Category Archives: Gay Rights

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?

 

 

 

 

 

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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Last weekend, we saw evidence—preliminary and tentative, to be sure—that the massive public participation generated by Obama’s Presidential campaign may prove more durable than most of us imagined. Spontaneous demonstrations protesting the November 4^th passage of California’s Proposition 8 erupted across the country. (Prop8, for the unaware, amended the California constitution and repealed the right to same-sex marriage).

Large crowds of protestors turned out across California. No surprise there. There were equally spirited turnouts in the nation’s largest cities—New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C. Again, not surprising. But how do we explain demonstrations in places like Peoria, Illinois; Missoula, Montana; Greenville, South Carolina; Grand Forks, North Dakota; Lubbock, Texas; or Little Rock, Arkansas, to list just a few of the more unlikely venues? Even in Indianapolis, approximately three hundred people gathered on a rainy Saturday in front of the City-County Building sporting homemade signs and rainbow umbrellas.

The protestors were not all gay, as evidenced by signs saying things like “Straight but not Narrow” and “If everyone doesn’t have rights, no one does.”  All across America, citizens got off their couches and rallied for equal civil rights for their neighbors, their families and their friends.

With so much opposition, why did Proposition 8 pass?

The New York Times reported on the “11^th hour effort that saved the ban,” which ultimately garnered 52% of the vote. According to the Times, “Interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure show how close its backers believe it came to defeat—and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.”

Now, religious people have every right to contribute to causes they believe in, and to make their positions known in the public square. Religious crusaders helped end slavery. Churches and religiously-motivated opponents of segregation worked tirelessly in the 1960s to put an end to Jim Crow laws. The more legitimate issue raised by the Times concerned the shady tactics employed  in the guise of religion and morality.

When the campaign began, a clear majority of California voters opposed Proposition 8. When polls in mid-October showed voters continuing to reject the ban, supporters raised enormous amounts of money for advertisements claiming that churches would lose their tax exemptions if they refused to perform same-sex ceremonies, and that elementary schools would be forced to “teach homosexuality” to young children. Both of these claims were demonstrably false. Worse, proponents clearly knew their ads were dishonest. But they were effective.

California is a huge state, and advertising is costly. Opponents of Prop 8 simply didn’t have the resources to effectively counter the distortions, even though Governor Schwarzenegger, Senator Feinstein and the California teacher’s association all cut ads rebutting the charges. In the end, money talked. It was politics as usual.

But then a strange thing happened. Citizens all across America decided to flex the civic muscles they had just discovered they had.

I don’t know what comes next, but it promises to be very interesting.

 

   

 

 

 

                                               

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The good news is that after November 4^th—okay, after January 20^th—the grown-ups will replace the adolescents in the White House, and America can begin the arduous work needed to repair the wreckage that was once our country.

 

The bad news, of course, is that anti-gay initiatives around the country passed. The defeat in California of “No on Proposition 8” was particularly painful, because early polls suggested a win for the good guys. However,  opponents of equality spent millions of dollars on misleading advertisements and outright lies, and they were aided by the vastly expanded turnout of what pundits delicately call “low-information” voters.

 

We all know that this is just a setback—that history, and the attitudes of younger voting cohorts make equality inevitable. But it will be later rather than sooner, and it’s a painful loss for those who worked so hard to defeat this hateful effort. My son was among those working to defeat Proposition 8, and among his efforts was a letter I want to share, because it puts a personal face on what can sometimes devolve into an abstract argument about rights. 

 

Stephen’s best friend lives in Berkeley with her husband, also a close friend. She told him that she could no longer talk politics with her father, that he was unwilling to hear any argument and would definitely be voting for McCain and most probably be voting for Prop 8.  Stephen asked if it would help if he made a personal appeal to him in a letter, and she said it couldn’t hurt. He shared the letter with me, and agreed that I could share it with the readers of the Word.

 

Dear Dr. [redacted]

 

I hope you remember me. I am your daughter Marites’ best friend, as she is mine. We met 23 years ago while we were at the University of Cincinnati studying architecture, and over the years have developed the deepest affinity for each other. Marites, Keith, Anika and Teah are as much my family as my own flesh and blood. Many years ago, I came to your house in Ashtabula a couple of times and we shared dinner and conversation. We have also had a couple of brief exchanges at Marites’ house in Berkeley over the years since you moved out to California.

 

I am writing to ask you a personal favor. I am writing to ask you to vote NO on Proposition 8 on the ballot this November. As you may or may not be aware, Prop 8 would remove the right of same-sex couples to marry. In essence, it would render me a 2nd class citizen in our shared state of California.

 

I remember stories that Marites would tell me of growing up in Ohio and feeling different because she didn’t “look like” everyone else, because her family was from the Philippines. I’m sure when you moved to Ohio for the opportunity it gave you, you had no idea what it would be like, and what kind of reception you would get from the people there. It must have been tough, speaking with an accent and looking so different from most of the people in that rural community. But you soldiered on, for the well being of your family, to raise them and provide for them and to give them a chance to flourish here. We all want that same chance. And it doesn’t matter how different we are culturally or racially, we share a common humanity.

 

Marites tells me that for a variety of reasons, she thinks that you are opposed to same-sex marriage. I’m not sure if you think that being gay is somehow a choice, but if you do I would ask: do you believe that you chose to be straight? That, assuming there was no hatred or prejudice in the world, you could have chosen to be gay instead? That it is only for the betterment of society that you chose to enter into marriage and have children? Or perhaps you don’t think orientation is a choice, but a challenge God gave to certain people, and that they must deny who they are? Why do you think a loving god would do such a thing? Perhaps you think it is “against nature” despite the overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary?

 

There are a lot of reasons I could give you to vote against Prop 8. That it is as wrong to discriminate against someone for their orientation as it is their race or ethnic background. That it is no threat to your marriage. Do you realize that Keith and Marites would not have been allowed to get married in a previous era? Surely, you must think that that was wrong and racist. Even if your church is opposed, you know that this has nothing to do with anyone’s church. Not a single church will be forced to perform any marriage with which they disagree. This only has to do with equality before the law, and insuring that all citizens are treated equally.

 

There are so many good reasons, but I will ask you in the name of the deep love and friendship that I have with your daughter, and the love that she has for you and me and her entire family. That, ultimately, is what opposing this measure is about. The love and respect of families, and the equal participation of all parts of the human family in our society and in our lives. Like any good family, we don’t have to always agree on every issue to see the human worth and dignity in all of us. And to act on that by opposing hatred and intolerance where we see it. Will you please join me and Marites (and Keith and so many other people) in voting NO on proposition 8?

 

Whatever your decision, I want to thank you for taking the time to read my letter and consider my request."

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