Musing's musings

What he said

As far as I'm concerned, Dan Savage has said all that needs to be said about President Obama's shameful record on gay rights since winning election--and also about the "wait your turn, faggot" crowd that inevitably pops up every time anyone has the temerity to point out that the Dear Leader is naked. The Dear Leader really hasn't been all that dear as far as the gay community is concerned, and he sure as hell hasn't been a leader. Or even that good of a follower.

But then Obama was sworn in under Rick Warren’s porcine gaze and the "fierce urgency of now" quickly morphed, in Andrew Sullivan’s damning turn of phrase, into the "fierce urgency of whenever." Never mind that gay people are being turned away from their partners’ bedsides during medical emergencies now. Never mind that people are being kicked out of the military now. Never mind that Arkansas banned adoptions by same-sex couples on the very same day that Obama was elected. (Gosh, where’s that bully pulpit when you need it?) The man who wasn’t afraid to appeal directly to us for our votes as a candidate -- and certainly wasn’t shy about asking us for our dollars -- couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the promises he had made to us and seemed to greatly resent being asked to actually honor them.

That paragraph says, eloquently and concisely, everything I've been struggling to say for the last seven months. In all likelihood, I will be turning to it again and again throughout the next three and a half years because, as Savage concludes his piece:

Last fall we, along with everyone else, got swept up in the momentousness of the campaign, in the symbolism and the history and the drama, and lost sight of something important: Obama is a politician -- and a Chicago politician at that. Nothing is ever given to you. You have to ask and tell and demand and do the work -- not passing the legislation ourselves or signing it ourselves (no coup gay’tat is in the offing), but in making sure our "friends" in the White House and Congress understand that we won’t take "wait" for an answer.

What do we want? What we were promised. When do we want it?

Now.

We're not going to go away. We're not going to sit back and let you shove us back into the closet, or put our issues on a back burner until the next time you feel like coming around and begging for our time, our talent, and our treasure to help you get (re-)elected. In fact, if we don't start seeing some action--and I mean concrete action, not just pretty words or a cocktail party for the A Gays or a proclamation that carries with it no actual substance--you can beg us all you want for our support, but you still won't get it. Come 2010, if we're still standing on the outside looking in, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party are going to find out what "I just can't seem to find the votes" really means.

"How many years..."

"...can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?"

Bob Dylan penned those words the year before I was born, but they ring just as true today. But it's the next couplet from "Blowin' in the Wind" that's on my mind today:

Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?

That's what I'd like you to tell me, President Obama. How many times are you going to keep turning your head and pretending that you don't see the signs telling you that your silence on gay rights has gone on far too long? How many times are you going to send insincere notes of condolence to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that you sat idly by and let be discharged from the military under a policy that you promised to end? How many times are you going to suck up to the forces of hatred and bigotry and division, in the misguided hope that you might be able to gain their support?

And how long, gay and lesbian and bisexual Americans, are we going to sit idly by and let him get away with this kind of crap? This man came to us, time and again, for money and for support during his two-year campaign for the presidency. And we showed up, time and again. He promised us that he would be a "fierce advocate" for our rights. Can we honestly say that he has even tried living up to that promise? No. For proof, I invite you to examine the White House web site. Can you find any page there, or even a bullet point, that speaks to a single gay rights issue? I've looked and looked, and I can't.

UPDATE: OK, taylormattd at Big Orange caught a boo-boo. There is actually some language on that page about gay rights issues. Not much, however, as he pointed out, and not that the president has actually gotten around to doing anything about any of the issues he listed there.

We have, yet again, been used and tossed aside by a politician who has cynically calculated that we will just swallow the outrage and come crawling back in two or four years when he will again ask for our time, our talent, and our treasure. In all likelihood, he will again cynically promise to do better on our issues this time. Many of us will believe him.

I, however, will not be among them. Because unless I see some concrete action on one or more of the following, Barack Obama will not even get my vote in 2012, much less any more concrete forms of my support:

Mr. President, I need your voice

The following is an e-mail I sent to the White House last night:

To quote your recent e-mail to me, Mr. President, I need your voice. You wanted me to speak up in favor of your health plan. Well, Mr. President, I want you to start speaking up on gay rights. You and your staff keep telling me how fierce an advocate you are on gay rights. When were you planning to start proving those repeated assertions? Vermont legalizes gay marriage--you say nothing. Iowa legalizes gay marriage--you say nothing. The Department of Defense fires an Arabic linguist because he's gay--a policy you promised to do away with--and you say nothing. The California Supreme Court twists itself (and the law) into a pretzel to uphold an amendment saying that only marriage between one man and one woman is valid, but the 18,000+ marriages that don't fit that definition and that took place before the amendment was enacted are still valid. And you say nothing.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? I sure am.

Now, I'm not surprised at the shape of that pattern. I was never under the impression that you were a liberal or a gay-rights supporter. But an awful lot of your supporters kept telling me that you were both, and that if I'd only wait a little while longer, you'd show me how wrong I was.

Well, Mr. President, I've been waiting for forty-five years thus far. Just how much longer do you think I'm going to have to wait? Because, as happy as it makes me to be able to rub the noses of those people who told me you'd be a great president for gay rights in your failure to live up to that promise, I would be far happier to have them rubbing my nose in my epic fail after you stepped up to the plate and proved me wrong.

A common excuse that's offered in your defense is that you've just started your term and there are plenty of huge problems on your plate to handle, so gay rights will just have to wait. My answer to those people is one I'm sure you're familiar with, because it's from Martin Luther King's famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease .... For years now I have heard the words [sic] "Wait!" ...This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

I'm not waiting any longer, Mr. President. And if you expect to keep my vote in 2012, you won't, either. Show me some concrete progress on those issues you campaigned on, and we're OK. But keep putting me off with empty words and insincere promises, and I'll be looking for a better candidate to support in 2012.

I'm not expecting any reply, directly or indirectly. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

I won't be going to California any time soon

Yes, the outcome was what I anticipated it would be: upholding Proposition H8, but also upholding the 18,000 marriages that took place before it was approved. That still doesn't mean I'm inclined to do anything that supports the ignorant people who voted (albeit narrowly) in favor of that bigoted piece of misguided legislation.

I haven't had a chance to read all of the 186-page opinion (I managed to download a copy before the servers crashed), but I have to say I'm not thrilled by the Court's reasoning thus far. And I'd love to see how they managed to twist themselves into pretzels to come up with a ruling that (a) upholds the validity of the 18,000 existing same-gender marriages and (b) at the same time upholds the constitutional amendment that says, quite plainly, that only opposite-gender marriages will be considered valid in California.

The silver lining in this particular dark cloud is that the decision is likely to trigger an appeal to the federal courts, which could poke our allegedly "fierce advocate" of a president into taking some real action on getting rid of DOMA at the federal level so those 18,000 California marriages might mean something in the other 49 states even if they don't mean anything where they were performed. And I do think California voters will be voting on this question again in 2010, though hopefully this time those of us who recognize that separate most definitely is not equal will do a better job of presenting our case and pointing out just how many lies and half-truths the other side is putting out there.

But until this odious claptrap is removed from the California lawbooks, I won't voluntarily be setting foot in that state.

Our long national nightmare is over...

...But our long national reawakening is just beginning, and will require vigilance from all of us.

On Election Day in 2000, I had to go into Chicago to meet with a client who wanted to discuss a new website design. After the meeting, I went to dinner with my collaborator on the project, an old friend. Consequently, it was quite late when I was driving back home, and election results were coming in thick and fast on NPR. I was guardedly hopeful when I heard that Florida had been called for Gore, and then anxious when that prediction was rescinded several hours later. I remember going to bed very late that night, and leaving my beside radio on, listening whenever I woke up to the election discussions.

That anxiety has really never left me since then. It is my considered opinion, both as an observer of politics and as an historian, that George W. Bush is indeed the worst president this nation has ever had the misfortune to have to endure--and God grant we'll never see a worse one. Our network of alliances has unravelled, our international reputation is in tatters (and our economy along with it), the world is a far less stable and secure place than it was on that long, long night eight years and some months ago--all because of the man who will fly off into what I can only hope will be the obscurity he so richly deserves tomorrow afternoon.

I remember being anxious, rather than joyful, as I was preparing to go abroad to France on my first research trip in January 2005, to gather data for what would eventually become my M.A. project. Bush had just been re-elected, the useless, pointless, and unnecessary war in Iraq had been going on for nearly two years, and so had the nonsense about "Freedom Fries." I wondered what my reception would be when I had to show my American passport. Luckily for me, the French aren't nearly as shallow and stupid (or at least those I had to deal with weren't) than many of my fellow Americans, because despite having to demonstrate my connection with the Bush régime by flashing that passport, my hosts were invariably polite and helpful. Indeed, the only time politics came up at all was on my final night in Paris, when I went out for a lovely meal at a small Italian restaurant near my hotel. It being January, I was virtually the only customer, so I had the owner and the staff more or less all to myself. The owner was thrilled to discover that I spoke at least a bit of Italian in addition to French, and was most attentive. When I mentioned that it was my last night in Paris, he asked if I was looking forward to going home, to which I replied, "All except for having to deal with that idiot in the White House." He smiled, and left me to my dessert and digestif.

This, on the other hand, DID surprise me

End of the Anglican crown - 300 year bar to be lifted

Downing Street has drawn up plans to end the 300-year-old exclusion of Catholics from the throne. The requirement that the succession automatically pass to a male would also be reformed, making it possible for a first born daughter of Prince William to become his heir.

It makes an enormous amount of sense. But when have "sense" and "politics" and "religion" ever gone together at the same time? Being British and being Protestant have, at least in the popular mindset, been more or less coextensive for a very long time indeed. If I'm not mistaken, there were some rumblings not terribly long ago because Cherie Blair, wife of the then-prime minister, is Catholic.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

A lion passes

Pioneering lesbian activist Del Martin has died, aged 87. She had been in declining health for some time, but thankfully lived long enough to be able to marry her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyon, on June 16 of this year.

I used the word "lion" in the title deliberately: but not with any intention of punning on the surname of Ms. Martin's widow. Del Martin was a gay activist before that phrase was even invented. She and Phyllis were gay activists together for twelve years before the man (San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom) who married them this summer was even born. Del and Phyllis jointly founded the Daughters of Bilitis, the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States. That was in 1955, when the word "lesbian" was uttered in public only in the titles of lurid "thrillers" purveying bad genre soft-core porn in "dirty" bookstores. The National Organization for Women, which Martin and Lyon both joined, jointly, as the first lesbian couple to do so, was founded eleven years later.

Let us remember what life in 1955 was like. It was the era of Eisenhower Republicanism. The Second World War formally ended when the Soviet Union ended its state of war against Germany. West Germany became a sovereign nation. Richard J. Daley (father of the present mayor, Richard M. Daley) became mayor of Chicago. Jonas Salk announced his polio vaccine. Rock and roll got its start. Ray Kroc was beginning to push McDonald's into becoming a household name and a worldwide economic force. Disneyland opened in California. Emmett Till was killed because he was black and visiting in the wrong part of the country. Racial segregation was banned on interstate buses and trains. Fred Phelps founded the Westboro Baptist Church. Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. Gay sex (or "sodomy," or "buggery," or "the unspeakable crime against nature," as it was more usually referred to) was illegal in all 50 states. Alfred Kinsey's groundbreaking book on sexual behavior in the human male had appeared just seven years previously. The whole thrust of culture and society was toward conformity, and yet two women, who had met and fallen in love five years previously, decided to buck that trend and stand up for their right to live their lives honestly and openly.

Someone will have to explain to me, not that I think such a thing would even be remotely possible, exactly how it is that the legal union of these two courageous women demeaned or desecrated the marriage state. They had been married in everything but name for half a century and more before the state got around to recognizing that salient fact. Not many couples--of whatever sexual orientation--can boast relationships of that length and stability. A world where Britney Spears can walk into a wedding chapel and legally marry a man--whom she would divorce fifty-five hours later and claim the whole thing had been just a "joke"--but two women who had been in a loving relationship for fifty-five years were denied the same opportunity until a mere two months before one of them died is not what I would call either just or fair. And I would certainly argue that while one of the two relationships I've just mentioned absolutely tarnished and desecrated the institution of marriage, it was not that of Ms. Martin and Ms. Lyon.

Those two women had the courage of their convictions--and stood up for them-- at a time when most gay and lesbian folk were doing their utmost to stay hidden in the closet. They may have been afraid at times--as who would not have been?--but they were indomitable in fighting for what they knew to be right. I rejoice that they were able to see that long-held dream become a reality before one of them was gathered to her everlasting reward.

I'm certain that that odious little man from Kansas will come out with some sort of hateful press release denouncing Martin and Lyon's relationship and hubristically announcing that Del is now roasting in hell for the sin of having loved another woman. It matters only a little, and that primarily for the pain it will cause to Del's loved ones. The good news is that the sort of hatred espoused by Phelps, once the norm at the time Del and Phyllis began their relationship, is gasping out its last breaths on its own deathbed. It's a pity it couldn't have died before she did. Its end will come soon enough, though--thanks in large part to lions like Del Martin. God be good to her.

The ignorant tight-ass club strikes again

Returning to a theme I touched on in my last post, the perniciously perverse American attitude toward sex is really beginning to get on my nerves. John Edwards admits to having had a fling with a woman not his wife, and people who would ordinarily be leaping to his defense against the Bible-thumpers and the Puritan wannabes are suddenly howling for his head because he was almost sorta-kinda-maybe the Democratic nominee frontrunner candidate for the presidency.

And now, via Towleroad, I hear that two wrestlers have been dismissed from the University of Nebraska team for "posing naked for videos and photographs on an Internet pornography site." The wrestling coach was quoted in the AP story as follows:

The history of behavior of these men, including the current matter, does not reflect the standard of excellence we aspire to on and off the mat. We have outstanding student-athletes in our program and we will move forward in a positive manner toward our goals.

I want to personally apologize for any embarrassment that may have been caused for our athletic department, the university and our fans.

The story further alleges that, along with a history of "past transgressions" in Lincoln that included underage drinking, trespassing, assault, and maintaining a disorderly house, the two violated an NCAA rule that, according to the Nebraska compliance director, "prohibits athletes from appearing in pictures for commercial use." I'm betting, however, that it has far more to do with the "embarrassment" that the coach alluded to than it does to any regulation--and, further, that the only reason anybody is or might possibly be embarrassed about this incident is that the two men appeared on a gay internet pornography site.

Is that so, Senator?

The presumptive Republican nominee for president, Senator John McCain, speaking to around 1,500 people in New Jersey today, opined that yesterday's Supreme Court decision (PDF link) affirming the right of detainees in Guantanamo Bay to habeas corpus relief in the U.S. courts was one of the worst ever handed down:

The United States Supreme Court rendered a decision yesterday that I think is one of the worst decisions in history.

O rly? Worse even than, say, any of these greatest hits?

• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), in which the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney, wrote that black people were "...beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court, virtually unanimously (save for the brave dissent of Justice Harlan) upheld the constitutionality of segregation, giving us the infamous "separate but equal" doctrine that prevailed until the civil rights era of the 1960s.
• Buck v. Bell (1927), in which Oliver Wendell Holmes (of all people!) wrote for a virtually unanimous Court that compulsory sterilization of the mentally handicapped was constitutional, closing his argument with the infamous and iniquitous phrase, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
• Korematsu v. United States (1944), which upheld the internment of American citizens and lawful permanent residents of Japanese descent without ever proving they had committed any crime.
• Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), in which an (arguably senile) Justice Byron White and a 5-4 majority upheld the right of the government to criminalize consenting sexual behavior in private between persons of the same gender.
• Bush v. Gore (2000), the infamous 7-2 per curiam decision that handed the presidential election to the Boy Who Won't Be King Much Longer, and began the eight-year nightmare which has been the Hedgemony. The justices were so embarrassed by their decision in that case that they refused to sign their names to it.

"Don't ask, don't tell": Don't keep it

According to Agence-France Presse, a federal appeals court in Boston has thrown out Major Margaret Witt's lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's (in)famous "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy. The court, striking down a previous ruling by a San Francisco appeals court (and I'm dying to know how an appellate court in Boston has jurisdiction over an appellate court in San Francisco--but this one is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court as sure as the sun rises in the east, unless there's some awfully quick fixin' done on Capitol Hill, about which I am, shall we say, less than entirely sanguine), argued that the courts owe "special deference" to Congress on matters regarding military policy.

That deference is quite traditional. It is, I would argue, equally wrong-headed, at least in some circumstances. I would not expect a court to get involved in a dispute, say, between a battalion commander and his or her superior officer about which was the correct strategy to employ to achieve a given tactical objective. But when it comes to something as fundamental as the right of any citizen to serve in this nation's armed forces without being discriminated against on the basis of any invidious characterization, that's another kettle of fish entirely. And that, ultimately, is exactly what Major Witt's lawsuit is about.

The Pentagon itself admitted, not long after the policy was implemented in the early 1990s, that it was fundamentally wrong-headed. That fact has been amply and repeatedly reiterated in the nearly two decades since then, each and every time we hear about another qualified officer or linguist or servicemember being kicked out--in what the Hedgemony is forever proclaiming to be a time of war--for the simple and irrelevant fact that s/he is sexually attracted to members of the same gender.

Big fat hairy fuckin' deal. Most of our major defense partners allow openly gay or lesbian individuals who are otherwise qualified to serve in their armed forces. They don't report discovering mass orgies in the gang showers, or massive desertions (or even requests for transfer) when "the unit" discovers "one of them" in its ranks. The world has not, to the best of my knowledge and belief, come to an end--and I think we are on safe ground in concluding that it will not do so should the United States decide to stop wasting valuable personnel whom it desperately needs in uniform, just because those individuals happen to be gay or lesbian or bisexual.