General: March 2006 Archives

I read this unbelievable opinion piece. I pretty much sums up me feelings on so many things. It’s worth a full read.

One wonders where the “NoDNC.com staff” comes up with their rather selective understanding of the concept of “marriage,” and even more why they seem to believe that heterosexuals are so insecure and unreliable at making commitments that both the states and the federal government must provide thousands of special rights and benefits exclusively to their families as a bribe to honor their own commitments. After all, the “staff” is so convinced that the homosexual alliance is so bent on “attacking” marriage that one wonders where all the Rightwing was when such common hetero offenses as adultery, rape, child abuse, and wifebeating inside marriage took their toll on an everchanging institution.

Instead, they try to focus on creating a “history” of American marriage, as if the institution was created exclusively on our soil and there weren’t variances in different states. Why, one of the most protective marriage laws in the land exists in places like Georgia, where a 13 or 14 year old may certainly marry without parental permission as long as the woman/girl in the relationship is pregnant. In Illinois, along with several other states, first cousins have been accessing those cushy little family rights for decades, as long as the woman is over fifty and can’t bear children. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, adulterers, divorcees are all granted automatic access (and reaccess) to the special rights laws reserved for promoting the “stability” of heterosexual supremacists and their relationships.

Uh oh. Conservatives are starting to hyperventilate again. You know the symptoms: In a haystack of right-wing dominance, they find a needle of radicalism, declare it a mortal danger to civilization, and use it to rally their voters in the next election. First it was flag-burning. Then it was the “war on Christmas.” Now it’s polygamy. Having crushed gay marriage nationwide in 2004, they need to gin up a new threat to the family. They’ve found it in Big Love, the HBO series about a guy with three wives. Open the door to gay marriage, they warn, and group marriage will be next.

My friend Charles Krauthammer makes the argument succinctly in the Washington Post. “Traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender,” he observes. “If, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one’s autonomous choices,” then “on what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?”

Here’s the answer. The number isn’t two. It’s one. You commit to one person, and that person commits wholly to you. Second, the number isn’t arbitrary. It’s based on human nature. Specifically, on jealousy. (source) Emphasis, my own.

It is that simple, isn’t it? Yet, people look at gay marriage as the slippery slope that will lead to polygamy, bestiality, incest, and other socials ills that are beyond this writer to comprehend or imagine. I view myself as a fairly creative person, but some of the things people come up with truly amaze me.

What always bothers me is the lack of understanding in basic human psychology. That psychology says that, in most every person - gay, straight, or bisexual - is the need for companionship. Many people fill that need in various ways. Some people go to bars to meet people. Some take people home from bars. Both gay and straight people do this.

Some gay people are highly closeted and won’t even go to a gay bar for fear of being seen by someone that may know them. Many of these people resort to other means of meeting people for friendship and/or sex. They use methods that many straight people just can not understand because straight people don’t have to hide in fear - they go to a park or a secluded place to meet people. Some of these people are gay, but many are straight closeted married men who want to answer the call to their true nature - their gayness.

I came across this story, and was moved by it.

“The big problem is this is a hangout for homosexual men,” said Dale McKinney, the Herald & Review reported. “Sometimes 15 to 20 cars will be here at once. One car will pull in, back up to a parking space and another one will pull in next to it. Then the guys go out in the back of the park together.” Sheriff’s Capt. Steve Jones said the area is being patrolled, but when a marked squad car shows up, everyone scatters. Gay activists in other locations have often complained that police target gay men in public parks for cruising, which is not illegal, rather than for actual sex in public.

Of course, I would advise these people that cruising in parks is highly dangerous, aside from the side of possible arrest and public humiliation. Some guys who have been caught have been so humiliated and disgraced by their friends, family, and co-workers finding out that they were arrested in a park cruising gay men, let alone the fact that nobody even knew they were gay, that they end up attempted or committed suicide. The other side of course is that this would be a good place for gay bashers to go. It’s a bad situation from anyway you look at it. The good citizens who complain about this don’t give a rats ass about these men. They just want the “problem” cleaned up so it doesn’t drive down their property value and give their neighborhood a bad name.

Isn’t it time to come out of the closet on this? The reason these men do this is not because it’s a thrilling thing to cruise in a dark, dangerous, isolated place. The reason they do it is because we as a society have made it shameful for people to be who they really are.

But the real irony here is that the very congressmen who want to pass laws to makes these acts illegal and punishable by severe sentences are the same congressmen who will turn right around and sponsor a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

The real answer to this issue is to embrace what people are and to tell them that it is okay to be what they are. And also, to encourage them in every way possible that if they do find a mate they are compatible with, that society will do it’s part to nurture that relationship - not tear it down with all the legal roadblocks they can put into place. Gay cruising is dating that has been pushed underground. No one should have to live with that kind of shame and fear.

Nobody doubts that the homosexual community has suffered enormous and unjust prejudice in the past. Still, that is not justification for inflicting pain on anybody else. While many of us just don’t get it. Homosexuality, after all, is not a personal choice. Medical evidence continues to mount that homosexuality is a naturally inherited condition.

Every social movement makes mistakes. This one represents a short gain that will come back to haunt the homosexual community. However, wise leadership makes adjustments. One thing we can be sure of is that the Catholic Church is not going to change its mind.

Smart leadership of the homosexual community should realize that quiet adjustment does not hurt their cause. To the contrary, stubborn resistance will. Standing against reasonable compromise will create a backlash that, over time, will threaten whatever forward movement their struggle for equality and acceptance has gained. (source)

Looking back on the struggle of blacks before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I’m sure many white people looked upon the blacks as offering only “stubborn resistance” and “standing against reasonable compromise”.

Tell me, when you are the minority that is being discriminated against, what is a “reasonable compromise”? Your pride, your sense of self-worth, your humanity, your dignity, your family?

What part do you compromise on so that others can feel better about living in such a wonderful society, at the expense of that minority?

“Don’t ask, don’t” says that gays and lesbians can serve in the military, so long as they are silent, and celibate and lonely,” said retired Rear Admiral Alan Steinman. “You cannot tell anybody anywhere, any time, any place that you are gay, lesbian, or bisexual.” (source)

If you lived in a gay world where you had to lie about who you were attrracted to, how many would be up to the task? Enough said.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration was scheduled to meet March 9 to hear arguments from organizations that want the government to revise guidelines on a 23-year-old policy prohibiting gay men from donating blood. [...]

Officials with the American Red Cross, American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Centers confirmed that the three organizations would release a joint policy statement at the conference addressing the donor ban.

They declined to discuss their recommendation before the official announcement, but the alignment of the three groups suggested the Red Cross may be throwing its support behind a push to revise the nationwide ban. [...]

“With new testing the window is as small as two weeks,” Schneider said. “And even with standard testing, the results are known within three months. Even a one-year ban on gay men donating blood makes no sense.”

Schneider said the best possible way to ensure a safe blood supply is to remove sexual orientation from the equation.

“Ask about drug use, unprotected sex and the status of partners,” he said. “It’s the least discriminatory way of determining someone who is at risk.” (source)

Who the hell cares?

This is an old fight for me and it carries a LOT of old baggage with it. After college, when we moved to San Mateo, California, I would give blood at every opportunity. I would participate in every blood drive when the Red Cross came to my company. In addition to that, I would give blood on my own every month (they only came to my company quarterly). I really thought that I was helping my fellow citizens out.

Then, in the early 1980’s, AIDS came along. There were no reliable tests in those days. It made sense for the ban at that time. So, since AIDS was being spread mostly in the gay community (in the United States), they put a complete ban on gay men who had had sex with any man. So now, I am ban for life from giving blood.

Then there’s the fact that AIDS became known as the gay disease, despite the fact that in Africa, it is spread primarily by straight sex. In essence, AIDS is a disease of opportunity, not a disease of sexual practice. Still, because it was spreading in the gay community, I accepted the ban as being on the safe side.

Later, accurate tests were developed, and today, all donated blood is being tested. So here we are today with a complete ban against gay men, while straight men who regularly visit prostitutes do not have a life time ban. I makes no sense, unless of course there’s more to it - like bigotry.

Either way, this is a non-issue to me now. Like many things in life, it has fallen into that category of “not worth my time and energy.” But that’s just me. I am thankful for young gay people who still have such a fresh look at the world who is still fighting this issue and still caring enough to fight it. It is the right thing to do.

Tomorrow, if the American Red Cross decided to lift the ban, would I give blood? No, I wouldn’t. I’m too bitter over the whole issue. They have held on dearly to their fears against scientific data. I will not forget or forgive that. I no longer have an interest in giving blood, and I never will again.

Before I am judged as being an uncaring jerk who only cares for himself, here’s a bit about me. People who know me would tell you that I’d give a kidney or bone marrow to help a friend. That is what I am. My problem is not with people who need the blood. My problem is the bureaucracy that has turned this into a purely political issue right up there with “don’t ask, don’t tell”. I no longer have time or patience for that.

I sound angry, don't I? Yeah, I’m pissed off. So what else is new? There is always a price to be paid in treating people like shit. But it’s an old pissed off and I’ve put it where it belongs. It doesn’t effect my ability to enjoy life at this point in time.

Related Article
FDA inches toward easing gay blood donation ban

I’ve been waiting to see how the residents of Crystal Lake, Illinois would rule on having the rowing competition for the Gay Games come to their small town. A week or so ago, the parks board ruled 2-2. A tie vote is a “no” vote. But one of the board members, Jerry Sullivan, was vacationing in Mexico last week and wanted the opportunity to cast his vote. He did so last night and broke the tie vote, which cleared the way for the rowing competition.

My interest in all of this is human behavior, and what people are saying about it. The residents are concerned that gay men will be having sex on their front lawns (yes, this was actually mentioned), and that some were only interested in what these “queers” would bring into the town, in terms of revenue. Bigotry is alive and well.

But bigotry only flourishes in the absence of truth. My interest will be to see if attitudes change after the event. Will people like Larry Reyer (see comments below) change their minds? Most probably won’t. If you’ve lived that long with those values (Larry is 55 years old), people don’t give up on them easily. But perhaps, it will challenge him to do so. At some point, you just tell yourself, “Well, things will get better when the bigots die off and eventually a more enlightened generation comes along.”

For now, I’m willing to see if Crystal Lake can rise to the occasion of fairness and be willing to say, “We were wrong.”

After four hours of heated exchanges about God, sex and the law; after the booing, the hissing and the clapping were over, the votes were in Tuesday night: The 2006 Gay Games are approved to hit the shores of Crystal Lake. [...]

Last Thursday, the board was deadlocked in a 2-2 vote over the application by organizers of the games to use the lake, a highly regarded venue for such events. A tie vote on a measure means a proposal has failed.

But a fifth board member was out of town on vacation, and the vote was rescheduled for Tuesday, when the full board narrowly approved the application 3-2.

Board member Jerry Sullivan, who had just returned from Mexico and cast the decisive vote, later said, “I think it shows our openness as a community and our fairness.” [...]

Even before the meting started, barbs were being thrown. As at least 200 people filed into the meeting, they were greeted by Sean Spoor, a lifelong resident and personal banker, who was carrying a sign reading, “Out with the bigots, in with the pride.”

Spoor, who is gay, said he was particularly offended by the previous vote.

“I’m here because I’ve lived in this town pretty much all my life, and it makes me furious that the town I grew up in, a town that has expanded and succeeded, would be looking at barring this because of [sexual orientation],” Spoor said. “It shouldn’t make a difference; it’s a sport activity.”

Spoor’s comment to a reporter sparked several angry comments.

“I do not want these queers coming to my hometown,” said Larry Reyer, 55, a mechanic and 29-year resident. “Like I asked before, what revenue are you bringing in? What are you bringing in except stirring up all these problems?” (source)

Related Article
April 5, 2006 - Illinois town council OKs Gay Games
Chicago Pride - Crystal Lake Park Board Approves Gay Games Rowing Event
Chicago Tribune - Crystal Lake parks brace for Gay Games tiebreaker