement and trying to understand what others claim as their legitimate concerns, for giving the other side the respect it refuses to give us. But I'm for taking the blinders off, losing the shame many of us still buy into, and using language as accurately as possible. By respecting ourselves, by refusing to cower before the views of those who try and actually do oppress us (even as we try to respect them and understand their views), we can put an end to this nonsense and achieve statutory recognition of the rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, including marriage—that are ours by simple virtue of existing.

Labels: doma, gay, marriage

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Labels: amendment, gay, marriage, rights