Category Archives: Gay Rights

Healthy, Wealthy, Wise

I’ve seen this movie before—the one where everyone who knows anything about the subject says we have to do something—in this case, reform our system of health insurance—but the vested interests and the lunatics manage to keep us from doing it.

 I know I keep yammering about health insurance reform, and I’m sure your eyes are glazing over when I re-introduce the subject yet again. But it is really, really important. And it is particularly important to the gay and lesbian community, for reasons I have also belabored.

One reason the recognition of gay unions is so important is health insurance: currently, if you are gay and don’t work for an enlightened employer, you can’t put your partner (or your partner’s children unless you have somehow established a legal relationship with them—itself not easy) on your health insurance. And that assumes your employer even offers health insurance. The number of employers who do is declining quickly as costs continue to escalate.

Even if you are one of the lucky few who do get adequate insurance through your employer, even if your employer is one of the enlightened ones who allows you to put your partner on your policy, there are significant differences in tax treatment of that benefit, and—surprise!—those differences mean that you will pay more in taxes than a heterosexual coworker who makes the same amount of money that you do and has the same number of dependents and deductions.

Speaking of jobs—as I noted in these pages back in 2006, a rational national health insurance system would mean increased economic development/job creation and would improve American business’s competitiveness with foreign companies. Today, providing employees with health insurance costs businesses more than their net profits; that is why many companies are dropping it. The cost of health insurance is the single largest “drag” on new job creation. For companies that can afford to offer health insurance, negotiating and administering those benefits, and complying with government regulations attendant to them, consumes untold hours of HR time. Smaller companies—the engines of economic growth—are often unable to offer benefits, putting them at a competitive disadvantage for good employees. Job growth benefits everyone—gay and straight.

If all citizens had basic health coverage, we would also experience a decline in the social costs caused by anxiety, anxiety that is caused in significant part by the medical status quo. When a serious illness means you might go bankrupt—when you are worried that you can’t take your child or partner to the emergency room without busting your budget or losing your house—you tend to take those worries out on others. There is a considerable body of research showing that countries with better social safety nets are more tolerant of differences in race, religion and sexual orientation. (Some studies have even suggested that Canada’s lower rate of gun violence can be attributed to their stronger social safety net.)

You just have to turn on your television to see the smoldering fury that too many Americans are feeling. Most of the people screaming and accusing the President of socialism, fascism and the like can’t even articulate what they are angry about or what they want. It is easy to dismiss them as ignorant and fearful, and most of them are. But the fact of their rage is undeniable—and when people get worked up, when they believe they are victims, when they fear for their jobs, and their ability to get healthcare when they need it, they don’t necessarily know why they are angry or look for rational objects for their fury. They take it out on anyone who is different. That—in large measure—was what happened in Germany between the two World Wars. There, the anger was focused on the Jews. There’s no guarantee it won’t focus here on gays.    

To the extent we can patch our tattered social safety net and allay at least some of the free-floating anxiety that leads to disaster, the better chance we have to avoid such outcomes. But getting healthcare reform passed this time won’t be easy. Teddy Roosevelt tried. Harry Truman tried. Nixon tried. LBJ did manage to pass Medicare. Clinton failed to get health reform done.

If Obama is to succeed, he’ll need the help of all of us. Now is the time to write your Congressman, call your Senator, talk down your crazy uncle—whatever you can. We’ll all be the beneficiaries of a more humane, less wasteful system.

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Progress and Its Discontents

In my most recent column for the Indianapolis Star, I reported on our city’s Pride celebration, and pointed to the immense progress that has been made since I began attending such events in 1992. As I put it,

“The crowd was huge, and broadly representative of the diversity of the gay community and those of us who support them. There were young people pushing strollers, old folks like us, and parents with teens. We saw doctors, lawyers and bankers—people who would have been terrified to attend seventeen years ago, when being “out” might mean losing a job—or worse, a family.

Today, when a quarter of the country’s population lives in states that recognize same-sex marriage or its functional equivalent, when polls show that people under thirty support gay civil rights by huge margins, the mood at events like Pride is less defiant and much more celebratory.”

All true. But when you are building a road to a desired destination, it is sometimes necessary to erect appropriate caution signs.

When I first got involved in activism on behalf of equal rights for the GLBT community, much of the community’s political outreach was—let me be kind here—dysfunctional. Most of the reasons for the personal agendas and petty backbiting were understandable, albeit terribly unhelpful, and not much different than behaviors exhibited by people in any marginalized community. (Fights over crumbs, for some reason, tend to be more vicious.) Other behaviors seemed more specific to the gay community.

It is, let’s be honest, a community with many very wounded people. One reason for that, I think, is that while other minority groups may be despised and subjected to discrimination, children in those groups at least grow up with role models. When I grew up Jewish in a small, non-too-tolerant Indiana town, I looked to my parents for clues about what it meant to be Jewish, and for positive reinforcement of my human value. Gays growing up in repressive communities have until very recently had no such models. As a consequence, a lot of GLBT youngsters grow into very needy adults—and needy adults seldom make good movement soldiers. They have trouble subordinating their personal agendas to the needs of the community.

The considerable progress that has been made over the past two decades is largely the result of a recognition of that reality by the gay community. In a very real way, and for a multitude of reasons, the activists in the community grew up. Ostensible disputes over strategy morphed into genuine disputes over strategy, rather than thinly veiled efforts to be important. It was an important turning point that made much of the subsequent progress possible.

So why am I saying we need to erect a “Caution” sign? Because here and there, there is evidence that some of the old dysfunction is resurfacing.

Look at what happened in California. If we are honest, the fight over Proposition 8 was the community’s to lose. Yes, the Mormon Church and others put up a lot of money, but as late as mid-October, polls showed that “No on Prop 8” was winning by a comfortable margin. But as the people involved readily admit, the discord and squabbling among the various gay rights groups charged with defeating Prop 8 got in the way of effective political action.

More recently, there have been some very unseemly charges and counter-charges echoing through gay cyberspace over action and inaction by the Obama administration. Disappointment is understandable, disagreement inevitable, but the shrillness of some of the arguments and accusations has been distinctly unhelpful.

Even in my local community, there have been persistent efforts by some bloggers to mischaracterize and undermine Indiana Equality, a coalition of gay advocacy organizations that has been very effective in bringing different perspectives to the table and advancing the cause of gay equality. (Indiana is one of the very few “bible buckle” states that did not pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage; preventing that passage wasn’t just luck. As someone who was privy to some of the strategic decisions involved, I can attest that it took a lot of hard work by a lot of savvy people.)

Let me be clear about what I am saying, and what I am not saying. I am absolutely not suggesting that people who disagree with a position or a strategy shut up and go away. Civil disagreement and argumentation are always appropriate. The best decisions are made when different points of view are aired and a broad array of interests is at the table.

What I am saying is the obvious: there is constructive criticism and then there is bitching—and efforts to undermine those with whom you disagree, even when it makes achieving common goals more difficult.

There was a lot of that bitching and backbiting seventeen years ago. To regress to it now, when so much progress has been made, would be tragic.

In my most recent column for the Indianapolis Star, I reported on our city’s Pride celebration, and pointed to the immense progress that has been made since I began attending such events in 1992. As I put it,

“The crowd was huge, and broadly representative of the diversity of the gay community and those of us who support them. There were young people pushing strollers, old folks like us, and parents with teens. We saw doctors, lawyers and bankers—people who would have been terrified to attend seventeen years ago, when being “out” might mean losing a job—or worse, a family.

Today, when a quarter of the country’s population lives in states that recognize same-sex marriage or its functional equivalent, when polls show that people under thirty support gay civil rights by huge margins, the mood at events like Pride is less defiant and much more celebratory.”

All true. But when you are building a road to a desired destination, it is sometimes necessary to erect appropriate caution signs.

When I first got involved in activism on behalf of equal rights for the GLBT community, much of the community’s political outreach was—let me be kind here—dysfunctional. Most of the reasons for the personal agendas and petty backbiting were understandable, albeit terribly unhelpful, and not much different than behaviors exhibited by people in any marginalized community. (Fights over crumbs, for some reason, tend to be more vicious.) Other behaviors seemed more specific to the gay community.

It is, let’s be honest, a community with many very wounded people. One reason for that, I think, is that while other minority groups may be despised and subjected to discrimination, children in those groups at least grow up with role models. When I grew up Jewish in a small, non-too-tolerant Indiana town, I looked to my parents for clues about what it meant to be Jewish, and for positive reinforcement of my human value. Gays growing up in repressive communities have until very recently had no such models. As a consequence, a lot of GLBT youngsters grow into very needy adults—and needy adults seldom make good movement soldiers. They have trouble subordinating their personal agendas to the needs of the community.

The considerable progress that has been made over the past two decades is largely the result of a recognition of that reality by the gay community. In a very real way, and for a multitude of reasons, the activists in the community grew up. Ostensible disputes over strategy morphed into genuine disputes over strategy, rather than thinly veiled efforts to be important. It was an important turning point that made much of the subsequent progress possible.

So why am I saying we need to erect a “Caution” sign? Because here and there, there is evidence that some of the old dysfunction is resurfacing.

Look at what happened in California. If we are honest, the fight over Proposition 8 was the community’s to lose. Yes, the Mormon Church and others put up a lot of money, but as late as mid-October, polls showed that “No on Prop 8” was winning by a comfortable margin. But as the people involved readily admit, the discord and squabbling among the various gay rights groups charged with defeating Prop 8 got in the way of effective political action.

More recently, there have been some very unseemly charges and counter-charges echoing through gay cyberspace over action and inaction by the Obama administration. Disappointment is understandable, disagreement inevitable, but the shrillness of some of the arguments and accusations has been distinctly unhelpful.

Even in my local community, there have been persistent efforts by some bloggers to mischaracterize and undermine Indiana Equality, a coalition of gay advocacy organizations that has been very effective in bringing different perspectives to the table and advancing the cause of gay equality. (Indiana is one of the very few “bible buckle” states that did not pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage; preventing that passage wasn’t just luck. As someone who was privy to some of the strategic decisions involved, I can attest that it took a lot of hard work by a lot of savvy people.)

Let me be clear about what I am saying, and what I am not saying. I am absolutely not suggesting that people who disagree with a position or a strategy shut up and go away. Civil disagreement and argumentation are always appropriate. The best decisions are made when different points of view are aired and a broad array of interests is at the table.

What I am saying is the obvious: there is constructive criticism and then there is bitching—and efforts to undermine those with whom you disagree, even when it makes achieving common goals more difficult.

There was a lot of that bitching and backbiting seventeen years ago. To regress to it now, when so much progress has been made, would be tragic.

Backlash

I’ve had two discussions lately that have raised—in very different ways—the strategic questions facing gay activists right now. One of those conversations was with a straight friend who is very savvy politically, and very “gay friendly,” but otherwise not connected to any of the campaigns for gay rights. The other was with a gay friend who spends virtually all his time on those campaigns.

 

My political friend and I were having one of our periodic lunches to discuss recent national and local politics. (Okay, the truth is, we meet every so often to swap political gossip…) Apropos of nothing in particular, he recounted a conversation he’d had with his wife about the apparent speed with which gay marriage is being accepted. “Who’d have thought Iowa! And who’d have expected that a state legislature—not a court, but a democratically-elected body—would support same-sex marriage to such a degree that it would be able to override a veto! It’s amazing! Does it seem to you that this issue is moving faster than other civil rights movements have moved?”

 

My response was the typical lawyer hedge: yes and no.

 

On the one hand, I know how long gay and lesbian people have struggled for the barest legal and social recognition. I remember vividly when the “Coming Out” movement was getting underway, and the amount of real courage it took for many people to simply live an honest, un-closeted existence. So the struggle didn’t just start a couple of years ago. On the marriage front alone, there have been enormous setbacks—just look at the number of states with constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage. Think about Matthew Shepard, and the long history of vicious gay-bashing.

 

On the other hand, it does seem to me that the gay rights movement, and particularly same-sex marriage, has reached what I’d call “critical mass” more quickly than other civil rights efforts. Brown v. Board of Education was decided in the 1950s, and there are still plenty of schools where segregation is countenanced, if not officially legal. And there’s good reason we still have the Voting Rights Act on the books in a number of southern states. By way of contrast, as I write this, same-sex marriage is legal in four states and pending in another two—not to mention California, where it’s likely to win another referendum even if the California court leaves Prop 8 intact. Marriage advocates face a landscape that would have been unimaginable a mere ten years ago.

 

Mention of Proposition 8 leads me to the second conversation, the one with my activist friend. He takes the long view, as he should, and he worries about backlash. Nearly every advance in civil liberties, he reminds me, has come at a price. Roe v. Wade energized the anti-choice movement we face today. Brown led to a massive exodus from our common, public schools—an exodus from which we still suffer more than a half-century later. When the Hawaiian Supreme Court ruled that the state’s constitution required equality, the ruling triggered not only an amendment to Hawaii’s constitution, but the passage of DOMA and the so-called “little DOMAs.” My friend’s point was irrefutable, and I will admit I harbor many of the same fears. How do you achieve progress while at the same time minimizing the likelihood of reactions that could wipe that progress out and set the whole movement back? It’s a conundrum.

 

Or maybe not. Because this morning, as I began to write this column, I saw a brand-new CBS/New York Times poll that measured support for same-sex marriage. This poll was taken in the immediate aftermath of Iowa and Vermont—and it showed a level of support exceeding any that has previously been reported. According to CBS,

 

Forty-two percent of Americans now say same sex couples should be allowed to legally marry, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds. That’s up nine points from last month, when 33 percent supported legalizing same sex marriage.

Support for same sex marriage is now at its highest point since CBS News starting asking about it in 2004.

Twenty-eight percent say same sex couples should have no legal recognition – down from 35 percent in March – while 25 percent support civil unions, but not marriage, for gay couples.

 

I think gay rights activists are “over the hump” in this country. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it won’t be very long. There may be some backlash here and there, among the remnants of the reactionary right, but this battle is over.

 

And the good guys won.  

The Pollyanna Perspective

I was always grateful I didn’t have to live through the Great Depression. But as I look at the current status of the United States and world economies, I think my gratitude may have been—how shall we say it?—premature.

 

These are the times that try a control-freak’s soul. The vast majority of us can do little or nothing to repair the wounds inflicted by the private greed and public incompetence of our most recent “gilded age.” We are reduced to reading the analyses of self-proclaimed “experts” and patently self-interested spokespersons for this or that interest group, and wondering who is right. Is Obama a “socialist” bent upon turning the U.S. into a—horrors!—European welfare state?? (And if he is, why would that be so terrible?) Or is he a pragmatist, using whatever tools seem most likely to cure what ails us? And if that is correct, is he choosing the right tools? Who knows?

 

Then there are the fears that run deepest among marginalized communities. In bad economic times, people have always looked for someone to blame, someone to hate. (Think of the conditions in Germany that gave rise to Hitler!) Already, there are indications of upticks in anti-Semitism, long on the decline. The election of Obama marked great progress in race relations, but has also occasioned eruptions of really psychotic racism. If the downturn continues and deepens, what will that mean for attitudes toward Jews, blacks, immigrants, gays and lesbians?

 

The answer to all these questions is unknowable at this point. So, rather than wallow in fear of potential disasters that may never come, I choose to focus on rosy possibilities that may also never come, but comfort me with their promise.

 

As Rahm Emmanuel said shortly after the election, every crisis is also an opportunity. It’s a sentiment that has been echoed by President Obama, and it has the virtue of being true. As dangerous and depressing as the current situation is, it allows us to take stock of what we’ve done wrong and correct our course. Bad times may encourage inter-group tensions, but they may also lead to the tardy realization that we are all on this planet together, and our differences are far less than our similarities.

 

What are the opportunities, the potential “upsides,” for the gay community?

 

Probably the most significant is the promise of universal healthcare. Back in 2006, I wrote the following in my June Word column:

 

“One reason recognizing gay marriage or civil unions is so important is health insurance: currently, if you are gay and don’t work for an enlightened employer, you cannot put your partner (or your partner’s children unless you have somehow established a legal relationship with them—itself not easy) on your health insurance.

Of course, that assumes your employer even offers health insurance. And the number of employers who do is declining.

 

The bottom line is that America’s refusal to deal with our dysfunctional health system in a rational way affects gays and lesbians, and poor people, disproportionately. It is one more example why bad public policy—and not just bad policy on gay-related issues—is especially important to the community.”

 

If access to affordable health insurance didn’t depend upon where you worked, but instead was treated as a right that comes with citizenship (much as it is in those retrograde European countries), what a difference that would make! Equality would immediately be enhanced, because gay families would no longer face barriers to medical care that straight citizens don’t face.  

 

Fixing our broken health care system would probably be the most important positive change we might anticipate, but it’s far from the only one. In a crisis, sound leadership (which, thankfully, has replaced the manifest incompetence of the Bush Administration) requires the use of the very best talent available. That means that we don’t turn away people with the skills we need just because they happen to be openly gay. Obama has already staffed his administration with several “out” gay people, and he has promised to repeal the ridiculous and counterproductive “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. And of course, addressing the very real threat of global warming is a priority for everyone on the planet, not just straight folks. Rescuing our constitutional liberties similarly benefits us all.

 

I can go on, but you get the picture. As long as change is inevitable—and it is—why not be Pollyannaish? Why not envision the changes that would make life better for all Americans, including gay Americans?  

 

After all, wasn’t electing Barack Obama all about replacing fear with hope?

 

 

 

 

 

Get a Grip

I know that the Rick Warren prayer controversy has been the subject of way too much discussion, outrage and analysis, but I’m going to beat this not-dead-enough horse one more time, because there was a lesson here, and I’m not so sure that it’s the lesson many activists learned.

 

In the days following the announcement that Warren—along with the (pro-gay-rights) Reverend Joseph Lowery—would be delivering an inaugural prayer, I got multiple emails bemoaning Obama’s “treachery.” Several were really over the top; one in particular was an “open letter” to Obama, and said something along the lines of "I supported you but now I wish I’d voted for Hillary Clinton and I’ll never give you any more money, and I won’t help you get national health insurance either."

 

To which I wanted to say: Grow up, get a grip and give it a rest.

 

Do I understand where these partisans are coming from? Of course. But I found it difficult to get worked up—let alone as hysterical as many of the people blogging or emailing about it. Obama will be the president of the whole country, after all—including the fools and bigots and other people I don’t like and don’t agree with—and it is naïve to expect him to surround himself with only people approved of by gays and progressives. To me, what is much more important—and telling—is the caliber and political orientation of Obama’s appointments, and in my opinion, at least, those have been excellent.

 

So Rick Warren was invited to say a prayer at the Inauguration. That will make religious right people feel included. It won’t change public policy. What it may (or may not) change is the difficulty of making policy in our polarized country—making it marginally easier to achieve Obama’s (progressive) policy goals. Gestures of respect for other people’s right to hold opinions with which we disagree—which is not the same thing as respecting or agreeing with the opinions themselves—can only advance policy in those areas where we do agree. And despite most descriptions of Warren on gay and gay-friendly blogs, those areas exist.

 

Warren is probably the least objectionable of the right-wing nut clergy. He focuses primarily on ameliorating poverty and (ironically) curing AIDS, and conducts comparatively few campaigns to demonize “abortionists” and those of us working to advance the “gay agenda.” I certainly don’t agree with him, but I think reaction to the invitation was overwrought and ultimately unhelpful to the cause of gay rights. As I noted in a post on my American Values Alliance blog, politics isn’t softball, and politicians who actually want to get stuff done don’t do it by avoiding people deemed insufficiently pure.

 

Obama has reiterated his commitment to choice and gay rights. He has broken ground by appointing an out lesbian to a high-ranking White House energy post. It isn’t like he’s backing off these issues, or softening his positions. But critics insist that the symbolism is powerful–that by including Warren in this ceremony, he is "legitimizing" everything Warren stands for. Folks on the other side, however, are saying the same thing about Warren’s acceptance. As the Washington Monthly reported, “In an interesting twist, plenty of conservatives are mad, not at Obama for inviting Warren, but at Warren for accepting the invitation.”

 

David Brody, a correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, reported being flooded with emails. “Most of them absolutely rip Pastor Warren for doing this."

 

Brody published a couple of them, and they sounded a lot like the ones I got—only with a different villain.

 

"Unless Rick Warren has changed, he is very disappointing in the pro-life cause. Just ask pro-life leaders their opinion. He doesn’t like to deal with it at his church. It just seems funny that he is known as ‘pro-life’ when he largely ignores the subject and teaches others to do the same. I fear God for these ‘men of God’ "

 

And this one:

 

"I have had about all I can stand of Rick Warren’s double standards. WHOSE side is he really on anyway? … This is a complete mockery of all things sacred."

 

Meanwhile, back in Bush country, the U.S. was the only major western nation to refuse to sign a UN declaration calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. Sixty-six of the U.N.’s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration in an effort to push the General Assembly to deal with anti-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

 

Delivery of a prayer—however “symbolic”—pales in comparison to the persistent, insistent and fully intentional homophobia of the late, unlamented Bush Administration.

 

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