Author Archives: Sheila

Ten Amendments Day

In March, the Maryland legislature held a hearing on the state’s proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage. Jamin Raskin, professor of law at American University—a noted constitutional scholar—had been invited to testify. When he concluded his remarks, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied, "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." The room erupted into applause, and the exchange has since circulated widely on the internet.

 

I thought about that story when I saw that the Center for Inquiry is sponsoring Ten Amendments Day. There is a special website—www.tenamendments.org—devoted to the Bill of Rights, with special emphasis on the First Amendment liberties of speech and conscience. The local chapter plans a May 7th event at IUPUI, with a reading of the Ten Amendments, videos on Freedom of Religion and Freedom to Dissent, and a panel discussion.

 

The impetus for Ten Amendments Day was “Ten Commandments Day,” an effort by Christian Right groups to rally support for posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings. Such postings would require amending the First Amendment, since the Establishment Clause forbids government endorsement or promotion of religion.

 

Whatever the reason, Ten Amendments Day is a great idea. Too few Americans know much early American history; fewer still have ever read the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist Papers and the arguments for and against the addition of a Bill of Rights to America’s constitution. Without that background, it is impossible to appreciate how radically America’s constitutional system changed what was then thought to be the natural order of things.

 

Before the United States, the right of a government to exercise authority over its individual subjects was taken for granted—indeed, it was thought to be divinely ordained. America’s Founders asked audacious, previously unimaginable questions: what is the proper role of the state? What are the limits of its legitimate authority? Do individual citizens have rights that governments must respect? If so, what are those rights?

 

Democratic processes are important, but America was not originally conceived as a democracy as we currently understand that term. The emphasis was on individual liberty, and the creation of checks and balances intended to limit the reach of official power. As important as many other governing innovations were, and have been, the real genius of the “American experiment” was this recognition that government’s power over the individual conscience must be limited—that the important question was not “who is right and who is wrong” but “who gets to decide.”    

 

Raskin’s riposte went to the heart of that important truth: Americans consult a wide variety of holy and inspirational texts for moral guidance, but we all pledge to uphold the same Ten Amendments.   

 

 

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Pride and Prejudice

We are nearing the time of year when many communities host their annual Gay Pride events.

I remember the first time I attended such a celebration, nearly twenty years ago, as a PFlag mom. Attendance back then was dominated by the most “out” members of the community—there were “leather” guys, dykes on bikes and drag queens in abundance (not, as Seinfeld might have said, that there was anything wrong with that), but few others. More recently, a casual “drop-in” at Indianapolis’ event, at least, might not have known what the celebration was all about. These days, booths are as likely to offer real estate services or symphony tickets as AIDS information or bar locations, and the crowd is a broad and far more representative cross-section of the entire community: moms with strollers, political candidates and representatives of the Gay Chamber of Commerce now mingle with the leather boys, the PFlag moms and dads and all the others.

 

Part of the reason the crowds and booths have changed is that society has changed, and mostly for the better. Earlier Pride celebrations flew in the face of social conventions that made gay or lesbian identity a source of shame, not pride. Gay people who were closeted rarely took the chance of attending and being seen, and straight people who attended often had their stereotypes confirmed rather than dispelled. As society has become more open, and many more people have come out, these events have become larger and much more representative of the gay population as a whole. If the early events tended to be defiant—even “in your face”—occasions of the “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” variety, today’s are more likely to be get-togethers of a community of folks who have a lot in common. Some of what they have in common is the prejudice they experience from the wider culture, of course, but the way that bigotry is usually expressed has changed. Overt hostility and physical danger, while still a problem, have been largely replaced by efforts at political disenfranchisement and social marginalization.

 

Disenfranchisement and marginalization may seem strange causes for celebration, but they actually represent progress.

 

As a result, the upcoming Pride festivals will be paradoxical occasions for looking at how far the community has come—and how far it still has to go.  Progress has been made, but the backlash against that progress is in full swing. The community is getting “whipsawed;” every time a court decision favorable to gay civil rights is handed down, it enrages and energizes the fundamentalist Right.

 

A number of states have passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, and several more will be attempting to do so this year. There is a concerted effort to prevent gays and lesbians from adopting children. (Apparently, God would rather children languish in foster care than be raised in loving same-sex households.) Most states’ civil rights laws still do not include protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Republicans are facing potentially enormous losses in the 2006 elections, and will undoubtedly use anti-gay and anti-immigrant rhetoric to rally their base and get them to the polls.

 

Time is on the side of equal rights. Poll after poll confirms what I see anecdotally in my classes—young people are far less threatened by genuine equality, far more likely to have (and know they have) gay friends and relatives, and far more likely to support equal application of the laws of the land. The challenge at this point comes down to buying time—keeping the states and the federal government from passing laws that will slow the process of achieving necessary reforms, and make positive change much more difficult.

 

What the GLBT community needs most right now is divided government.

 

So—as you all head off to your local Pride fairs and parades, here’s my advice, for what it’s worth: take time to savor the progress that has been made. Have a drink, listen to the music, kibbitz with the friends you see. Buy a music CD, hire a realtor, join a health club—whatever.

 

 But don’t forget to stop at the booth where you register to vote, the one where you volunteer for a political campaign, and the one where you donate to an organization working for equal rights. You’ll be proud that you did.

 

 

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The Politics of Morality

Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of our current political leaders is their willingness to lecture the rest of us on the importance of morality. Whether it is a self-righteous diatribe about a “culture of life” or an insistence on “abstinence-based” sex education, this fixation on our personal behaviors evidently consumes far more of their time and energy than trying to making health care affordable, or balancing the budget.

 

We’re beginning to see just how “moral” these people who’ve cornered the market on virtue really are.

 

I’m not talking about the morality of things like the war in Iraq, or efforts to deport all illegal aliens, or tax policies that line the pockets of campaign contributors at the expense of the most vulnerable, although those are undoubtedly appropriate topics of discussion. No, I’m talking about the garden-variety, “don’t lie, don’t steal” kinds of morality. How are the guys in charge doing on those homelier virtues?

 

In Congress, the Jack Abramoff scandal has put Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham in prison, and has led to the indictment of so-much-holier-than-thou Tom Delay. As many as twenty more lawmakers may be implicated before it’s all over. Bill (“Terri Schaivo looks fine”) Frist is under investigation for securities fraud.

 

In the Administration of our current moralist-in-chief, we have a bonanza: Scooter Libby has been indicted for felony obstruction of justice (and Karl Rove is still under investigation) in the Valerie Plame “outing.” Domestic policy advisor and self-proclaimed Christian conservative Claude Allen has been arrested for felony shoplifting. White House procurement officer David Safarian has been arrested for corruption. At Homeland Security, the agency created by the President to protect us all from the bad guys, not one but two high-ranking officials have been arrested—one for kiddie porn, and the other for trying to have sex with a 14-year-old he “met” over the internet.

 

These are the guys who have been lecturing us about godliness and morality!

 

Maybe these are just examples of age-old “do as I say not as I do” moral smugness. Or maybe these politicians are using religion and religious folks for cynical political advantage. (A recent study called “False Promises” accuses the GOP of deliberately using homophobia to win support from African-Americans; others have suggested that immigration fears are being used in 2006 in much the same way gays were used to mobilize the Republican base in 2004.) Whatever the explanation, the consequences for the country are nothing short of appalling.

 

These Republican leaders have used the language of morality to set American against American. The older rhetoric of “we the people” has been eclipsed by dark references to “them” and “us.” Now, as these favorites of the Religious Right turn out to be considerably less than godly, Americans are reacting by becoming more cynical. As GOP apologists claim “everybody does it,” many citizens assume that’s true. It isn’t—but the perception is profoundly corrosive of trust, and without trust, democratic government cannot endure.

 

It’s enough to give morality a bad name.

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And I Always Thought “Rapture” Meant Happiness…

If I were one of those Christians who believed in the Rapture, I have to admit it would be looking pretty imminent.

 Every time I think things can’t get any grimmer, they seem to: we’ve got global warming (yes, Mr. President, whether you think so or not—one aspect of that inconvenient thing called reality) melting the polar icecaps and threatening to inundate the coasts; more and more people are dying in Iraq, while the Iraqi “government of national unity” shows none of the characteristics of government or unity; the deficit is so big even my great-grandchildren won’t be able to pay it at this rate; Congress wants to round up all the immigrants (except for their grandparents, of course) and expel them; our shortsighted energy policies are getting ready to bite us in the you-know-where…and of course, all of these problems, and any others you can think of, are clearly the fault of the powerful, rich ho-mo-sexual (drool and sneer when you say that) lobby. (We’ve gotta do something about them queers, you know.)

 Sometimes, it really doesn’t seem worth getting out of bed in the mornings.

 I do try to look on the bright side. Honest. Okay, so the sea waters rise three feet—I always wanted to live by the ocean, and pretty soon, Indiana will have a beach! No oil? I always worry when my kids and grandkids drive, and pretty soon, they won’t be able to. What a relief! I don’t have to worry about war with China, because China obviously decided some time back to just buy America instead…..and now that they own all our debt, there’s no reason to invade. And the President assures us that things in Iraq are really just peachy—if the liberal media would just concentrate on covering school openings instead of suicide bombings, we’d all feel better.

 Okay—so I’m not too good at looking on the bright side.

 I would really love to live in the alternate universe that so many of our fellow-citizens evidently inhabit, but I can’t seem to summon up the will power to do that. I keep bumping into hard-working immigrants who just want a chance to make a better life for their kids, or gay neighbors who just want the same rights everyone else has, or people who just want the environment to be clean for their children to grow up in.  I keep encountering reality.

 A lawyer I worked with early in my career used to say that at the end of the day, everything boils down to one question: What should we do? I think that may be the question for our time.

 If you live in what some of us have taken to calling “the reality-based community,” what should you be doing? (Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you have decided against just drinking yourself into a stupor, screwing yourself to death, or finding a deserted tropical island somewhere.) What are the options available?

 I think we have to send a message to the people who are running things. That’s not just the people who hold political office; it’s also the people who pay the lobbyists who bribe the people who work for the people in office. I think we send our message two ways: first, by refusing to spend our dollars—to the extent possible—with those who support the current regime; and second, by working as hard as we can to vote out the current crop of officeholders.

 Is Company A refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill? Okay—but I don’t have to shop at Company A. Is Company B supporting homophobic candidates, advertising on Pat Robertson’s television network, or otherwise enabling the dark side? Fine, but they’ll do it without my patronage.

 Is the Republican leadership in Congress intent upon dictating my religion, my sex life, my procreation and the way I express my patriotism? Are they supporting a President who routinely and brazenly breaks America’s laws? Are they contemptuous of the very people they are pandering to? Then let’s do our damnedest to throw them out—so we can start cleaning up the mess they’ve made.

 Now that would cheer me up!

 

 

 

  

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Going Beyond the B.S. (Bumper Stickers)

It’s primary election time. Soon, the 2006 political season will descend on us—and with it, the inevitable assortment of exaggerated claims, pious moral pronouncements and impractical, unconstitutional and ludicrous policy proposals. Since hiding in a cave somewhere until it’s all over is generally not an option, when Congressional candidate A unveils his “Major Initiative to Solve the Boll Weevil Problem,” I am offering the following four easy questions to help you evaluate the candidates and their proposals:

 Question One: Is there general agreement that Boll Weevils are a problem?

Many of our fellow citizens believe that “dirty” books, gay parenting or retailers who substitute “Seasons Greetings” for “Merry Christmas” are among our most pressing social problems. Many of the rest of us don’t—in fact, some of us think our biggest problem is the jerks who insist on screaming about these “threats to morality and American culture.” Maybe some farmers welcome Boll Weevils.

 Question Two: Is there agreement on how to solve that problem?

Assuming that there is some level of agreement that a particular element of our common lives presents us with challenges—immigration and the outsourcing of American jobs come to mind; there are many others—is there any consensus on how that particular problem should be solved? (If Tom Friedman is right and the world is really “flat,” the measures we employ to deal with outsourcing probably ought to take its inevitability into account.) What does the evidence tell us about the Boll Weevils?

 Question Three: Is this a problem only government can solve?

Just because Uncle Beauregard was injured when he fell out of his golf cart, does it really make sense to pass a law requiring all golf cart manufacturers to install seat belts? Aren’t some problems best left to individuals, parents, or nonprofit organizations? Or—in the case of Boll Weevils—to farmers?

Question Four: Does the proposed solution pass the ‘smell test’?

 Does our earnest candidate demonstrate knowledge of available evidence on this issue? There are, for example, numerous studies showing that children raised by gay parents do just as well as those raised by straight ones—is Moral Paragon Candidate X aware of that research?  Is Fearless Candidate Y using “wedge issues” to appeal to a particular constituency—say the Wingnut Right—at the expense of other citizens? Is she simplifying complex issues? Substituting slogans for proposals, and labels for analysis? Is willingness to get serious about Boll Weevils really an indicator of her opponent’s fidelity to American Values?

 Can we really solve the nation’s problems with bumper sticker policies? Can we reduce criminal justice to Officer Friendly, Dirty Harry and Smoky the Bear? Or save American values by censoring Hollywood, outlawing abortion and disenfranchising gays?    

Or will 2006 be the year America comes to its senses?

 

 

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