Tag Archives: lgbt

Drumming

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I loved those Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies, when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure it was in one of those silly black and white films that I first saw the jungle drums as communication trope. Supposedly all the tribes of the jungle, no matter their culture or language, participated in this form of long distance communication where the pounding of drums could warn the neighboring villages of some disaster, perhaps, or to call the tribes to war.

So when I later first heard a pundit or read an editorial that referred to people advocating an escalation in our military actions in Vietnam as “the drum-beat of war,” I thought of those jungle drums. And it seemed to fit the context of the editorials.

In the movies the drumming was always a bad portent. The drums always signaled something that would menace our heroes. Something savage, unpredictable, and utterly merciless (there was, of course, more than a little racism in this trope).

Since drums had been used in various European armies centuries before any of those Hollywood depictions of Africa came to exist, I’m certain that particular turn of phrase also predates the jungle drum trope. Still, whenever I hear the phrase “the drum-beat of” my imagination conjures up black and white images of people dressed in khaki and pith helmets, fearfully looking this way and that, but only able to see impenetrable leaves and vines.

So, when the leader of one of the groups trying to hide their homophobia and religious supremacism behind an innocuous sounding pro-marriage name starting referring to the shift public opinion has been undergoing regarding gay rights in general as “the drumbeat of gay entitlement” I started laughing. Many of the other haters have picked up the phrase, and when they say it on one of those news show, they get such a serious, worried look on their face. Often exactly the same expression from those old jungle movies that the one person who knew what the drums meant would have while he explained to the rest of the party.

They describe gay people and gay-friendly straight people as being on a crusade to destroy all that is right and good in this world. When they do, they have that wide-eyed look of someone who knows the menace is near, but can’t figure out from where the menace will strike.

There isn’t an evil, menacing army beating those drums and preparing to ambush them. The forces for tolerance and equality are not savage, unpredictable, nor merciless. There is a battle going on, but not that kind. And the people beating the drums aren’t at all like that.

A great example was a police raid on a gay bar in Atlanta three years ago. A SWAT-type team of cops from multiple agencies stormed into the bar without a warrant, made everyone lay face down on the floor, and proceeded to harass, threaten, search, and occasionally assault the customers for about 90 minutes. When the news first broke, city officials said the officers were following a lead in a perfectly legitimate investigation. Some veiled comments about “those kinds of people” were made, and they expected it to go away, just as tens of thousands of such raids have in cities everywhere for years.

They didn’t expect a protest march made up primarily of church ladies. For years people like those cops could count on at least two things to protect their bigotted actions from a serious investigation: virtually none of the men they harassed or assaulted would press charges (for fear of being outed), and families of the men harassed would be so ashamed of their gay children that they would never pressure any politician to look into the matter.

Neither of those things are universally true, any longer. A bunch of those men had parents who were not ashamed of their sons. Some of those parents stood up in their churches to describe the warrantless, unjustified police action. And a bunch of those church members—surprise, surprise—thought that “love your neighbor as you love yourself” didn’t include handcuffing innocent people, shouting at them, and kicking them in the head.

The church lady march was only the beginning. With the unexpected pressure from the community, the city had to conduct a real investigation. No evidence of any crime was ever found. No explanation of a legitimate case in progress was ever given. The review board ruled that two of the officers and some supervisors were provably guilty of misconduct, though the punishments at the time were minor, and to this day the city claims that other than those few “mistakes” nothing was wrong with the raid. Eventually, six of the officers involved in the raid were fired for lying about events in the raid, but the city tried to do it very quietly. A report was reluctantly released under a freedom of information request detailing how a total of 16 officers had lied or destroyed evidence to try to cover up the misconduct.

The drummers aren’t just bleeding hearts from liberal churches. Last year, while marriage equality was being debated in my state’s legislature, one legislator who was known not to be in favor of the bill hosted a townhall-style meeting in her district to let people from the community give her their thoughts. After a couple hours of person after person passionately speaking in favor of same-sex marriage, the surprised legislator said that she knew their had to be voices in the community who felt differently. She looked at a man in a police uniform who had been sitting in the front row, looking angrier and angrier the entire time. “This gentleman, for example, hasn’t said anything.”

The cop reluctantly rose to his feet. He explained that he hadn’t said anything because he hadn’t had time to change out of uniform before coming to the forum, so he didn’t want people to think he was speaking for his department. But if she insisted, well, he just wanted to say that as a father of four sons, he wanted all of his boys, including his gay son, to be able to marry the person they fell in love with.

She never found anyone at the meeting willing to speak against the bill. She eventually voted in favor of it.

Or the pair of grandparents I saw, speaking at a legislative hearing in another state, who said, “We want to dance at the weddings of all of our grandchildren, including our lesbian granddaughter.”

There is a drumbeat out there. But it isn’t calling us to march to war. It isn’t warning you of a slaughter or some other danger.

It’s inviting you to come dance at some weddings.

As long as you hold me tight

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I’ve been grinning like a loon much of the day.

I have also been crying a lot—tears of joy (and astonishment).

Today the law allowing same sex couples to marry went into effect in our state (having been passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and finally approved by a 54% majority of voters {in a year where the state at 81% voter turnout, I might add}).

Picture taken by Chelsea Kellogg, reporter for the Stranger.
Michael and I.

For various reasons, we didn’t go to wait in line for the office opening at one minute after midnight. We each took the day off from work and headed downtown after the sun was up and we’d had some breakfast. Since one of the reasons we didn’t want to be standing around outside on a nearly-winter night with rain in the forecast was that Michael still has the cough from our recent bouts with the flu, I let him sleep in. So we got to the county admin building at nearly noon.

I spent the morning reading news blogs and looking at the pictures of couples who had been the first in line at our county and a few others that opened early. They selected some couples to go first in line, such as a sweet pair of ladies who are in their late 70s-early 80s and had been together for over 35 years. Or the two men that age who have been together more than 40. Seeing the picture of one guy pushing his husband-to-be in his wheelchair up to the counter made me cry. There were a lot of pictures like that being posted by the various news outlets.

When we arrived, there wasn’t a big line. We were pointed in the right direction by people at several points, and getting congratulated by all these people. While there wasn’t a line, every workstation was busy with couples getting their licenses. And just as we and another couple were leaving… two more couples came in. So it was at the steady stream point by then.

A reporter from The Stranger asked if she could take our picture and ask a few questions. Since I read their blog every day, of course I was willing to answer questions. The first picture in this post is the one she took.

Us again. Why do I always stand on his right?
Us again. Why do I always stand on his right?

In addition to the regular paperwork, we were given a copy of the proclamation signed by the county executive, and various other commemorative items. We were directed out a different door than the way we’d come in, and some more volunteers were there, handing out roses and taking pictures in front of a sign commemorating the first day that marriage equality was the law. They took a few of these with my camera, then one of the others asked if we wanted one of us kissing.

For whatever reason, that was when I started crying for us. All of my tearing up, getting misty-eyed, and full-fledged crying earlier in the day had been for other people. This was the one where it finally hit me in the gut: the most wonderful man in the world has not only been living with me and putting up with me for nearly 15 years, but finally we’re going to be married. Not civilly united, or domestically partnered, or any of those other names, but married. Part of my astonishment is the simple fact that this wonderful guy actually wants to be saddled with me. I mean, yes, we’ve been together nearly 15 years (it will be 15 in February), and he’s had ample opportunity to run for the hills and hasn’t. But you have to understand, I don’t completely get why he puts up with me. Seriously, there are times I can’t stand to be around me, so I know for a fact I am not easy to live with!

Fortunately, Micheal's hat is hiding my tears.
Fortunately, Micheal’s hat is hiding my tears.

And there were more people waiting outside. We were offered donuts. There were also people handing out business cards and promotional fliers for wedding-related services. That’s to be expected, obviously. And I’m not complaining. Thanks to the fliers I’ve found several possible places to rent for our reception that I didn’t even know existed.

There were no protestors, though. I had kind of expected some. There are always a few of those people with the old testament signs and such at events like the Pride parade, so I just figured they’d turn out for this. Then when we saw that the line was shrunk to the trickle, I thought that protestors had left. I didn’t find out until we were back home that the reporter was there taking more pictures, after the big lines were through, because there had been a rumor that a group was coming to protest. Apparently they never showed up.

While we were walking back to the bus stop, a random woman on the sidewalk saw the roses, looked at us, grinned, and said, “Congratulations!”

I’ve violated one of my rules and dived into the comments sections of some of those news sites posting the pictures. And the amazing thing is how very few haters are commenting there. In the ones I looked at, if there were negative comments at all, for every 1 negative comment there were easily 20 comments from people saying how happy the pictures make them feel, with lots of mentions of people needing to grab a tissue. And a number of people going out of their way to say things like, “I want to say for the record, that I don’t believe any of these couples has in any way diminished my heterosexual marriage.”

I thought I was emotionally overwhelmed when the Referendum passed, and when I thought about all those straight people who voted for it. But it feels more overwhelming now. I guess going in and getting the license finally is making it feel real.

We have a three-day waiting period. We’re going to have a simple ceremony with friends this Sunday. We’re calling this the Elopement. I want to get the legal stuff handled as quickly as possible, if for no other reason than that I can finally add Michael to the much better medical and dental at my work. So this is the legal thing. And I know some of our friends will be there, and it will be fun and happy.

But the real purpose of a wedding is to allow your extended community of friends and family in on it. I don’t just mean the celebration. I believe that what makes marriage sacred is not that two people have made a pledge before some deity, it is because a group of people have committed to support two people in their love. When I attend someone’s wedding, I’m entering into a covenant with them and the other attendees, affirming a particular loving relationship, but also affirming the power of love itself. It’s a commitment to the extended ties that bind all of us together in circles of mutual affection and respect.

Which is why, yes, we’re planning something bigger and a bit more formal later next year.

And there will most definitely be a party.

Get me to the church on time!

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One of my favorite scenes in the movie Jeffrey is where a priest, played by Nathan Lane, explains to the protagonist that the protagonist’s ideas about god came from the album cover of the original cast recording of My Fair Lady. He further claims it’s where most gay men got their notions about god.

My Fair Lady Original Cast AlbumHis reasoning is: most parents in the 50s and 60s had a copy of the album*, most gay kids went through at least a phase of listening to musical soundtracks (and even if they didn’t, they all at least saw the cover art), most kids didn’t realize that the man in the clouds on the cover art manipulating the stars like puppets on strings was supposed to be George Bernard Shaw (the man who wrote the play upon which the musical was based), they believed it was god. “It was your parents’ album. You were little. You thought it was god!” Then he goes on to explain that god doesn’t run the world like that.

Part of why that scene cracked me up is because I did go through a phase of listening to the soundtracks of musicals—musicals that in many cases I had never seen. I’m not completely sure why my folks owned several sound track albums, but they did. I do know that my mom had a tendency, if she saw a movie adaptation of a musical, to buy the original broadway cast album instead of the movie album. Anyway, My Fair Lady was one of those albums that I listened to a lot as a kid, but I had never seen the show.

I wound up making up my own version of what happened between the songs. I also imagined my own versions of the choreography and costumes, guided by whatever photographs were part of the album cover, or in some cases, versions of the songs I’d seen on TV. There were a lot of musical variety shows on the air when I was a kid, and stars of movies and broadway shows would often be guests on the variety programs, and might perform a version of (or parody of) a scene from the musical, with regulars from the variety show filling in for various characters.

So in my head, the song “Get Me To the Church On Time” was not primarily about the wild last night of partying that Eliza Doolittle’s long-widowed father wanted to have before he married in the morning. I didn’t know enough of the play to know the context, for one. I think the album only identified the character as “Alfie” so I had no way to know he was supposed to by Eliza’s father. The lyrics talk about having a whopper, and kicking up a rumpus, but somehow I thought it was about celebrating the marriage itself—partying because he was overjoyed to be getting married, rather than a last night of debauchery because he would never be having fun again.

It was also about all the people around him, friends and strangers alike, joining in on the joy and exaltation.

It’s that imagined version of the song and dance that kept popping up in my head last Tuesday night as I saw that Marriage Equality was winning at the ballot box. It was that image of friends, family, neighbors, and complete strangers shouting “hurray!” that came to mind as I thought of the hundreds of straight people who manned those phone banks—calling strangers and patiently explaining that the law explicitly exempted churches and religious institutions from performing same sex marriages (not that the law needed it, it’s already established in other laws and court decisions; churches can choose to turn away opposite sex couples for whatever religious reason they want, too). The thousands of straight people who donated to the campaigns. The thousands of straight people who urged neighbors, co-workers, and family members to give equality a chance. The hundreds of thousands of straight people who voted that way.

Depending on which statistics you believe, gays and lesbians make up somewhere between 3 and 10 percent of the population. There’s no way we could have voted this in for ourselves. There’s no way we could have handled all of the ground game: the canvassing, the pamphleting, the phone banking, and so on.

It was my imaginary version of “Get Me to the Church on Time” that was playing in my head when straight friends told me, “I thought of you and Michael while I was filling out my ballot.” It was the soundtrack to the images I saw on TV of the straight couples joining in the party at the campaign headquarters on the news.

It’s what comes to mind when I re-watch the tearful speech of the straight, Republican state senator explaining why she was voting for the law that kicked this off last spring. Or when I read stories of the way, the last few years, many straight couples have taken a moment in their wedding ceremonies to acknowledge that they have friends and loved ones who are denied the right to choose to enter this important institution, and asking their guests to join the fight for equality.

Yes, part of the reason there were tears in my eyes on Tuesday night when I saw the news that marriage equality had won in Maine, and then in Maryland, and that it was leading in my home state of Washington was because I’m looking forward to finally getting to marry (rather than “domestically partner”???) Michael. But that was only part of it.

The rest of those tears of joy was the realization that a majority of my fellow citizens–not just my fellow homos, or my friends, but a bunch of people who don’t know me–has our back.

Thank you.

And I hope you all get invited to a lot of weddings, because you deserve to celebrate with us.

UPDATE: I started this the morning after Election Night. Because of craziness at work, I didn’t finish it until a day later. And I didn’t see this column by Dan Savage on the same topic until Thursday night. His is definitely worth a read.

* Remember, Jeffery is a comedy, it’s not a real statistic.

Dream dilemma

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I had a somewhat disturbing dream, in which I was out shopping with my mom, and she occasionally made references to a book I had given her as one of her presents the previous Christmas. Except she wouldn’t mention the title, she kept referring to it simply as, “that book you got me.”

And the conversation got a bit weird and emotional. Finally, she pulls out the book, and it’s a book of quotations. But specifically a book of gay and lesbian quotations. For a second, in the dream, I was very confused, and then I realized that I had accidentally swapped the tags on two books I had been wrapping up for different people. I had intended to give Mom a book about the writing process or something, and this was supposed to go to someone else. Continue reading Dream dilemma →

It’s not just speech…

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When I proposed to Michael, I didn’t ask him to move in with me. He had said “yes” to my proposal, but he lived and worked in a different city, and my late husband had died less than a year before, so we were both a little nervous about rushing into things. Therefore, at the time of the proposal, we agreed we’d wait a year before taking the more drastic step.

But about six months later, one of his housemates started behaving strangely, such as going through Michael’s stuff when he was away (and more creepy things). Suddenly the thought of Michael being there was completely unacceptable. I didn’t care if it seemed like we were rushing, all I could think of was that I needed to get him somewhere safe.

Never mind that he, as one friend recently described him, is “the most capable person I’ve ever known.” Never mind that his job history has included being a bouncer at a bar, or that his past hobbies included bull-riding. No matter how tough, smart, or capable he is, the thought of him being in an unsafe place made me a bit irrational.

Fourteen-and-a-half years later, we’re still together—happily so. I guess we weren’t rushing, eh?

During that time, we’ve registered our domestic partnership—first with the city, because the state didn’t allow it. Then later, once the state did allow it, with the state. Thanks to a voter-approved referendum, in our state that partnership now carries all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage. So we can jointly own property, we are allowed to make medical decision for each other if one of us in incapacitated (assuming we don’t run into a hospital worker who doesn’t understand what the domestic partnership law means), and if one of us dies, the survivor doesn’t have to produce proof that he paid for half or more of anything or lose it to the other’s blood relatives (because it’s all by default community property).

Unfortunately, even in a state with strong domestic partner laws, there are still a lot of inequalities.

I’m older than Michael, and have some chronic health issues. It is likely he will outlive me. By chance, I also earn more money than he does. If something were to happen to me, he would be put in a financial bind. Yes, I have life insurance, so there will be a bit of a cushion, but because what we have isn’t recognized on the federal level as a marriage, he would not be entitled to survivor benefits from social security. If he remains single after my death, when he decides to retire, his benefits will be calculated solely on his own earnings.

If our relationship was legally recognized, all of that changes. He would be entitled to survivor benefits under some circumstances. When it came time to retire, he would be entitled to benefits based on my years of earning.

Before you make an argument about the sanctity of marriage, consider this: if, on my deathbed, I was to have a quicky marriage with a woman someone selects completely randomly, the ceremony and signing completed literally seconds before my death, she would be entitled to all those benefits. Never mind that we didn’t know each other. Never mind that no defininition of sacred would encompass that random person standing by my hospital bed.

Legal marriage isn’t about sanctity. Legal marriage isn’t about forcing churches to do anything. Right now, two people who have been divorced can legally marry in all fifty states (so long as they are opposite gender). If they ask a Catholic priest to perform the ceremony, he will turn them down, because the church doesn’t believe in divorce. It happens a lot. The fact that the law recognizes re-marriages has not and will not open the church to being sued. Just as a church can choose not to perform a wedding if, for example, one of the members belongs to a completely different faith.

And before you bring up that story about the “church” that got in trouble about a same sex marriage a couple years ago: 1) it wasn’t a church, it was a separate business set up by a ministry as a fundraising activity, 2) when they set up the business, they applied for an exemption from paying property taxes on a small park and pavilion that they intended to rent out for events, 3) the exemption required them to sign an agreement which explicitly said that they would run the business as a public accomodation, and that they would not refuse to rent to any member of the public on the basis of race, religion, political affiliation, creed, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, 4) this agreement that they signed had to be renewed every year, and they had to, every year, re-affirm that they would not refuse to rent the park and pavilion to anyone on the basis of race, religion, political affiliation, creed, gender, or sexual orientation or the park and pavilion would cease to be tax exempt.

And then they told a lesbian couple that the couple could not rent the pavillion because they were opposed to same sex marriage and anything like it.

That’s when the one selected parcel of land lost its tax exemption. The parent ministry was not fined, it did not lose its tax exempt status. The church that many members belonged to did not lose its tax exempt status and did not face any fines or retribution. The only thing that happened was that the side business had to start paying taxes, just like any other business.

It is true that as marriage equality moves forward at the state level, people who don’t approve of it will see neighbors, co-workers, and strangers enter into legal marriages and in legal ways be treated just like the other kinds of marriage. That will include, sometimes, having to do business with these couples and treat them, in terms of publicly transacted business and such, just like any other married couple. Which will make them uncomfortable.

Being comfortable is not a legal right.

Asking the law to allow you to discriminate is not just speech. Preventing someone from renting a home is not just speech. Barring someone from the hospital bedside of their partner is not just speech. Barring some couples from tax benefits is not just speech. Encouraging parents to literally throw their gay, lesbian, or bisexual teen-agers out on the street—telling them that abandoning their own children and making them homeless is the correct, biblical thing to do—is not just speech.

“Family”

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I didn’t talk much about why coming out is important yesterday in my National Coming Out Day post. The reasons I would usually give—about living life honestly, about the benefits of not living in fear, and so on—get dismissed by some people, who think that such honesty is somehow “shoving things in their face.”

The best answer is one I got from a news blog’s comment section four years ago. When Proposition 8 passed in California, revoking the right of marriage equality that had already been exercised by a few thousand people, protest marches were organized around the country, and a person identifying herself as Tina posted the following:

If you want to know why I am marching it is because I remember being six years old and having to sit in a hospital waiting room with my parents and my Uncle RJ while his partner of 19 years (a man I knew as Uncle Ron who taught me how to braid my hair and wear pinks and reds because they highlighted my coloring) died alone in a hospital room that only “family” was allowed into… Then, as a child, I couldn’t understand why we weren’t allowed to say goodbye to him… Now, as an adult, I still don’t get it. People are people and frankly I figure we could all use a little more love and equality in the world.

These sorts of things still happen—partners who have taken care of each other, loved each other, pledged themselves to each other, get locked out of hospital rooms, are denied access to accident reports, are barred from funerals (often by family members of the deceased who had disowned the deceased years before over the “lifestyle choice”).

As testimony given in the New York state legislature last year demonstrated, these sorts of things even happen in places where the law recognizes “domestic partners.”

Me telling you I love Michael isn’t revealing anything more about our private activities than any person’s mention of their spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Strangers mention spouses in causal conversation all the time, and no one is harmed in any way.

But there is real harm that comes from the ostracism and hiding.

Come out, come out, where ever you are

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Today is National Coming Out Day. If Ray were still alive, it would also be the day we’d be celebrating the nineteenth anniversary of our commitment ceremony (he promised to stay with me for the rest of his life, and he did).

Since I am still regularly surprised to learn that someone I’ve known for a while hasn’t ever figured out I’m gay: my husband and I are both men, and we’re very much in love with each other and happy together.

But while I’m (re-)stating what I think ought to be obvious, I would like to announce that I am a card-carrying liberal gay man who thinks:

  • that gun control means hitting what you aim at but people who irresponsibly allow guns to fall into kids’ hands resulting in death or injury should face severe legal consequences;
  • that the death penalty has a place in a well-run justice system but so does jury nullification;
  • that a flag-burning amendment is as un-American as anything could possibly be, but people who fly a flag should learn the flag code and stop leaving their flags out at night and in the rain;
  • that war and violence are terrible things we should always work hard to avoid, but the people who risk their lives in service to their communities and nation deserve our respect and gratitude;
  • that the right to assemble and petition our government absolutely allows people to march, protest, chant, and otherwise demonstrate in public places, but if you’re not willing to pay the price of possibly being arrested for blocking your fellow citizens from going about their business, you deserve a slap up-side-the-head;
  • that people have the right to control their own bodies, but refusing to get your children vaccinated demonstrates a criminal level of ignorance, is the equivalent of child abuse, and puts neighbors, friends, and strangers at risk for preventable and sometimes fatal diseases;
  • that no one who is not going into a battle zone needs a Hummer, but people who blindly protest nuclear power plants can’t do basic math about energy needs and energy sources;
  • that proportional representation would greatly improve our country, but so would at least one of the major parties actually moving left-of-center;
  • that the right to believe as you wish includes the right not to believe at all, but rabid atheists are no less annoying than the other kinds of fundamentalists;
  • that being polite costs nothing while reaping great rewards, but no one should have to put up with disrespectful behavior;
  • that there isn’t enough science education in our schools, but there isn’t enough art, music, or history either;
  • and that you get out of life what you put into it, but you also get a lot of both the good and the bad through no fault or merit of your own.

Rough, manly sport, part 2

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So there I was, hanging upside down, flailing ineffectively as the bigger kid shook me, called me names, and most of the other kids laughed.

Continue reading Rough, manly sport, part 2 →

That agenda thing, again

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(I’m posting so much gay-related stuff because it’s Pride Week, a.k.a. the 43rd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, often considered the beginning of the modern gay/lesbian/bi/queer/transgender rights movement. I’ll get back to my usual observations on more trivial topics next week, promise)

Some years ago I wrote an essay, “What agenda?” in which, among other things, I listed my own agenda, not feeling I could speak for anyone else. I still think that’s a pretty good list of goals. Especially the part about making pie for people. Pie makes just about everything better, after all.

Lately certain people have been reading in public a document which they claim is the actual gay agenda, and it’s pretty horrid stuff. The thing is, the list originated as a joke–a joke on the very sorts of people misinformed enough or paranoid enough (or both) to believe that such a document exists. The original article identifies itself explicitly as satire, though the people quoting it now always leave that part out.

In short, they are lying.

Continue reading That agenda thing, again →