Losing battle

The reason that some Conservatives and Evangelical Christians (and Venn diagrammatically, there is near perfect overlap there) are so biliously against gay marriage to the point that they want a Constitutional Amendment outlawing it is, I suspect, because Constitutional Amendments are so hard to undue. That would be the only way to give a ban staying power; they can read headlines and polls and tables as well as I can, and they know they have lost.

Evidence? Headline in tomorrow's NYTimes: "Bush's Daughter Backs Gay Marriage."

This would be W's daughter, the same W. whose wife (as quoted in the article and elsewhere) has said that people in committed loving relationships ought to have the same rights as others. Who else thinks the queers marrying is a pretty good idea in a secular, modern democracy that values fairness and equality? Meghan McCain, Senator McCain's daughter.

And there are many, many, more.

More than 50% of people 18 and over in eight states have given explicit support to gay marriage (in a 2008 poll and study, here). More than 50% of Americans between 18 and 29, in every state in the Union that didn't secede for the right to own black people (plus, it kinda goes without saying, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Utah).

In every state except the hopeless ones, over 50% of people aged 18-29 gave explicit support for gay marriage in a 2008 poll.

So the Evangelical Right knows they've lost. It's not over, by any stretch. First, their voters vote at much higher rates than the 18-29 year olds. And they care more, way more, in the negative than many younger voters in the positive on this issue. And the Evangelical Christians will spend millions of dollars fighting it, and telling lies about what kids are going to have to learn in public schools, and how men will be able to marry their pets if gay marriage passes - but they've lost.

Millions of Americans, like Ms. Bush, have gone to school with out, happy queer folk, have worked with us, have been treated and taught and entertained by us, and these millions of hetero Americans can't imagine that we shouldn't have the same rights that they have.

It's not arguments showing the role of the 14th Amendment, or on the relevance of Brown vs. Board of Education and separate not being equal, for these Americans - it's a decent, human reaction to increased knowledge and familiarity, it's their friends and neighbors, it's reaping the years of all of the coming out. It's the new normal.

From the same study:

"I also think it’s interesting that, even in states that we normally consider quite hostile to gay rights (the ones at the bottom of the table), there is still a significant age difference: 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts."

It will take years and a lot of money, and I know I'm not writing anything that many others haven't already said, and said better, but the religious right has lost on this issue. The queers are gonna get married. Even in the hopeless states.

Welcome aboard, Ms. Bush.
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Headline: "Halliburton knew..."

Do you really need to hear the rest? I bet you don't. Can you guess? I bet you can.

It's not surprising that an entity designed to do one thing, make money, does everything it can do to achieve that one aim. I'm not surprised when fish swim, when pitchers pitch, or when bloviating blow hards get on the radio and bloviate, hard.

What is surprising is how many Americans seem to think that these entities designed with only one goal in mind, to make money, should not be looked after, that there should be no limit to what they can do or to whom they can do it, that oversight is evil ("socialist", same thing) and that the public good isn't worth protecting.

It's not surprising, it's just staggering. Unfathomable. Irrational. Why do some Americans, who are troubled, economically insecure and making less for more productivity than at any time since the 1970's (yes, that's right - the 1970's were far better for most Americans than the 80s and 90s were) think that putting government back in the hands of those who think business does just fine on its own, thanks, is the way to go? How can that be the answer? What kind of logic - or at least thinking, since it doesn't seem to be logical - leads a person to that conclusion?

So Halliburton, about as solid an example of a poor market actor as I could find, "...knew of cement flaws before spill..." and didn't act on the knowledge. Why is the cement important? From the NY Times article:

The failure of the cement set off a complex and ultimately deadly cascade of events as oil and gas exploded upward from the 18,000-foot-deep well. The blowout preventer, which sits on the ocean floor atop the well and is supposed to contain a well bore blowout, also failed.

In an internal investigation, BP identified the faulty cement job as one of the main factors contributing to the accident and blamed Halliburton...

It reminds of that old Saturday Night Live fake commercial: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." Except in the 1970s it was a matter of inconvenience, not the death of workers or whole ecosystems.

Apparently, my countrywomen and men read this and think "Hey, we need less governance, less oversight, and less control over who is doing what in the public sphere. They'll do the right thing."

How did we get so short sighted, as a country? How did we get so fearful of government? How did we get so manipulated as to believe what is so demonstrably false and not in our best interests?

We got here because that's what capitalism does - it is designed to make money, and whatever it needs to do it will do to that end. This includes flaunting safety standards, yes, of course, but this also includes getting five old white Catholics (Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts and Alito) to believe in the Citizens United case that companies are people, too, and can do whatever they want in elections, just like people. Well, except vote. Well, so far.

So now we have a government of the people (which now includes corporations which have no interest except to line their own pockets), by the people (and the corporations who can spend as much hidden money as they'd like in elections) and for the people (including corporations who get to benefit from lax laws or no laws since they will be gutted by Congressmen and Women they've bought and paid for).

And now we have a midterm awash in more cash than ever, as reported in the Superior, Wisconsin, Leader-Telegram, among others - no McCain Feingold, no disclosure, no limit - and that cash is directed to one purpose: electing people who will look out for business interests.

It's the lies that money is telling that seems to be tipping the scales. I don't understand how the GOP can even be in a position to take back the House since they are the ones who got us into this economic mess, but they seem to be.

Wednesday could be a bad day for American democracy, but a good day for corporations. That's also something that Halliburton knew.
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Burning questions

Okay, let's think about this.

A crazy Christian pastor in Florida wants to burn a Koran. This rises to the level of national security because doing so will "...inflame the sensibilities of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims" according to some. And such inflamed sensibilities will then put American servicemembers lives at risk. So President Obama and General Petraeus and various clergy members inveigh upon the nutbar - who is milking every second of his fifteen minutes of fame - to cease and desist. He does. Day saved.

Wait a minute.

First of all, why do we have to be so delicate about religious sensibilities? Burning books is odious - burning ANY book is odious - but really, if that isn't protected speech I can't think what is. If Rev. Shameless thinks that Islam (and Judaism and Hinduism and, and, and) is "of the devil," well, why not? It's all made up anyway, right? I mean the whole "My fake omnipotent creature in the sky who looks like me could beat up your fake omnipotent creature in the sky who looks like you" argument - well, it isn't. It doesn't even rise to the level of argument.

As a secularist and atheist who thinks the Constitution is about as close to "hallowed" as we get in this country, I think Rev. Lookatme absolutely had the right to burn the Koran, or the Bible or whatever. Over a billion people around the world would have been annoyed? Well... so? The only reason we care that those billion plus people would have been annoyed is because we don't have an energy policy in this country and therefore we have enriched a tiny fraction of those billion who have 12th century ideologies and 21st century weapons.

It's called "pluralism" - sometimes we're gonna disagree about stuff that makes us crazy. Grow up!

Don't like what one deranged nutbar in Florida thinks about your religion, so you're going to take to the streets in angry mobs and burn crap and shoot Americans? Really?

Okay, first, a.) if your god is so delicate that he (invariably he) is going to be umbraged by the burning of a book, I can't help you. Isn't he supposed to be omnipotent, etc.? You really think that he cares what one man - a man who isn't on board with his project ANYWAY - thinks about him and his book? Wow. That's a fragile god. Then b.) if you are so unhinged as to believe a.) to the point that you need to violate what the book itself says about how to behave to make a point on behalf of the book's alleged writer, how can we even have a conversation with you? Why the hell should we even care what you think, at that point?

Oh, we don't want to offend "deeply held religious beliefs." Why the hell not? Some people's "deeply held religious beliefs" teach them to think that humans and dinosaurs are contemporaries. As Lewis Black says, how can you even have a conversation with people who think that the Flintstones is a documentary!? You CAN'T! Deeply held religious beliefs can be just wrong. Just plain wrong. Women ought not to be covered head to toe. Or be kept from owning property. Or be kept as property. All of that is wrong, and just because someone's religion tells him it's right doesn't change that.

Personally, I think it's obnoxious to burn the Koran. I would think it similarly obnoxious for a practicing Muslim (or anyone) to put on a dress and fake a Mass. I think it's similarly obnoxious for tourists to get drunk, put on coconut bras and do fake hula. Mocking, appropriating, or denigrating someone's religious beliefs is juvenile and counterproductive, and it certainly doesn't rise to the level of discourse.

But just because we're fighting - for no good reason, by the way - a war in that part of the world doesn't mean that we need to sacrifice the gains of the Enlightenment and secularism so as not to offend "Deeply Held Religious Beliefs."

Where was this outrage when Muslims dynamited the beautiful Buddhas of Bamiyan? We can make more Korans - but statues that had stood for 1500 years and which were sacred to another religion, and which were a testament to human ingenuity, devotion, commitment and achievement, those can be dynamited because of deeply held religious beliefs? Wha...? Where is the balance? Unbelievable.

The liberal, secular West has lost its nerve. We are in danger of abandoning the values and progress of the Enlightenment. We are caving to thugs who have no sense of proportionality or regard for pluralism. We need to stand up to the bullies and psychopaths who scream at us not to burn the Koran or they'll take to the streets and kill us and not be afraid to say that they are craven, hypocritical and deranged. We need to say this exactly to the extent we need to stand up to nutbars who say you can't build an Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan. Yes, you can.

It's all irrational, all this fear of sacrilege and talk of hallowedness, and we forget the wondrous intellectual legacy of the west - and its fiery commitment to reason, excellence, rationality, and discipline at its best - at our deep, deep peril.

And if your god is so delicate that he's offended by a burning book... how the hell does he get out of bed in the morning if he looks at Haiti?

What is hallowed is a school where girls can learn along with boys without getting acid thrown in their faces; what is sacrilege is women being stoned for adultery.

Now THAT would be a riot about sacrilege that I could get behind.
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Good news in the news -

For once, some good things going down.

1. Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was captured in Thailand in 2008 in a sting operation led by the US, has finally been extradited by the Thai government to stand trial in the United States. As reported by the Bangkok Post and others, Bout has dealt arms to the FARC in Colombia, to Angolan rebels, and to murderous villains around the globe. This is a win for US diplomacy and law enforcement, and for people around the globe caught in the crossfire of armed conflict.

2. Talks! I know, I know, we've been down this road many (many!) times before, but direct talks have been restarted between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. From the reports today on the News Hour, we'll know they're serious if the principals involved are Netanyu and Abbas, not delegations, but this is a hopeful first step. There were no pre-conditions set for talks, and everyting is on the table. We'll see where it goes.

3. And in a story covered by the NY Times, there has been a shift in who is holding our nation's debt - away from other governments and toward us. For the first time since 2000 foreign governments were net sellers of US bonds and most of the rest of the new debt is held by Americans. This has significant implications for foreign policy, long term solvency, and the ability of the Treasury to issue more bonds.

"In calendar year 2007, the Treasury borrowed a net $237 billion. Of that, 81 percent came from foreign governments, mostly from central banks. Private foreign investors took up the rest, as American companies, banks and individuals reduced their combined Treasury holdings by $13 billion.

It's a step in the right direction - there are many, many more to take, but it's a step.

Good result, but...

Prop 8, the gay marriage ban in California, has been ruled unconstitutional.

No, I'm not elated. I'm not relieved. I'm perhaps a tiny bit pleased, but that's all I'm allowing myself.

Of COURSE it's unconstitutional.

And of course it isn't over.

There was no other way the judge could rule, really. A majority of my neighbors, no matter how much they hate me, can't vote to take away my civil rights. Sorry. Even if they are motivated by centuries-old superstition or belong to an out of state cult that believes the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, and even if they lie and lie and lie and lie to get 50% + 1 of my neighbors to share the belief with them, it doesn't matter. The Constitution gives me protection. Or it should. I'm sure my fellow citizens of African descent can tell me what cold comfort that is - to be guaranteed things in writing that people will kill you to prevent you from having - even as they voted in favor of taking away my civil rights.

This decision means nothing. We have the most conservative Supreme Court in decades sitting now in DC, and Ms. Kagan is unlikely to have any effect on that. Justice Thomas, that intellectual light weight who is the ultimate of all affirmative action hires, is the most activist judge in the history of the court; Alito and Scalia are mean spirited, mendacious bigots, and Roberts give it all a pretty face. No, it comes down to Justice Kennedy to decide if equal protection before the law means what it has been read to have meant since 1954 - or not.

So the decision by U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker - a President Bush (père) appointee - is welcome, of course. It was a good result, and was reasoned in a way to make overturning it very difficult. We're not done, though.

The fight isn't over, I'm not elated, and I see no cause for celebration.

Well funded superstitious people - the same folks who would have made a constitutional amendment to allow witch burning because of their "faith" - will keep pouring in millions to keep the queers from having their same legal protections.

Until I get to vote on their marriages, why would I be happy? Until the Supreme Court rules, why would I be happy? Until a majority of my neighbors decides that the 14th Amendment DOES apply in California, why would I be happy?

I'm not.

I remember November mornings in Colorado in 1992; in California in 2000; in California in 2008...

Until I wake up with MORE civil rights than I had when I went to bed, well, I'll believe it when I see it. When it has some sense of the final.

Until then, it's a good result, but...

One Death in Newark

A man was killed in Newark last Friday night. A black man, unarmed, was killed by a cop, shot in the chest at point blank range.

The shooting happened in Branch Brook Park, and the man who was killed was back in town for a high school reunion, returning from his current home in Atlanta.

The policeman who fired the fatal shot has said that the suspect was resisting arrest, that he had tried to flee, and that when cornered the suspect assaulted the officer.

Why was he a suspect? The Newark police were conducting a sting operation in Branch Brook Park - "scouring the park" according to the NY Times account of the story - and caught Mr. Dean Gaymon, 48, in the sting. There are no other witnesses, so we have only the perspective of the Essex County police officer in the matter.

Mr. Gaymon was President and CEO of a Credit Union in Atlanta, and he was married and leaves behind four children.

Newark, New Jersey, had its first murder free month in 40 years in April, 2010. Crime is dropping, and maybe police have the resources to focus on quality of life crimes instead of reacting to murders, assaults, and shootings - of which there were three on the night in question.
Maybe Mr. Gaymon, despite his wealth and position or perhaps because of it, was afraid to come out for fear of the opprobium of his community. Maybe he didn't see himself as gay at all, but as a happily married man who had interests in same sex sex.

Maybe being back in Newark, especially for a high school reunion, inspired regret and longing, and led Mr. Gaymon to use poor judgment. And when he was caught he panicked, seeing in that moment the ruin of his life's work, of his reputation, of his relationships, and so he tried to run.

Maybe Mr. Gaymon assaulted the arresting officer in that panic - an assault so fierce that the 29 year old officer felt compelled to shoot him, point blank, in the chest.

What we do know is that four kids don't have their dad, and a woman is left with a lot of grief and a lot of questions.

They don't at all rise to that level, but I have to say that I have a lot of questions, too. Was Mr. Gaymon able to integrate his life fully and (apparently) chose not to, or was he unable to live an integrated life? If not, why not? Was Mr. Gaymon raised in a religious home? If yes, to what extent did all of the lies he was told in that context affect him as he was going through his adolescence? Did Mr. Gaymon identify as gay at all? Did he prefer rough trade and public sex, or did he feel that was the only outlet open to him? On a different tack, is Essex County really so adequately policed that catching guys in the bushes is a good law enforcement spend? Its murder rate was 8th in the country in 2008, and nearly eleven cars are stolen there every day; there are twenty seven property crimes committed there every day; there are over three robberies every day... you get the point, and the Essex County police work the County park to make "easy" collars and ruin lives. Chances are that we wouldn't have heard about Mr. Gaymon's story if he weren't shot, point blank, in the chest, by an Essex County officer, but had he only been arrested and not killed, his life - his career, his marriage - would have been irreparably damaged.

It's an intensely human story, and it's heartbreaking. I can't help but think of the wastefulness, the wanton wastefulness of the taking of a gifted human life, and of the chain of events that led to it. It's one death in Newark, a city that saw 80 murders in 2009, and each one of those lost lives is a damn shame.

"Ice cube tray melting on the counter..."

Okay, so I dated some guys that weren't so smart. I dated some who might have been underemployed, and some might have been under ambitious. But mostly, in the early nineties, they weren't real bright.

At one point in undergrad, in the depths of my "Big and Dumb" phase, one of my friends developed a scale correlating my boyfriends' intelligence to appliances. As in "Brennan, he is so dumb he'd barely make a four slice toaster. No wonder you like him."

The levels, as I remember them, started with Osterizers at the top, then self cleaning ovens, then toaster ovens, then four slice toasters, then two slice toasters, then, finally, ice cube tray melting on the counter.

That last, I realize, is not an appliance, but wow, Rich wasn't real smart. Real cute, but not so smart. So my friends had to go to something with no moving parts and no real agenda.

I met Rich at La Cage, like every good queer boy met every other queer boy in Milwaukee at the time. He was cute, so cute, with a cute pug nose, white blonde hair, about 5'6, and had a certain... well, what at first I took for studied insouciance. Turns out that there just wasn't really anybody home.

It was the winter of 1990-91, and it was really cold. The windows in LaCage would steam up and the fog machine would start and they'd play "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" three times a night and the dance floor would fill each time.

And I would look over at Rich, across the dance floor as I flailed around to C+C Music Factory or Black Box or Dee-Light, and when he looked at me I'd look away. And then I'd wait for a flail or two and I'd look back and he'd look away. In more contemporary parlance, you could say that I had NO GAME. None.

In my defense, I was new to dating - I didn't really date in high school, not boys, certainly, so all the awkward mistakes and discoveries that adolescents usually get to make before they move on and leave high school wince-inducing moments behind I was making in my early 20's. And I was making them with a vengeance. I started slowly, and moved slower still, and without the intervention of my friends I'd not have gotten very far at all. But I still made more than share of wince inducers.

I found out from a friend of a friend of a friend - it was Milwaukee and the dance floor wasn't that big - that his name was Rich and that he worked at the TGI Fridays at Northridge Mall. I didn't have a car then but I was working at Northridge Mall for a Mortgage Company (of all things) and I thought there would be a great chance for me to go over there and see him at work. What I would do once I got there, well, I had no plan, but at least I could go see him. And pretend not to, presumably.

Weeks went by, and Rich and I kept avoiding talking to each other at La Cage, and I kept avoiding TGI Fridays, and finally my friends got tired of hearing me talk about how cute this Rich guy was so it was time to either put up or shut up already! We piled in to my friend Tom's Jimmy 4x4 one cold Wednesday night and made the trek out to suburbia.

I was really, really nervous - I mean this guy was CUTE, and what was I gonna say, like, "Hi, I think you're really cute, you wanna go out" (see above re: missed adolescence)?

We get there and I'm too nervous to be asked to be seated in Rich's section, so we just get seated. I didn't even ask if Rich was working that night. My friend Cheryl had heard and seen just about enough, so she walked back to the host stand, asked if he was working, asked to meet him (she hadn't seen him yet), brought him BACK to our table, and asked him if he would please just give me his number.

Blushingly, he did. Blushingly, I took it, and actually called him that night when I knew I would get his machine (yes, wayyy before cell phones). Something like "Hey, Rich, you met my friend Cheryl and me tonight, and I was wondering..." Wince-inducing. Oddly enough, he called me back and we agreed to go out on Friday. Again, I had no car - he had a VW Rabbit, which I thought was adorable and at least he knew how to drive a clutch, so that was something - so he agreed to come to my place and pick me up and we'd go to a movie.

I was still so smitten with him that I was shedding IQ points around him and didn't have too much to say, but after a few dates we went to dinner at the East Side Big Boy and my roommate was gone so we came back to my place and were sitting on the couch and...

To this point, we hadn't properly kissed. We'd exchanged chaste good night pecks on the cheek, but that was all, and it was clearly time for some advances in this department. He hadn't been pushy but it was a few dates in and we were in our 20's, for god's sake; it was time for a more proper make out session.

And I had very little practice in this department. And I was really nervous, because I just found him so dreamy.

Our apartment was a one bedroom that I shared with a roommate, and it was all hard floors, bare walls and dorm furniture. From the sofa to any other part of the apartment was not very far, and it was an open floor plan so sound traveled and there was no place to hide.

Our couch was six foot long and orange Naugahyde, and if one got nervous and started to perspire one would stick to it. I was nervous, and perspiring, and I was sticking to it, so I went to the bathroom, three feet away, and promptly got sick. Multiple times.

He HAD to have heard me - the door was exactly what you'd expect from a college apartment and the entire apartment was tile flooring. I was in there for ages, brushing my teeth in the vain hope that maybe we could pick up where we left off, but after fifteen minutes or so I come back out, sheepishly, and sit back down next to him. He asks "Did you get sick?!" and I say no, yeah, I was just feeling a little funny after dinner. He says he should prolly go, I understand, he stands on his toes to kiss me on the cheek, we say we'll talk tomorrow and he leaves.

To his credit, he did call, and we went out again, and he was a good kisser and I had to have improved with his tutelage. The more we hung around, the more I realized, though, that this guy who I found so attractive - literally, debilitatingly attractive - didn't have too much in common with me. He didn't read, he wasn't into sports, he wasn't into music, he didn't care about politics at all, he didn't play cards, he couldn't really carry on a conversation with me or anyone in my social circle, and he wasn't interested in anything. After the third time having dinner with my group of friends, they were unsparing: "Puker, this is the guy you threw up over?" And "Well, he sure is blonde." And the final, lasting assessment from my friend Erin: "I'd have to say 'Ice cube tray melting on the counter.' He's really, really dumb."

All told, from first TGI Fridays foray to final date, it was six weeks, tops. It's about the cumulative experience with dating, right? And from Rich I learned that I could be a little more assertive; I learned that making out was fun but wasn't enough to sustain a relationship; I learned that beauty is skin deep, sometimes, and I learned that my friends could be counted on for an honest opinion (not that I'd had much doubt on that score to start with).

And never again did I slide so far down the appliance scale. Live and learn.
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