Another New Year

I’m at that time of life when the new years come around a lot more frequently. (As my husband says, “Life is like a roll of toilet paper—the closer you get to the end, the faster it turns.”) But no matter how often we ring out the old and ring in the new, it’s a time for reflections and resolutions, both communal and personal.

 For those engaged in the fight for GLBT equality, the year that just ended brought mixed feelings and results. Maine and New York were bitter disappointments. On the other hand, progress more and more seems inevitable, inexorable. Little by little, as my generation “departs” (gentle term for “dies off”), younger people with gay friends and fewer prejudices take our place.

 Obama has disappointed many in the community by not moving more quickly on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and other campaign promises. On the other hand, his White House has hosted more visibly gay people than any of his predecessors—and probably more than all of those predecessors combined—and his administration includes numerous openly gay appointees. Not very long ago, we would have all cheered just at the change in rhetoric emanating from the Oval Office. Much of the disappointment is a result of greatly expanded expectations, and the impatience nurtured by the truly stunning cultural changes of the past few years.

 Speaking of those changes, this year the fourth-largest American city elected an openly lesbian mayor, and the California legislature chose an openly gay man as its next leader. Here in my own hometown of Indianapolis (a city often referred to as the buckle of the bible-belt), I attended a Christmas fundraiser for Indiana Equality, an umbrella organization formed a few years ago by GLBT groups to lobby our occasionally retrograde General Assembly. Among the 300 plus attendees were the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Party chairs, and a number of elected officials and political candidates of all three parties. That just wouldn’t have happened a few years ago.

 I could go on, but the bottom line here is that we need to reflect upon, recognize and celebrate the amazing amount of progress that has been made.

 Which brings us to resolutions. And the first of those is to remind ourselves that, despite enormous progress, members of the GLBT community are not yet equal. There are too many states (including my own) where someone can legally be fired simply for being gay. There are too many states where the 1008+ legal benefits that come with marriage are inaccessible to gays and lesbians. There are too many states (including my own) where civil rights statutes do not bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. So resolution number one must be to recognize how much more needs to be done.

 Resolution number two, obviously, is to keep fighting the good fight. Testify at legislative hearings. Write letters to the editors of local papers. Give every cent you can spare to the organizations that are fighting for equality. Work hard to elect gay and gay-friendly candidates. Talk to people—in your family, at your workplace, in your neighborhood—who may still not understand that gays remain second-class citizens in so many arenas. This can be incredibly difficult, but it is probably as important as anything you can do. The act of coming out by so many in the community—often at great emotional cost and financial risk—was undoubtedly the single biggest impetus to the positive social changes we have experienced.

 And of course, no list of resolutions would be complete without the perennial one. This is the year I’m really going to lose weight. How about you?

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Intellectual Honesty and Facebook

The pitfalls of our new social media environments are widely discussed, if not quite as widely understood. A recent personal experience brought that point home to me rather vividly.

A couple of days ago, I posted an angry comment to Facebook about Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, and their apparent willingness to kill health insurance reform. In Lieberman’s case, it’s hard to know what motivates him. Nelson, as I said much less elegantly in my comment, appeared quite willing to trade the lives of the thousands of people who die every year because they don’t have health insurance  for assurances that insurance wouldn’t pay for abortions. I suggested there was a special place in hell for people who would trade away the lives of living, breathing Americans who desperately need access to medical care in order to save an indeterminate number of fetuses.

Admittedly, the language of my comment was not an example of the civility I so often advocate, and criticism on that basis would have been entirely fair. 

Instead, a Facebook “friend” (since “unfriended”) blogged that I had posted a “hate-filled” diatribe about pro-life advocates. That blog post–the accuracy of which could not be verified by anyone not on my Friends list, even if someone were inclined to do so–has subsequently made its way to other venues, morphing along the way into an accusation that I had consigned all anti-choice  people to hell.

Was my original comment uncivil? Yes. Should I have counted to ten before posting it? Yes.  Should I have framed my criticism in a more constructive fashion? Yes. Did I suggest that all anti-choice advocates would rot in hell? Absolutely not.

The moral of this story (aside from the obvious one that I should practice what I preach!) is that people who are ideologically driven will hear what they think you really mean, rather than what you really say, and social networking sites that limit the ability of fair-minded folks to do some independent fact-checking are just one more reason our public divisions continue to grow.

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Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

You are probably surprised to hear from me since, being Jewish, I haven’t written before. But things are really getting dicey here in the good old U.S. of A., and I was wondering if I might ask for one teeny-weeny gift this year.

I’d like some sanity, if you have any on hand. (I know it’s been getting harder to find.)

I wouldn’t bother you if we were just dealing with the usual hypocrisy. You know, congressmen screaming about how we need to keep the government from getting between you and your doctor while simultaneously voting to get between a pregnant woman and her doctor. Or those Republican Senators who screamed bloody murder during the Bush Administration about how the filibuster is wrong and undemocratic (small d), and who are now filibustering everything in sight, or the Democratic (big D) Senators who were doing the filibustering then and are screaming bloody murder about it now.

We’re used to that sort of thing.

What’s got me worried is the “Nero fiddling while Rome burns” behavior. It isn’t just politicians, either. As you know, Santa,  America is facing big problems. The cost of medical care is threatening to bankrupt the country. We are fighting two unpopular wars, at least one of which was unnecessary. The economy is in shambles. So our media fixates on Tiger Woods’ infidelity and Sarah Palin’s book tour. Really? And don’t get me started about the deranged  “birthers” who insist that President Obama is a Muslim-communist-Nazi socialist.

Speaking of fiddling and burning, despite overwhelming scientific consensus that the world  faces calamity if we don’t do something about global climate change, we have people—including several in congress—sticking their fingers in their ears and going “la la la—I can’t and won’t hear you!”

But what really got me, Santa, was reaction to a bill to regulate Wall Street. As you know, big bank shenanigans made possible by lax regulation were a major cause of the recession. (I know it has affected you and the elves, too; families have less money so you’ll have fewer toys to deliver.) Opponents of this bill are calling it “socialism.”

Santa, I understand arguing that a particular regulation is good or bad, but to argue that making banks play by some rules amounts to a “government takeover” is crazy; it’s like saying that giving an umpire authority to call outs is “socializing” baseball.

It’s paranoid.

I know it isn’t new. Back in 1964, Richard Hofstader wrote “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” and gave examples of various lunacies through American history. (Remember when Robert Welch insisted that President Eisenhower was ‘a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy’?) When the problems we face seem enormous and their solutions impossibly complex, people do tend to “leave the reservation” as the saying goes. We’ve lived through the anti-Masons and the Nativists and the Klan. We’ll probably survive the current paranoia.

But just in case, Santa—can you bring us some sanity?

Good Journalism

Jim Lehrer recently announced a change of name and some changes of format to what was previously the McNeill Lehrer report. As one blogger who reported on the changes noted, Lehrer has consistently approached the news with a certain seriousness and depth that is virtually non-existent on television anymore.

Last week in a piece about the show’s latest changes (new name, revamped website, etc.), Lehrer outlined his “guidelines… of what I like to call MacNeil/Lehrer journalism.”  If everyone followed these rules, we might all breathe sighs of relief. Here they are:

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    •  Do nothing I cannot defend.
    • Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.
    • Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.
    • Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am.
    • Assume the same about all people on whom I report.
    • Assume personal lives are a private matter, until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise.
    • Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything.
    • Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes, except on rare and monumental occasions. No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
    • I am not in the entertainment business.

As important as all of these are, I REALLY like the last one.