Daddy, Papa and Me

Really, there should be a regular feature in a magazine: “Another anti-gay Republican comes out as “anti-himself”" Sigh. So many Republicans who have done a lot of damage to the lives of so many gay men and lesbians later come out.

Mehlman is the latest if you haven’t heard already.

Who’s Ken Mehlman? Well, he was probably the worst of the many Republicans who came out after doing so much damage. He was the campaign chairman for Bush during 2004. Don’t remember 2004? That’s the year the Bush campaign used gay-baiting and fear-mongering to win an election. That’s the year that 11 state amendments passed to ban marriage equality. I remember the year really well. I remember the gay-baiting and the fear mongering. I remember the hateful rhetoric and loss of rights. It was a very angry and depressing year politically.

Bush was the client, Rove the architect, and Mehlman the contractor and builder of that hateful campaign.

The Christian in me wants so hard to forgive him. I understand the pain and struggle it is to come out, especially in his generation. I deeply understand how everything around you, every thing you hear can make you descend into a pit of self-hating. What I don’t understand is taking that self-hate and using it to oppress others like you. Joe, My God has a long ‘flashback’ of many of the egregious attacks he made from 2004 to 2006.

I’ll forgive him, not that it’s really my place to. That’s between him and God. But if he wants my support, or for me to listen to him, he’s has a lot of reconciliation to do, about 8 years of really really hard work to right the wrongs against the community of his peers.

In future years, we are going to look back and realize it was the closeted politicians and political activists who did some of the worst damage to our equality. It’s sad.

Just a quick post of a photo

Dr. Laura used the word insensitively trying to make a point (one I’m not sure I’m in agreement with, or am I?). The use of the word, seems to have lead to her resigning. She did give an actual real apology and not one of those fake “I’m sorry if someone’s feelings were hurt” non-apologies, but she resigned anyway (which has Conor confused). Of course now she says she ‘wants her 1st amendment rights back’ in an apparent confusion between economic rights (she has none) and speech rights (she never lost them).

Well, last night we were confronted with the “N’ word, 4 times to be exact. I counted.

Guy and I took Emma and “J” with their uncle Scott to see “Big River” at the Sundance outdoor theatre. This is a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn. First let me get this out of the way: it was a great production. The singing was a bit uneven (except by the lead, he was great) at times, but the acting and production was good. We all enjoyed it immensely, including Emma.

But color me ignorant, stupid or forgetful. I knew that the novel has the “N” word in it and has been controversial for that. Though I’ll admit here, I haven’t read it. Yes, I know, I’m a cultural illiterate. I’m remedying that this year. BUt, for some reason I either expected or just ignored the possibility that the musical would use the word.

It does. 4 times.

We’ve discussed slavery and Emma has learned about it in school and elsewhere, so those themes didn’t bother me (though I still haven’t had the talk about my maternal slaveholding ancestry, that’s for another day). We were comfortable that’d she has the knowledge and understanding to navigate those themes.

But the “N” word. I cringed. Each time. Though there were 5 to 6 African-American actors in the play, I think there was one African-American in the audience, our daughter. And the “N” word was always said by the white characters in derogatory tones. I sat there wondering if Emma heard the word, knew what it meant and it’s connotations. I assume she heard it, but don’t think she knows it and am pretty sure she doesn’t know the connotations.

She already knows the “B” word for women. A young boy called her that word last year. She asked me what it meant and I explained “It’s a mean word that ignorant people use for girls and women. It should never be said by anyone.” Of course she later wanted to know a similar word for boys, I couldn’t think of one (not that I’d tell her if I had). I just told her we don’t use those words.

She already knows the “F” word for gay men. She heard some stupid suburban frat boy yell it from a car in SF (you can tell from the car plates and stickers…it happens every couple years). She wanted to know what it means. I explained to her that “It’s a mean word that ignorant people use for gay men. It should never be said by anyone.”

Now what do I say if she asks about the “N” word? (if/when she does). I think we can tell her that _no_ one should ever use it. But then she just heard it in a play. And, back to Dr. Laura, her point was that black kids and comedians use it without repercussion, why can’t she? I know the answers to this, why it can be used in a play or book, why Dr. Laura can’t use it (and why I still find it crude and ugly when black kids use it, or comedians), but how do we explain that to an eight year old?

I’m not the first to come across this dilemma, nor the last. I think we’ll say the same thing as for the other words “It’s a mean word ignorant people use for black people. It should never be said by anyone” and then over time explain the exceptions.

I still haven’t come up with a word for white straight males that has the same nasty impact (not that I want to, just can’t think of one except some dated little-used ones).

Conor Friedersdorf over on Andrew Sullivan’s blog requested first kiss stories. I write AS very occasionally, and thought I’d write my story. I sent it in. I was pretty confident it wouldn’t be chosen. The blog gets hundreds of emails a day (has something like 100,000 hits a day or some such absurd number). Well, chosen it was.

Yikes. Well, I think I’m going to have to do some rewriting. In an email it looks fine, but once I see it public I see all the flaws. Oh well .

I’ve reprinted it (without corrections yet) below:

As this writer says, it’s not just whether we can file jointly or not (with DOMA in place, we can not) and thus pay the same taxes as other married couples, it’s bigger than that: Gay Or Straight, Marriage Matters–For Taxes .

If, god forbid, one us dies, or if we got divorced, the property and equity that transfers from one of us to the other is taxed, heavily.

If you were heterosexually married, your family is protected against that tax. Your spouse and children would not lose a sizable portion of their assets.

We don’t have that protection.

So much for Equal Protection under the law.

via Calitics:: PROP 8: Stay Granted; Case Expedited; Standing Questioned.

Bad news: The 9th circuit court granted the stay. Means that no marriage can occur for now.

Good news: They expedited the hearing, arguments and briefs will be complete by December.

Good news: They are insisting the pro Prop 8 argue why this case should not be dismissed for lack of standing (in other words, to bring a law suit you must have standing to do, be the harmed party. In this case it is argued that the state (i.e. Governor and Attorney General) that have standing, not just any citizen or group.

So, we’ll see.

The audacity of hate. Over at the Blend, they report that one of CBN’s correspondents writes why gay men and women we shouldn’t be allowed in the military. To wit, we are
diseased
violent
and suicidal.

You know, vermin.

Pat Robertson’s CBN correspondent: ‘Gay subculture – one of the most violent subcultures out there’.

His points are all take a lot of chutzpah to print and stand by. Basically, they either take an extreme twisting of the facts or the attitude of “We’ll force something on you and then blame you for it.”

Our life expectancy is lower because we are diseased? A bastardization of fact from a debunked hit piece.
We are from a violent culture? A absurd reading of statistics.
We can’t give blood? Yes, pass a law that we can’t give blood and then blame us because we can’t give blood.
We have heightened rates of suicide: Yes, demonize, ostracize, kick us out of our families and churches, and demean us and then blame us for the greater rates of suicide. (which btw, you then deny in other publications that we have heightened rates of suicide when it suits your purposes when fighting hate crime laws or anti-bullying programs).

It’s like the argument why we can’t have marriage rights. Don’t allow us marriage and then blame us for not living in committed relationships (when in your own publications you admit that marriage stabilizes relationships).

Yes, they’ve run out of arguments to keep us unequal.

Oh, btw, one of the reasons I’ve been so silent on the blog (other than the fact that our lives are nuts, facebook and the like) is that we now have another addition to our family, a 4 year old girl. She came to our home this summer. Because she’s a foster child (now, we are in the process of adoption), I can’t tell you much about her (name, history, etc). But things are going well and we are excited to be a family of four! (yeah, we hit the coveted ‘average family of four’ status.. we match those stats you always see.. you know, like “the average family of four makes X dollars,” “the average family of four eats out X number of times” etc… sort of LOL). I’ll write more on that as time goes on

Right now we are in the adoption process. The child is legally free (in other words, parental rights have been relinquished) and it’s a matter of time, paperwork, home visits and a court appearance before the adoption is final.

“way back” in 2004, when the Republican party and Bush administration (re: Rove) were demonizing gays and putting anti-gay ballot measures on every state ballot they could to drive right wing votes, I know I felt quite well…. demoralized.

Yet, I remember thinking, saying and writing that history was on our side.

It was, and is.

Today the judge refused to stay the ruling, thus on August 18th, gay marriages can recommence. Yes, there is a battle ahead, in the courts, on the ballots, in the media. It’s not over by any means, but is seems to signal a change.

Recent polls also suggest an accelerating change in the number of people who accept that gay and lesbian couples have a _constitutional_ right to marriage equality.. it is now at 50/50:

Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage Appears to Shift at Accelerated Pace.

The tide is turning, and the anti-gay rights forces  are on the wrong side of history.

What maddens me about the right – what has driven me and so many into outright opposition – has been their refusal to acknowledge the conservative aspects of this movement, and the balls it took to take on the gay far left and identity politics in favor of civil integration in the polarized plague years. They saw a minority within a minority battling for responsibility and equality – and all they really saw were homos. With this minority, the GOP did first what it now does to so many. Instead of seeing many of us as allies, they pushed all of us into the enemy camp. Just as they will not concede the critical distinction between Muslims and Jihadists, or often fail in their rhetoric to acknowledge the great contributions of legal immigrants as opposed to illegal ones, so they pushed another minority away.

Their fears trumped their hopes; their bigotry trumped their humanity. With Muslims, Hispanics and gays, the GOP is about lumping us all together and demonizing and blaming us collectively for sins we did not commit and failures for which we are not responsible.

This is not conservatism, properly understood. It is fear.

Andrew Sullivan

It’s true. It’s what drove me and the overwhelming majority of gay men and women from the Republican party, what drove blacks from the party, what is driving hispanics from the party and driving Muslims from the Republican party. The movement toward a anti-personal liberty, nativist, anti-constitution (well, anti 1st, 14th, 17th and several other amendments that the tea bag Republicans are calling for the repeal of) party has accelerated in the last decade. The Republicans might gain a few seats  this year, but if it keeps moving in this direction, it will commit party suicide in the long term. I actually lament it. Anyone who knows me knows I have some libertarian/conservative streaks in me, some quite strong. Unfortunately, I don’t see those in the Republican party any longer, no matter there protestations otherwise.