General: September 2006 Archives

The ability to forgive others for their misdeeds in life is ultimately a discovery of yourself and your character.

We all have situations in life that we wished, in hindsight, we had handled differently. But there is no going back in time. The best we can do is to move forward and try to learn from life’s sometimes harsh lessons. If we can do that, we will grow as people. If we are unable to do that, we only deceive ourselves and, in one way or another, either lie it away, or try to dilute the offense by summing it up as one “youthful indiscretion” after another. Which course you decide defines your character.

Which brings me to the following writings that I came across recently.

I have never once seen a happy homosexual. This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet. All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.

Why is the pop music of today so bad? Because it is communist to the very core. It’s turning the children of America into sissies and preying on the minds of every American, making them weaker and weaker. And how about this humanoid (I’d hesitate to say person, and I would never use the word MAN) Boy George. It wears girl’s clothes and puts on makeup. When I hear it sing, ’Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to make me cry,’ I say to myself, YES, I want to punch your lights out, pal, and break your ribs.’

When I first arrived at Bowdoin in the fall of 1980 the leftists were in complete control. To be sure the freedom lovers outnumbered the statists but they had been cowed into submission by the liberals.

I say let’s get those pinkos out of the music business and replace them with some tough conservatives.

The individual who composed those writings is none other than Cranston, Rhode Island Mayor Stephen P. Laffey (pictured left). The writings were anonymously submitted to The Providence Journal. Laffey confirmed being the author, but states that whoever sent the material to The Journal was desperately trying to smear him in the days leading up to the September 12th primary in an attempt to win the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. He lost to incumbent Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, a more moderate Republican, who supports full marriage rights for gay partners. Laffey opposes marriage equality for gays, but supports civil unions.

My first reaction to his writings was anger, immediately followed by a nasty-gram to the Mayor. You see, the Mayor himself does not have an official email address. I checked. I went to leave my message with his secretary, who does have an email address. I suppose with all the bad publicity with him being an apparent in-the-closet gay basher and all, they were getting hate mail left and right and decided to pull the email address. Or perhaps, I’m just being overly dramatic and he never had one to begin with. At any rate, after I composed it, I deleted it without sending it. Why, you ask?

You see, I’ve done the same thing in my life that Mayor Laffey has. In college, I’ve said things to people that I’m not proud of. If I could face those people today, I would say that I’m sorry. And yes, I’d actually mean it. If I could take back some insensitive remarks that I once made to an acquaintance of mine, I would. We were over for dinner, and I told a joke that used Polish People as the brunt of the joke. As it turns out, the person I told the joke to was of Polish heritage. It was an embarrassment for me and was awkward. I never apologized at the time, because I didn’t know what to say. I was in my twenty’s and didn’t handle it as gracefully as I would like to think I would handle it today. In fact, today, it wouldn’t happen. Over the years, I’ve tried to think how that must have made him feel inside. I made a joke, and he laughed at the joke. But isn’t that the same as someone cracking a gay joke in front of me without knowing I’m gay? I laugh to put on a good face. And when I leave, I take a piece of pain with me. I could have called the person on the crude joke, but I took the high ground and gracefully laughed at the joke, at my expense. Just as my friend did. But it’s hard for me to think that I didn’t in some way hurt him inside.

Then college student Laffey talked about breaking the ribs of a gay man (too close to home for me), and then said years later that they thought it was “funny”. And that is what sent me over the top and caused me to compose a rather scathing email to his secretary, that was deleted. A few others had similar takes to mine.

“My immediate reaction to Laffey’s comments, even though they were made long ago, is the same queasy feeling I got when I heard Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic remarks,” said Dennis Byrnes, who lives in Cranston. “This is his core he was speaking from, his value system. He is a rabid bigot and it’s about time he was exposed. He even stoops to using his family’s misfortunes for his own political gain in his TV advertising. What more do rational people need to see about this man to know he is one twisted guy?”

“He should seek reconciliation with the gay community,” said Brummer. “From what I can see from the attack campaign he is running on Chafee, it is pretty evident that his beat people up mentality has not left him. Rather than showing us why he would be a good candidate, he uses passive violence in his campaign ads to show us why Chafee isn’t. I think that says his animosity toward other people hasn’t changed. He should apologize to the gay community and he should denounce violence against us.”

“Laffey’s disingenuous attempt to minimize the articles as ‘sophomoric political satire’ insults the intelligence of Rhode Island voters,” said Karen Izzo, the head of one of the state’s PFLAG chapters. (source)

And this from another angry writer on Laffey’s past writings...

Explaining his writings, Laffey said this weekend, “We were just having fun. We thought it was funny.”

Funny. Hmm. You know, I’d buy that, except I just don’t see any joke. Not even a bad joke. Not even a cruel joke. It’s just a hateful, bigoted comment. Where’s the humor in that?

Please, I’d like one of Stephen Laffey’s supporters to come on here and explain what exactly about the passage above is funny. Come on and tell me where the joke is.

The fact that Stephen Laffey still believes that comments like these are “fun” and “funny” shows that the problem isn’t just in the past. This isn’t matter of College Republican hijinks. It’s about a Republican candidate for high political office who thinks that it’s fun to insult people.

Stephen Laffey still has the obsession with hateful cruelty that he had back when he was in college. Maybe that attitude makes him a popular candidate with Republican voters, but it makes him unfit to be a United States Senator. (source)

So, we have Mayor Stephen Laffey who, years ago, said some pretty unsympathetic things towards gay people. Today, he dismisses those writings as an attempt to smear him during the campaign. He further dismisses them by stating that those statements do not represent his views, “No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . .”.

Then why write them? Why dismiss them as nothing more than “sophomoric political satire”?

Laffey further states, “Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.” Some of the things?

Would it also be “funny” if Mayor Laffey were on the receiving end of a gay bashing? That is the part of me that wants to say, “That would be a lesson to him of what we actually go through.” But that of course, is not the answer. The truth is, he hasn’t said anything worse than many other Republicans and Right-Wing hate mongers. Does that make it right? No. But that’s reality.

This is my big problem with Mayor Laffey. He dismisses his past actions and doesn’t make himself accountable for them. He excuses them away because he was young and dumb at the time, with phrases like “sophomoric political satire”, and, “But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.” The difference between me and him is the realization that I understand that behind every single joke that is made at the expense of someone else, is TRUTH. He doesn’t understand that and is willing to dismiss it. This is the test of his character. The truth is, there was some truth to these writings being his beliefs. If that wasn’t the case, they never would have been written. The truth is that whenever you make a joke that disguises hatred in a more palatable form, the fact remains, there is hatred behind that joke. You can talk this away all day long, but it doesn’t change that fact.

If he were genuinely sorry about his past deeds, he does have at his disposal the means to make this right. If I were him, I would personally organize a meeting with the GLBT community, look them in the eye, and tell them, “I was wrong, and I am so sorry for the hurt that I have caused this community. I am also ashamed of my past remarks and what I have put my friends and loved ones through.” If he did that (and he meant it), all would be forgiven, and he could move on, because that act would speak volumes to the content of his character. To my knowledge, Mayor Laffey has not done this. But he can let us know (or not) if he has. I’m sending his secretary a link to this writing, just in case he would like to add anything that I’ve left out.

We all make mistakes. I’m willing to rectify mine, wherever I can. I embrace my mistakes, however painful that may be, and try to learn from them. That is how we grow. Why make another mistake by sending him an angry email, when his words have already done so much?

The ability to forgive others for their misdeeds in life is ultimately a discovery of yourself and your character. That’s true. I can forgive Mayor Laffey for his past deeds, but only after he asks for that forgiveness. It’s his call. It’s a test of his character.

The ultimate irony in all of this is that Mayor Laffey’s older brother was a gay man who abused drugs and later died from AIDS. Mayor Laffey should certainly know better. With a gay brother who was dealing with AIDS, he doesn’t even have the excuse of being ignorant to gay issues.

Sources used
Laffey penned anti-gay columns in college
Republican Laffey Says Anti-Gay Slurs Were Just a Joke
GLBT community responds to Senate candidate’s anti-gay past

Is anyone else becoming annoyed with all this “research” on why gay men are, well, gay? And have you ever wondered why no one is trying to find out why lesbians are, well, lesbian?

I mean, if I were trying to put importance on it, I would lump it in with all the other unimportant things people think about under the label “Who gives a damn?” Honestly, I really do not care about why I am gay or where it came from. I have more important issues on my mind, such as dealing with the reality of my life now without worrying about something that I have no control over (or should care about); why I am gay. Do straight people go around asking themselves, “Why am I straight?” No, of course not, and they shouldn’t.

So why are so many people obsessed with this? Since it keeps coming up in “scientific research” all the time, let’s break it down a bit.

One of the great mysteries of human sexuality is what causes some men to be gay.

Couldn’t the exact same thing be said about heterosexuals? Why are we so obsessed with this? If I were a gay geneticist, I guess I could delve into why straight men are straight, but what would honestly be the point? Unless, of course, I was looking for a way to “correct” the “mutation” (not normal) for future generations to come. If that isn’t your objective, then why waste your time?

Scientists have rejected earlier notions that homosexuality is a mental illness. The thinking now is that sexual orientation is determined by roughly 40 percent genetic factors and 60 percent environmental factors.

And now researchers at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute are hoping to identify one or more genes that help determine sexual orientation.

Again, who cares? I have a pretty good idea that I was born gay. I remember knowing I was gay when I was 6 years old. Back then, we weren’t as savvy with labels as we are today. I didn’t know what “gay” meant (other than “happy”). I just knew that “gay” was a word used in show tunes a lot. I also knew deep inside that I was different. I honestly wouldn’t have been able to put it into words if I were asked about it at that age. So, in all honesty, I cannot tell you if I was born that way, or if something extraordinary happened to me between the ages of 0 to 6 years old. I can only tell you that nothing in my memory would indicate that my childhood up to that point was anything other than normal.

I lost my father when I was six years old, and that was of course traumatic for me, as it would be for any child that age. But then again, many kids that age or younger go through the same thing, and they turn out heterosexual. My brother, for example, was much more traumatized by my father’s death, being four years older than me, and he is heterosexual, as is my sister.

But some gays are wary. They fear discovering gay genes could lead to efforts to “cure” homosexuality, or to prenatal tests for gay genes.

Researchers say that’s not their intent.

Researchers are in no position to make any claims on how their research will be applied in the future. So their good intentions are worthless. It’s the condition of mankind. We will do anything to justify the end if it works to our advantage, just like today we are talking about different degrees of torture that is “acceptable”. What they are really saying is, “How much torture (we prefer to call it ’coercion’) can we put on someone, and still walk away with warm fuzzy feelings (public opinion will accept) inside?” Once we determine that, then we can deal with making the law do what we want it to do to allow us to do that, by bending the rules of the Geneva Convention a bit. It’s easy, since we no longer care what other people in the world think of the United States.

With this research, I could see laws being put on books to force “known homosexuals” to “register” with their state. I can later see that registry being used to round up these individuals to make them straight. Sound crazy? Well, it’s happened before, and it can happen again. This is why we are wary of this kind of research.

First the radial religious right in this country wanted to “defend marriage” so they passed amendments to stop gays from getting marriage. But that wasn’t enough. They also went on to ban gays from having civil unions or domestic partnerships. But that wasn’t enough. They also went on to say that anything that resembles marriage cannot have any rights or privileges in law given to it. That effects a lot of unmarried straight folks as well, but they are willing to live with that as long as gays don’t reap the benefits.

That being said, how much of a reach do you really think it is to say that this research on human sexuality won’t be used to “help” us poor homosexuals who want to change, but we don’t know we want to change?

Homosexuality tends to run in families. While 2 percent to 4 percent of all men are gay, 8 percent to 12 percent of brothers of gay men are gay. [...]

Possible environmental factors include family upbringing, exposure to certain hormones during pregnancy and having older brothers. (source)

Again, who cares? What difference does this all make? None, as far as I can see. I guess we will see in 20-30 years if these statements will turn out to be laughable or not, or if they will turn into something less laughable - human experiments. Why is the gay community so wary of this? Because, it’s happened before.

If you really want to look at something that’s going to bit us in the ass, and soon, you might want to look at this.

Global warming at 12,000-year high

“If further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about 3 million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today,” Hansen said. (source)

It’s important to remember history and the way things used to be for our community. This happened just three years after I was born. The arrest of this man actually ruined his life.

As for Wally Pegelow, who denied any involvement with his 1957 accusers, the felony conviction haunted him for the rest of his life. He was forbidden to see his wife, according to his family, and told that his father-in-law had the marriage annulled.

The Army discharged him for bad conduct, a ruling he sought to have reversed in 1965 so that he could serve in Vietnam. As late as 1990, Pegelow appealed to the Army to no avail to let him serve with the National Guard in Operation Desert Storm.

“I am now 54 years old. Over the years since my discharge, I have always tried to be the best person that I could be,” wrote Pegelow, who had twice remarried and had three daughters. “All I am asking is, would you please let me hold my head up a little higher?”

Pegelow died of lung cancer in 2002, according to his third wife, who now lives in Darlington, S.C.

In the 45 years following his imprisonment for a crime against nature, widow Rita Pegelow said her husband never registered to vote, for fear of being told that he was ineligible, and never applied for a job where he had to list his felony conviction, for fear of being turned down. And after the one brief, furtive jailhouse visit arranged by his former mother-in-law, he never saw his son again. (source)

Yesterday was Connecticut Pride. I actually planned to go, but I found myself losing interest in going. Driving to Hartford (no big deal), hunting for a parking place (a bigger deal), walking a few blocks to the celebration (no big deal), and being confronted with many vendors -- a record number this year I’m told -- many of whom only care about money. Well, that’s naive. They all care about money. That’s why they are there.

But somehow, I felt that going to the pride festival was not so important to me this year. Could this be a new phase of my life, or part of growing older? I feel less of a need to validate myself as a gay man than I used to. Is this not a good thing? Does this mean that I am becoming more a part, or at least feel more a part of a society -- a society who has always cast shame and disdain upon people like me? Or, could it be, that I no longer depend one way or the other on the approval of society?

I think it’s a mixture of all of the above. A lot of it has been the mass exposure society has had to gay people and our issues in recent years. I don’t really think the gay community realizes just how much it has come out of the closet in the last three to four years. Most of it deals with a few key issues...

gay marriage certainly. As awful and mean spirited as state constitutional amendments are in not allowing us access to the full citizenship of this country, these hateful amendments have placed a bright spotlight on the biggest issue we face today - inequality. In spite of it all, I honestly do believe, in time, that the people of this country will do what’s right and noble and fair.

the very public spotlight on key military personnel being discharged from the military because they are gay, at a time when we need all the experience we can get

the great majority of gay people are no longer willing to pay the price of being in the closet. It takes too much energy and deprives you of living life. When you have to lie at a company Christmas party about why your “wife” is sick and couldn’t make it, in no small measure, it kills a bit of your soul. When people come out with courage, it changes minds and opinions. It personalizes the attitudes non-gay people have towards gays. This is happening everywhere, even in the military.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I finally no longer see myself as gay first, American second. I think of myself as an American first, then married (state and federal government, like it or not), then gay. The order of how I see myself has changed. Is this not the essence of pride that I no longer feel a great need to go to a celebration where 98% of the people there will be homosexual, just to feel better about myself or to feel acceptance? Doesn’t acceptance come from within?

The only bitter thing left in all of this was the dance that happened after Connecticut Pride. It began at 9:00pm. I understand why they wanted and needed this. After all, even today, we can’t openly show affection towards our partners without risk. The same is true about dancing with your partner. If you think I’m wrong, go to a nice straight establishment with a dance floor, and ask your partner up for a dance. The establishment will, in no short order, ask you both to leave.

We still have so far to go, and it was sad to me that we still have to have our own place to go for dancing and the showing of affection. I suppose this is why we still need gay bars.

But I’ve learned one thing. Acceptance into this society does not mean that you will lose your identity. It means that you have to accept that identity fully. The fact is, many of us deeply hate ourselves. It’s understandable. We were conditioned to hate queers from an early age. So when we discovered we were queer, it was only natural.

I remember, just before we left San Francisco, that straight couples were moving into The Castro, filling the apartments of gay men who had died of AIDS. One day, I’m walking down Castro Street only to be confronted with a young straight couple with a baby carriage. I was angry and remember saying a rather unkind thing about them. What was really going on was the fear of losing my identity and my pride, and the one place at the time that I could be myself, without fear. If you fully accept yourself inside and like who you are, no one can really take that away from you.

Finally, I read an interesting opinion from Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who is on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, who wrote this for the Washington Post. I thought I’d share it with you.

The chief casualty in the struggle over same-sex marriage has been the American constitutional tradition. Liberals and conservatives -- judges and legislators -- bear responsibility for this sad state of affairs.

Twenty states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriages; many more are in the offing. On the ballot this fall in six states will be proposed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Passage of the amendments is all but foreordained, but the first principles of American law will be further endangered. [...]

The Federal Marriage Amendment has helped spread the constitutional fever to the states. State constitutional bans on same-sex marriages vary considerably in their wording, particularly with respect to civil unions. But most would repose in judges the authority to interpret such ambiguous terms as “domestic union,’’ “similar to marriage,’’ “rights, obligations, privileges and immunities of marriage,’’ “incidents of marriage’’ and so forth. Thus the irony: Those who wish to curb activist judges are vesting judges with unprecedented interpretative authority whose constitutional nature makes it all but impervious to legislative change.[...]

It is not wrong for gay citizens to wish to share fully in the life of this country, to partake of its most basic and sacred institution, and to experience the intimacy, bonding and devotion to another that only an institution such as marriage can bring. To embrace this view one need not believe that sexual infidelities will disappear but only that many gay couples will make good on their vows and lead fuller, richer and more productive lives as a result. [...]

It is sad that Virginia, the state of James Madison and John Marshall, will in all likelihood forsake their example of limited constitutionalism this fall. Their message is as clear today as it was at the founding: Leave constitutions alone. (emphasis my own.)

Yet while the issue of protecting gay students and whether GSAs should be recognized roils school districts across the country one Canadian school board is taking a pro-active approach.

The Toronto School Board is launching a major survey of its students this fall to help set a policy to better serve all of its pupils.

Among the 55 questions being asked of students from junior kindergarten to grade 12 is whether they are “lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, queer or two-spirited”. There is also a box to indicate “don’t know”. (source)

I think it’s great that the Toronto School Board is trying to assess how many gay, lesbian, transgendered, and bisexual students that have enrolled in their system. I was a bit shocked that they would use the word “lesbian” in referring to females who are homosexual, then turn around and use the word “queer” in referring to males who are homosexual. I mean, shouldn’t they have used the word “gay”?

More and more gay males are referring to themselves as “queer” these days. Hell, even I have used it to describe myself. When I was beaten in high school, the kids that did that made reference repeatedly to the word “queer” while beating me. It was then a derogatory word used for gay people.

But over the years, we have taken possession of the word “queer”. Speaking for myself, I find it liberating to use it when referring to myself because it takes the stigma away from me. And, in some small way, it feels like I am taking back something that they took away from me so long ago.

Does that make sense?

But, I don’t know if I would use the word “queer” in a high school situation. It would seem to me that some kids would feel that’s a put-down. But then again, times have changed and this generation of gay kids are nothing like the kids I grew up with.

Thank God for that!

Three University of Wisconsin-Madison students challenged the U.S. military’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” on Wednesday when they attempted to enlist in the Army even though they said that they are openly gay.

Army recruiters stopped the enlistment process once the students made their sexual orientation clear, WISC-TV reported.

Derek House, a UW-Madison sophomore, said that he comes from a military family and wants to serve, but not if it means keeping his personal life secret. He said his father and brother serve in the military.

“That is a decision I was not willing to make,” House said of hiding his sexual orientation. “I was not willing to step back to my 10th grade year of high school and closet myself. I can’t do that.”

Junior Justin Hager said that he has a friend who was injured in Baghdad, but he wants to serve.

“I’ve been raised with the beliefs that serving in the military is not just an opportunity, but it’s a responsibility and a privilege that all of us citizens should attain,” Hager said. (source)

Merriam-Webster defines “conviction” as, “the act of convincing a person of error or of compelling the admission of a truth”.

The truth. The actions of the brave students (some will undoubtedly try to dismiss their conviction by calling them “gay activists” I’m sure) is the most effective thing that has happened against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to date.

Congress has entertained overturning the stupid policy, although not seriously. If they thought it had a chance in hell of being overturned, they wouldn’t bring it up.

The President supports the policy, as do members of his cabinet. No surprise there.

And if you talk to actual soldiers in Iraq (and I have), they will tell you, “There are plenty of gays in my unit. It’s not a problem. Everyone does their job.” The fact of the matter is, when you are in a dangerous situation such as Iraq, how important do you really think sexual orientation is to these soldiers? Now days, with the young soldiers in place, not a big problem. There are isolated incidents of gay bashing, just as there were problems when African Americans were integrated with the white troops. And, this mirrors society - there are isolated incidents of people getting beaten, and so forth. But, it is against the law to do that in society, and it is against the rules of military conduct to do it in the military. There is no difference.

The act of going to a military recruiter to sign up, and taking the added step of TELLING them that you are gay, a clear violation of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, is putting a spot light on this unfair policy. But it’s more than unfair. We, as a nation, are turning down perfectly fine young men and women who want to serve their country at a time when we could really use that help.

I understand why they are doing it. I commend them, their courage, and I support their efforts. It is the vision of the future that we enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Some of those rights are not always pleasant, but they are essential if we are to be equal with others. We ask for marriage equality, workplace equality, health insurance equality, and all the rest. Well, you aren’t equal unless you are equal in all aspect of society, and the military is part of that.

The angry part of me that sees all the injustices that we face wants to say that if they don’t want us in the military, fine. Let “them” (the straights) go to battle to defend and die for us (straights and gays). Hell, we come out ahead because we aren’t allowed to share in the burden of being a citizen. The same with the American Red Cross. If they don’t want our blood, don’t expect me to be sympathetic when they complain about being short of blood.

But that is honestly short sighted. We can’t give into that depressed sense of hopelessness. And that’s what it is, giving up. Derek House knows that. He’s the one that said about hiding his sexual orientation, “That is a decision I was not willing to make. I was not willing to step back to my 10th grade year of high school and closet myself. I can’t do that.”

Why can’t he do that? For two reasons. Self Respect and Integrity. Isn’t that what the military would want?

I would also urge anyone seeking to do this by challenging Don’t Ask, Don’t tell to really think this through. It’s one thing to do this for a cause of showing how unfair this policy is. But, you should do it with the expectation and hope that you will be admitted to the military. If that should happen, the cause will no longer be the issue. You will be in the military. I mention this because I believe that some who are doing this have not really thought this action through. If you really want to be in the military, I found a guide on what you can expect, should they accept you, when the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is abolished.