Category Archives: society

It’s the thought that counts

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Raymond Burr sits in a wheelchair, examining a gun.
Raymond Burr as Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside.
Reboots/remakes are tricky things. The current BBC re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes starring Benedict Cumberbatch is altogether awesome, for instance. The remake of the classic Spencer Tracey Father of the Bride with Steve Martin was also pretty darn awesome.

The recent remakes of V and True Grit, on the other hand…

So NBC has launched a remake of the ’70s detective series, Ironside, and they cast Blair Underwood in a role based very loosely on the character originated by Raymond Burr. I’ve watched the pilot, and it wasn’t awful. I’m not even sure I would call it bad. But mediocre certainly springs to mind. Supporting characters completely lacking in anything resembling a personality does as well.

Sometimes series (whether books or television) take a while to find their footing, so I’m going to probably give it a few more episodes. But by the time I finished watching the pilot, I needed something to cleanse my brain, and by chance I’ve had the TiVo recording re-runs of another Raymond Burr iconic series, Perry Mason. It was truly a joy to watch a 1962 episode.

One of the things I loved about the classic Mason television series, as well as the books, was how often Mason would quote specific principles of law. For instance, in the episode I watched that night, Della Street, Mason’s secretary, has been accused of aiding and abetting a felony murder which may have been committed by an old friend. Mason points out to the officer that in order for her to be found guilty, they have to prove that she knew her friend had committed a felony before she acted, that she willingly assisted the friend, and that both she and the friend were doing what they were doing with the intent to avoid arrest for the crime.

Which is true of many of our laws. What you’re thinking and why you’re doing what you are doing determine whether the act is a crime. It is seldom just the action, but also the intent. This is a legal principle that has been with us since at least the times of the Ancient Sumerians…

Continue reading It’s the thought that counts →

Tomboys, pink boys, sissies, and amazons

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Lots of people have been talking about a couple of recent op-ed/blog posts about the recent faddish attention in the media and on social networks focused on gender non-conforming kids. Since as a kid one of the nicest words regularly used by my bullies was “sissy” it shouldn’t surprise any one that I have some thoughts on this matter.

The latest commentary asks us not to treat these kids and the parents who are allowing them to be themselves as if they are celebrities. No child is really equipped to be at the center of a media circus, and all the attention, even if all of it were positive (and it isn’t, as internet trolls quickly fill any comments sections or Facebook page with hateful attacks on both the kids and their parents).

I agree.

However, visibility is a crucial component of any attempt to diffuse hate. We wouldn’t have any schools that allowed these kids to dress as they wish, or policies to allow the transgender kids to express their gender, et cetera, if the existence of kids similar to them were unknown. We certainly wouldn’t have California passing a law to protect transgender kids in public schools.

We want the kids to be safe to be themselves. The act of being themselves means not hiding. So there is going to be attention, no matter what. When people like myself share links to blog posts of, say, a mom explaining why she let her son dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo, we’re expressing joy that one kid has supportive parents. We’re telling people we know that we think it’s a good idea that this kid has supportive parents. We’re telling people we know that we think everyone should be accepting of kids like that kid, and parents like that mom.

And those are good things.

We need to admit to ourselves that we have other reasons. I know one of the feelings I have whenever I find one of these stories—whether it be the incredibly cool note a father left his teen-age son saying he’s known he was gay since the age of six and he’s loved him since the day he was born, or the mom whose son wanted to be Daphne, or the mom who was okay when her six-year-old developed a crush on a boy on TV—is envy. I wish that my parents had been as accepting of my non-conformities as a child. The subtext of my sharing of those stories is always going to include a bit of that wistful longing.

Similarly when I read the blog post of the dad who is appalled at news of some other father kicking his gay child out of the family home. As I feel the fierce feeling of protectiveness coming through the dad’s words, I can’t help a few tears coming to my eyes as envy (again) mixed with sorrow and more than a bit of anger at my own father well up. My dad didn’t have that overwhelming drive to protect me from the cruelties of the world—for much of my childhood he was one of the worst cruelties I faced.

So my reasons for sharing these stories is not entirely altruistic. I’m not trying to be exploitive of their stories. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for, that most of us aren’t intentionally sharing the tales for selfish reasons.

Not every boy who likes pink is gay. Not every girl who prefers sports over playing pretty princess is lesbian. Not all of the children who vary from society’s strict gender silos is transgender. No matter how much some of us may see ourselves in each of these kids, no matter how many stories we read or pictures we see or videos we watch, we don’t really know these kids. We don’t know their futures.

But to the extent that we empathize with how they feel, we need to put our attention and energy into making the world a more welcoming place for all of them, no matter who they grow up to be.

Why I’m proud

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“If it’s just who you are, why be proud about it?”

It seems like a reasonable question, right? I mean, if we’re born this way, what is there to be proud of? It’s not like we did it, right?

If you’ve ever asked that question, or been tempted to ask it (especially if you think it’s a clever question) here’s what I need you to do: imagine one of the really big St Patrick’s day parades. Imagine a very big, bearded, slightly inebriated Irish American in that parde. Now imagine yourself wearing a t-shirt with a British flag printed on it, and some slogan such as “The Irish are all terrorists!” in really large print. Now imagine yourself confronting the inebriated Irishman in the middle of the St. Patrick’s Day parade and demanding that he explain just what it is he has to be proud of, anyway, just because he was born Irish?

If you are a straight or straight-identified person living in our society, having grown up going to schools that encouraged your childhood crushes, that held dances that celebrated your teen age boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, watching movies where 99.9% of the plots include at least an element of either boy-meets-girl or boy-rescues-girl or woman-gets-her-man, et cetera, much of your existence is the result of a system of privilege which is the equivalent of that t-shirt.

So that’s the first thing I have to be proud of: I haven’t been crushed by the forces of homophobia, I didn’t commit suicide in my teens, I survived all the beatings, I managed to avoid being driven into addiction or a life of loneliness by all of those people, assumptions, and cultural expectations that said I couldn’t love, and if even I could my love didn’t matter, my very self was false.

I survived all of that and became a productive member of society. I found a man who promised to love me and stay with me the rest of his life—and he did! And after he died, I was lucky enough to be found by another wonderful man who somehow isn’t put off by all my obnoxious personality traits and has the audacity to love me!

We have a circle of friends who run the spectrum from straight through bi and gay, and contrary to what I was told again and again throughout my childhood, how lovable or worthwhile any of them are has absolutely nothing to do with their orientation.

I’m proud not just because I’m still here and I’ve survived, but because all of those people marching in Pride Parades all around the world have survived. From the freaks to the wallflowers, from the lesbian moms and gay dads to the queer aunties and uncles, from the straight parents of lesbian & gays to the straight kids of gays & lesbians, from the queer soccer players to the queer sci fi nerds (and there are a lot more of us than you think!), from the drag queens to muscle daddies and gym bunnies, from the dykes on bikes to the queer corgi owners club (sometimes one of the largest groups in the parade), from the go-go boys to the clog-dancing lesbians, from the queer quakers to the gay service members, from the cyber sluts to the snap queens, from house spouses to the queer executives… in short, every bi, gay, trans, lesbian, gender-non-conformist, queer, homo, fairy, butch, femme, st8-acting person or ally who has survived another year and is still ready to stand up, be counted, and throw a fabulous party.

I’m proud because we have endured hate, which has taught us how to love better. I’m proud because we have fled the shadows, and showed the world our light. I’m proud because no matter how many times we’ve been knocked down, we have gotten back up.

I’m proud because we’re all here, and we’re beautiful!

Why I watch the parade

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First, because it’s a parade, and people do some pretty astounding things when they march.

I watched my first Pride Parade before I marched in one. I was barely out to anyone at the time, and I wasn’t even sure what the parade was. I had seen (usually lurid and shocking) pictures in the papers and during the very brief coverage that would appear on the evening news.

I suspected those representations were highly inaccurate, but I had heard a few conflicting descriptions from gay people I knew.

What struck me most about that first parade was how unexceptional most of the people looked. Oh, yes there were some outrageous costumes, and some people bared a bit more skin than you would normally see on a summer sidewalk, but the vast majority were far more fully clothed than a typical beach crowd.

I understand why a lot of people think there’s a lot more nudity at Pride Parades than other events. It’s mostly because of the men. Our society is so heavily patriarchal that we don’t notice all those women in revealing clothes, provocative poses, and suggestive angles used in advertising, television shows, and the like. Women are allowed to show off their legs, a little cleavage, and much more, to show just how beautiful their bodies are. No one blinks at all the near nudity of women on floats in the Seattle Seafair Family Torchlight Parade, for instance, or the Tournament of Roses Parade, or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade—it’s there! We don’t consciously think about how much of the world is geared around appealing to the sexual desires of straight men.

We are not used to men putting themselves on display in the same way. So when the float covered in go-go boys goes by, instead of realizing that it’s no more nudity or sex appeal than what you might see on, say, the Miss America float in the Tournament of Roses Parade, we’re too busy freaking out at the Naked Boys (who aren’t actually naked)!

But what really struck me that first time, was how ordinary so many of the people looked. The various hobby-based clubs marching by in their matching t-shirts, throwing candy. The men and women, mostly in shorts and short-sleeved shirts, walking in a group with their dogs on leashes. The political groups with matching t-shirts chanting their slogans. The groups with kids—lots of the queer couples and their kids—marching with whichever group they were with. Plus lots of church or other religiously affiliated groups and lots of amateur sports leagues.

There were a multitude of costumes, many feathers, copious amounts of glitter, and a lot of rainbows. The outrageous costumes sometimes had some sort of political message. But often they were just things like big crazy headdresses that you weren’t sure what they were meant to signify, but it was rainbow colored!

Then after all the groups with their banners and fliers and sometimes matching t-shirts had passed, the parade just kept going, just lots and lots of random people. It took a few minutes for us to figure out what was happening. I learned later that it’s a tradition that’s gone from the very first Pride March in 1970 on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. After the parade passes you, you step off the curb and join it.

And that’s why some years I watch. The reason for the parade, ultimately, is simple visibility. We’re here. We’re your daughters, your neighbors, your sons, your co-workers, your friends, your siblings, or your parents. We’re not mysterious monsters lurking in seedy clubs, we’re the person in front of you at the check-out line in the grocery store, or the two gals sitting in that next pew at church, or the grey-haired guy trying to read a label on a bottle of cold tablets in the pharmacy, or that kid on the skateboard going past your bus stop, or that guy sipping a coffee at Starbucks while laughing at something on his computer.

We’re here, we’re everywhere, we’re real, and we have lives just like you.

I watch so that the people who are being brave and marching in their first parade will be seen and cheered for. I watch so that group of teen-agers (half of them straight and there to support their bi, gay, and lesbian friends) will get the applause that their costumes deserve. I watch so the guy who was up all night gluing sequins on his and his boyfriend’s costume will get the cheering that work deserves. I watch so that the older couple walking together holding hands will be seen and their love acknowledged.

I watch so that the ones whose families rejected them and told them never to come back will know they have another family, and we’re clapping for them right now. I watch and applaud so that the trans* gals and trans* men know they are seen for who they are and we think they’re beautiful, wonderful, and I am proud to call them brothers and sisters. I watch so that the ones who are carrying a photo or wearing the name of a deceased loved one will know that we see their grief and share it. I watch so that the straight parents who have spent countless hours explaining to friends and relatives that their queer kids have nothing to be ashamed of, and yes they are very happy, and no those things you’ve heard or read about their health and lifespan are all myths will know their efforts are appreciated by the whole community.

I watch so I can see and be reminded of just how big and wonderful and diverse and amazing our community is.

And finally, I watch so that as the last official entry goes by, I can see all the people who aren’t part of a club or organization who, just like me, stood on the sidewalk cheering and applauding.

And I cheer and applaud for all of them until finally it’s my turn to step off the curb and say to the world, “Me too.”

Why I marched the other times

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Oh, the many reasons one continues to march in Pride Parades after that first exhilarating time…

One reason I marched in so many parades was because I was a founding member of the (now defunct) Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus. Every year we marched together with our banner. Some years we had candy to hand out. Some years we had fliers. Some years we just waved. People always shouted at us to sing, but you can’t do big choral singing in the middle of a loud street. If you try, no one can hear you over the ambient noise unless you scream. You can’t hear each other well enough to stay in key or in rhythm. We tried, a few times, to get a good mobile sound system to play recordings of us singing, but that doesn’t work well, either.

So one reason I was there in the parade year after year was to march with my fellow choristers. To show people we were there, maybe get a few more people coming to our concerts. Maybe find a few new recruits. It was always a fun group to march with.

I was also there for the same reason I marched the first time. Saying to the world that I’m here, I won’t be invisible, I’m not going away.

I was there to see all the people standing on the sidewalk. Some in couples. Some in family groups. Some were there specifically waiting to cheer for a friend, family member, or significant other who was marching with one of the groups. Some were just there to cheer everyone. Some of the folks watching together had gone to more trouble dressing up than some of the people marching. There always seemed to be at least one group like that watching from a big balcony or deck overlooking some part of the parade route.

I was there, yes, so that I’d have the satisfaction each year of either glaring at or blowing kisses at that one guy who was always there at one corner with his big sign with a bible verse on it telling us how much he thought god hated us all. I never yelled at him. One year, Ray and I stopped right in front of him, french kissed, then turned and blew kisses to him. Ray kept turning around, waving, and making yoo-hoo sounds as our group marched on. Which was hardly original, but it was fun. I don’t know if it was literally the same guy year after year. It seemed like it was. He always seemed to be alone. He was very grim-faced but always silent. At least when I saw him. I like to imagine that he eventually came out, got some therapy, and settled down with a nice leather daddy in Palm Springs.

I marched to smile and wave at the people watching. To accept the applause and return it. “Hey! We all made it another year!”

I marched to show that we’re not all cute fashion-conscious young men—some of us are chubby, grey-bearded, sci fi nerds in t-shirts and tacky Hawaiian shirts.

I marched for the friends and loved ones who are no longer with us: for Ray, who promised to stay with me for the rest of his life, who loved Disney movies and old books, who danced with an abandon I envied, who even made jokes about the chemo, and whose last words on this earth were “I love you” spoken to me; for Jim, a friend from high school who didn’t come out of the closet until he was dying of AIDS, and I don’t think ever marched at Pride; for Chet, a cousin who was sent away when he came out, who vanished for years until one day his mother got a call from a hospice, and whose immediate family continued to reject him even refusing list his name in his grandfather’s (my great-uncle) obituary; for Stacy who sang like a TV version of an opera singer and loved a good joke; for Frank who didn’t sing so well, but never missed a rehearsal; for Mikey who was as tall as a pro basketball player but would rather play Dungeons and Dragons; for Scott, who was so sure that if we prayed harder we’d both turn straight, but died in a car accident before graduation; for Kerry who was always defensive about his Vespa; for David who played even the impossible accompaniments written by Mr M and made the piano dance; for Tim who sang like an angel and loved David so much it took your breath away when you caught him smiling in David’s direction; for Todd who was diagnosed with the disorder that would become AIDS before it had a name, who made the most morbid jokes about the disease, and never allowed anyone but his partner see him cry each time he saw another funeral notice for someone he knew; for Phil who was kicked out by his parents before graduation, but put himself through college despite them; for the other Todd who moved in with one boyfriend after the next, never able to keep a relationship going for more than a couple of months until he met Jack; for Glen who had problems with labels; for Mike who had problems with middle C… and for so many others who I only knew briefly.

I marched because someone needs to and I could.

Why I marched the first time

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Why did I march in my first Pride Parade?

Because for years I was deathly afraid that people would guess. I was certain that, if people knew I was gay, that everyone would despise me. Why would anyone want to be friends with, let alone love, such a freak?

The earliest moment I remember feeling that fear was when I was four (yes, four!). I didn’t even know there were words for what I was. I had made a linguistic error, referring to two neighbor boys my age as my “boyfriends.” At that point, I thought that the word “girlfriend” meant a friend who was a girl, and “boyfriend” was a friend who was a boy. But my use of that word sent my grandmother into a tizzy, explaining to me that I must never, ever use that word. And as she explained, so emphatically that it scared the bejesus out of me, that boys would occasionally have girlfriends, and then eventually would find the one special girl that they would spend the rest of their life with, but would never, ever have those kinds of special feelings for boys, that was when I first realized that there was something wrong with me.

Later, after getting teased at school for being a “sissy,” or because I “threw like a girl,” I started to form a better picture of what that difference was.

For years, whenever my dad was angry to the point of beating me with something clublike (as opposed to just slapping, punching, and generally knocking around), he hurled the word “c*cksucker” at me repeatedly. That’s the word I remember most when I think about the time he broke my collarbone (I was ten), for instance. I didn’t know what that word meant until I was eleven. But that simply solidified everything I had already gleaned from the notion that every bully, harasser, and teaser at school, the park, or Sunday school had already made clear: boys like me were horrible, unloveable, detestable creatures.

So I did everything I could to hide it.

When puberty hit, a few months before my twelfth birthday, any doubt that I had about why all those words kept being hurled at me was gone. I threw myself into every church activity I could, because I thought if I just worked hard enough for him, surely god would eventually stop ignoring my years of tearful praying to make the feelings go away.

I honestly can’t say which motivated me more to try so many sports in middle school: trying to find a way to appease Dad, or trying to find a way to become a “real boy” to appease the bullies.

By my late teens I had finally realized that words like faggot, pussy, queer, homo, and so forth were hurled at any guy that someone meant to demean. It didn’t always mean that they thought you were literally homosexual, it was just that that was the most dehumanizing, detestable thing they could think to accuse you of being.

But because that was the most horrible thing someone could call you, it just amped the terror of what might happen if anyone realized that I actually was gay.

Even when I stopped believing that I was going to hell for feeling this way, the terror didn’t leave. Because what was really scary was the certainty that everyone I cared for would abandon me. Even when, after applying logic and ethical analysis to the abstract concept of sexual orientation, I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with any two consenting adults choosing to love each other, I still feared that abandonment.

It took a few more years of being closeted, being extremely careful about who I let know that I wasn’t heterosexual. A few more years of telling even those few people that I was bi—it wasn’t that I was lying so much as trying really hard to convince myself. Because somehow being bisexual meant I was only half a freak, or something. A few more years of furtive attempts at having relationships with guys (and trying to do that while constantly fearing someone who wouldn’t understand might see is dreadful enough on its own, let alone all the other problems inherent with the inexperienced trying to figure out relationships)—before I was finally ready to stop hiding.

I marched because I finally realized that the sorts of people who would abandon you weren’t worth having as friends. I finally realized that my worth wasn’t dependent on their approval. I finally realized that if they had a problem with me being gay, that it was their problem, and not mine.

I marched because I was tired of hiding. I marched because I was tired of trying to be invisible. I marched because I was tired of all the people trying to make me invisible or urging me to keep it to myself.

I marched because I was ready grab the world by its metaphorical lapels, give it a shake, and say, “Hey! I’m standing right here!”

Why marriage (for some or all) isn’t enough

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Although the Supreme Court’s decision to declare section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional is a victory for us, it is a partial victory, only. People outside the 12 states and the District of Columbia which currently recognize marriage equality, are still denied the protection that marriage brings.

It’s sad that the five justices who ruled on this didn’t see through to the logical conclusion of one of their statements about the families of same sex couples in their ruling: “The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.”

That statement doesn’t just apply to the children in the 12 states that currently recognize marriage equality. It applies to all of the two million children the census bureau recently said are being raised by gay or lesbian parents in throughout all the states.

Even if the extremely unlikely outcome had happened, if the court had ruled on the more fundamental constitutional question, it wouldn’t mean our fight for equality is over. In 29 states there is no law against firing someone simply because he or she is gay, or because an employer thinks he or she is. Laws don’t prevent someone from being a jerk and finding another excuse to get rid of someone they don’t like, but non-discrimination laws give you options in the most egregious cases. They also encourage employers, large and small, to create policies that reduce the occurrence of the less egregious cases.

When it becomes legally unacceptable to openly fire, refuse to promote, or otherwise materially penalize employees simply because they are gay, it starts becoming socially unacceptable to joke or negatively comment about it. And studies have shown in other areas of discrimination, that just turning down the heat of acceptability of open discrimination starts changing private attitudes. Not for everyone, but enough to make life a bit more bearable on a day-to-day basis.

In 33 states there is no law against firing or otherwise penalizing an employee for being transgender. Heck, it’s nearly impossible for a person who is either undergoing gender reassignment therapy or has completed it to use a restroom without people throwing hissy fits and wailing and gnashing their teeth about some of the strangest and most far-fetched “consequences” of that.

Even when the transgender person is a six-year-old child.

And don’t get me started on the people who don’t understand that it is not just a matter of someone deciding they want to dress in the other gender’s clothes. So-called natural physical gender is nowhere near as well-defined and clearcut in some cases as most people think.

While 49 states have some form of anti-bullying laws on the books, seven of those states either explicitly exclude harassment due to sexual orientation and gender identity from the definition of bullying, or severely restrict what schools and school employees can do when the bullying occurs in those areas. Another fifteen states don’t specifically exclude harassment because of sexual orientation, but leave the wording vague enough as to make it unenforceable. And then the extent to which gender identity is or isn’t included varies so widely, I get confused whenever I try to read all the charts about it at places such as Bully Police USA or the Trevor Project.

When the elder George Bush was President, the Surgeon General’s office determined that teen suicides could be reduced by two-thirds if we initiated prevention programs targeted toward GLBT youth that attempted to reduce the stigma and fear of rejection. Many other studies conducted by organizations ranging from the federal department of Health and Human Services, to the association of State Attorneys General have reached similar conclusions.

Even in states considered very liberal, with anti-discrimination laws and the whole works, gay and lesbian employees consistently make less money then their straight colleagues with similar education, experience, and job performance evaluations.

So, even if we had received marriage nationwide, there’s still a journey ahead before we’ll be at full equality.

Why marriage matters

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Bill was a medical laboratory technician. Scott was an architect.

Bill said he was walking with friends one night on their way to have drinks when he saw a really sexy guy on a motorcycle waiting for the light to change. A bit later they saw the motorcycle parked in front of a bar. It wasn’t the one they were heading toward, but Bill wanted to meet the guy on the ‘cycle, so he convinced his friends to go in. Bill found Scott inside, tried to strike up a conversation. Scott didn’t seem interested, but wasn’t completely unfriendly, either. Eventually another guy that Scott had been waiting for arrived, and it seemed obvious that they were together. Bill’s friends didn’t want to stick around, so he and his friends went to the place they had originally been headed to.

Hours later, Bill was still with the friends at the other bar when suddenly a voice asked if he could buy Bill a drink.

Scott had heard Bill’s friends say where they were going, and once he had concluded some unfinished business with his ex, had come looking for him.

Less than a year later they were living together. They bought a house together. Scott’s family all lived in or near the city, and over time came to accept Bill into the family. Years later, Bill’s still got teary-eyed telling about the first time Scott’s brother’s daughter called him Uncle Bill. “This was the 70s,” he explained. “It was far more common for families to refuse to even meet your brother’s gay lover.”

The house they’d bought was something of a fixer-upper. They worked on it together for years. Even with Scott’s connections in the real estate industry, they hadn’t been able to get a bank to give them a mortgage in both their names. Scott had insisted, then, on drawing up a contract so that the money Bill put into a special account they had set up for house expenses would be recorded as equity in the house. Scott had also insisted on drawing up wills. “He didn’t like to leave things to chance,” Bill told me.

One day at work, Bill got a phone call from one of Scott’s co-workers. Scott had been in some kind of highway accident. Bill hurried to the emergency room. Arriving at about the same time as Scott’s mother.

It was too late. Scott had been pronounced dead on arrival.

Over the next few days, Bill was busy with funeral arrangements. It was all a bit of a blur, of course. All those tedious details seem unimportant in the face of the enormous sense of loss.

“I should have known something was up from the way Scott’s father and brother were acting,” Bill said. “I didn’t really notice until the wake, when I noticed they were both absent.”

When Bill arrived home after the funeral and wake, he found the father and brother along with a lawyer. They had a court order, barring Bill from removing any property from the house until an inventory had been completed by a court appointed agent. Scott’s father was contesting the will, on the grounds that Bill had coerced him into signing it.

Bill couldn’t afford to put up much of a legal fight. The will was thrown out, though the equity contract was not. I don’t know all the the legal details, but the upshot was that Bill had to move out, and was only allowed to take items that he could prove he had paid for himself. The family did have to pay him the equity, thanks to one of the precautions that Scott had set up, but they seized nearly every piece of furniture and nearly every personal item in the house.

Bill wasn’t allowed to take even any book, photograph, or paper that he could not show was his personal property. Because the mortgage was in Scott’s name, the presumption was that the house and all property within was Scott’s. Bill, as far as the law was concerned, was just a roommate. “At one point,” Bill said, “I thought I was going to have to produce receipts for my own underwear. As it was, more than half of my own family photos went to them, because I got tired of arguing over every page in every photo album.”

As part of the equity settlement, he was also forced to sign an agreement he would never try to contact any of Scott’s family members again. Even though at that point Bill really needed the money, he balked at that, until Scott’s brother informed him that if he didn’t, the brother was going to say to the police that he overheard Bill making lewd comments to one of the nepews. It was a lie, but as the brother said, “Who do you think they’ll believe?”

Some time after the last legal document had been filed, Bill received an unmarked envelope in the mail. Inside were some polaroid photographs. Someone had piled all of Scott’s sketchbooks from his years of art classes and beyond, made a bonfire, the took pictures of the fire. “Of course they took all his sketchbooks, and of course they burned them. Half of Scott’s sketches were of men.”

Even when there is a will that specifically names one’s unmarried partner, the law stil considers said partner a stranger, for legal purposes. Blood relatives can contest wills on all sorts of grounds, and any non-relative has a disadvantage in regards to burden of proof.

Marriage, as opposed to civil unions or any other arrangement, changes that. In both formal law and common law principles, a spouse is not just counted as a blood relative, but is automatically the nearest relative. If other family members contest a will, it is considered an intra-familial dispute, and the burden of proof switches.

Yes, Scott died in the early 80s. This may lead you to think that in our more enlightened times this sort of thing can’t happen.

You’d be wrong. There’s the case of the two young men who had been together for several years, until one died in an accident just last year. His family were able to legally prevent his surviving partner from even getting a look at the full police report about how the young man died. The surviving partner was told not to try to attend the funeral, or else.

Or two older men, both retired, had been living together for decades. They’d had a ceremony together years ago and exchanged rings, but their state doesn’t even recognize civil unions. One of the men, as his health has deteriorated with age, began to exhibit dementia. His sister had herself appointed guardian and kicked the other partner out. When the story broke just a few months ago, the partner who had been kicked out had had to sell his wedding ring to get enough money to travel to relatives of his own who would let him live with them.

There will always be people who disapprove of the people their grown children or siblings choose to share their life with. But if the law recognizes our marriages the same as it does any heterosexual couple’s, there are thousands of legal protections and safeguards available to protect us and the ones we love from such people.

Marriage is how we say, both socially, culturally, and legally, “this person is family.”

It’s a right that every adult should be able to exercise.

Shoving

society, ,

One day at a previous place of employment, the executive assistant to one of the founders of the company motioned me to come into her office and close the door behind me. “Before I tell you the whole story, I want you to know that everything’s been taken care of and you’re fine.”

This was not an auspicious beginning to a conversation. Particularly at work.

“An official complaint was filed against you,” she said, “claiming that you were shoving your ‘lifestyle’ in your co-workers’ faces by having an ‘explicit’ picture of your partner on your desk.” She had even made air quotes when she said lifestyle and explicit.

Yep, one of my co-workers had claimed I was fostering a hostile work environment. The photo was of my late husband, Ray. He was wearing a sweater and slacks—it was a silly Christmas sweater, to be exact. I had taken the picture on a Christmas Eve, at his mother’s house while we were there with all his siblings, their spouses, and our nieces and nephews, opening Christmas presents.

Not only wasn’t there anything remotely sexual, explicit or otherwise, in the photo, but I had the picture in a frame on my desk, tucked in next to one of my computer monitors, behind a standing file-sorter. No one could see the picture on my desk unless you were sitting in my chair, or had come into my office, around behind my desk, and were looking over my shoulder.

Because an official harassment/hostile work environment complaint had been filed, and the company had adopted a fairly rigorous anti-sexual harassment policy a couple of years previously, several members of the committee responsible for investigating said complaints had found excuses to come into my office and talk to me, to try to figure out what picture the complainant had been talking about. They had only found the one inoffensive picture in my office. To confirm, they had gotten the complainant to describe the location of said picture frame.

So, the complaint was not being sustained. Someone had talked to the person to inform him that there was nothing untoward about the photo. They were telling me because the policy required notification that an investigation had happened.

I was surprised. I tried really hard not to suddenly become suspicious of all my co-workers, and put the whole thing out of my mind.

At a later point, through a series of events way too complicated to go into at this juncture, I was finally told which co-worker it was who had claimed that my one, modest photograph of my partner was “hostilely shoving” my sexuality in other people’s faces. It was an engineer who had covered an entire wall of his office with photographs of his wife and all five of their kids, including more than one photo which had been taken in a delivery room obviously only minutes after the birth, not to mention wedding pictures, and photos of himself and the wife at various beach vacations dressed in skimpy swimwear. And, of course, there was more than one picture of them embracing and/or kissing each other.

And I was the one “shoving”?

It is, of course, the most common excuse people make for their own bigotry. “I have nothing against gay people, but do they have to flaunt their sexuality all the time?” They take any public evidence we make of our relationships—holding hands in public, adopting a child together, mentioning the name of our significant other in casual conversation, listing our significant other on an insurance form, or placing a simple photograph on our desk—and label it “flaunting” or “shoving” or “explicitly sexual.”

Yet they have no qualms at all plastering their wedding announcements in newspapers, setting up gift registrations for weddings, expecting us to contribute to baby shower presents in the workplace, or going out for drinks with a male co-worker on his last work day before a wedding, or buying cookies or candy or other fundraisers for their children’s extracurricular activities at the workplace, or bringing their children to the workplace. They expect family discounts at parks and museums and public festivals, plaster the pictures of their kids on their computer screens and around their cubicles at work, not to mention expecting tax breaks, financial aid programs to help send their kids to college, and insurance benefits that cover their spouses and kids.

If none of that is flaunting their own sexuality, then neither is ours. Of course, this cartoon that my friend, Sheryl, shared with me, sums it all up better than my ramble.

Addendum: I decided I needed to balance this out with another story of a very different reaction someone had to seeing a picture of my sweetie on my desk, so I’ve posted “The opposite of shoving.”

Why do we need that?

society, , ,

Nine out of ten Americans think that it is already illegal to fire someone just because that someone is gay.

It so happens that 21 states do include sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination laws. But that means that 29 states don’t. Of those, only 16 include sexual identity in their anti-discrimination laws. That means 34 states don’t.

A bit over a decade ago I remember when a neighboring state was considering adding sexual orientation to its anti-discrimination law, that one of the legislators on the committee considering the bill had argued rather emphatically that it wasn’t needed because, “Most gays don’t have kids, so they have a lot more disposable income and can afford to sue if they think they’ve been discriminated against.”

No matter how many of his colleagues or the experts explained that no one can sue for discrimination if the law doesn’t say its prohibited, he wouldn’t budge from his position.

In all likelihood the legislator was being disingenuous. He said he wasn’t voting for it for that reason, what he really meant is that he thought discrimination based on sexual orientation is something we need more of, not less. But he knew that he couldn’t be that blunt without alienating some voters.

There are people who genuinely think that no such laws are needed, because discrimination is already illegal. Or they think that no one really feels any animosity for gay people, except a few crazy people. Or my favorite, they think laws aren’t needed because laws don’t stop people from hating, and wouldn’t I rather work for someone who liked me?

The last one is exactly the same logic as saying, “We don’t need laws against theft, because a law won’t stop someone who is determined to steal from stealing. And wouldn’t you rather keep your property because people wanted you to keep it?”

Sure, we’d all prefer it if everyone did only good and kind things to each other, and that no one ever got robbed. But since that isn’t the world we live in, we have a system of justice by which people who commit robbery will be punished if they are caught. We have processes in place where property can be recovered and returned to its rightful owner. Not all of the time, but we make an effort. People who have been robbed can file insurance claims, and depending on what is stolen or how much the theft disrupts their lives, society has a variety of methods to assist the victim to recover.

Similarly, laws about wrongful termination don’t prevent an employer being a jerk to any employee for any reason. But we have processes by which a wrongfully discharged employee can get assistance to tide them over until they find a new job. We have processes by which people can file grievances and employers may face fines or judgements or simply higher fees.

And an anti-discrimination law that protects sexual orientation doesn’t just protect gay people. It also means that straight people have the same avenues of recourse if they believe a gay manager has discriminated against them. And however unlikely you might think that is to happen, if you agree that it would be wrong for a gay person to refuse to hire or promote or continue to employ someone simply because the person was straight, then that means you think the sexual orientation alone isn’t adequate reason to fire someone.

Which means if you don’t support the law, you’re not just enabling bigots, you’re being a hypocrite.